3. Scale It Up!

Week 1

• Practice: Drone tuning the notes on the A string
• Video capsule tune*: Oh Susannah
• Technique: D Major Scale

*Make a video of this tune when you learn it. Make a second video 2-3 weeks later to see how it’s improved and what still needs work. Be kind to yourself.

Week 2

• Tune: Little Liza Jane
• Practice: How To Play Better In Tune With Interval Practice
• Tune: Wildwood Flower
• Technique: Interval Scale

Week 3

• Tune: Angeline The Baker (A Major)
• Practice: Call-and-response Exercises 3
• Review Set 3

As you get close to finishing this module, you may want to start listening to tunes you’ll learn in the next module: Daily Listening 4. Listen on the site or download and listen while you clean the house or walk the dog 🐶. You’ll hit the ground running if you already have the tune in your head 🧠.

Alternate between practicing a tune and the D major scale 🔁

• If you do this, you will hear music in the scale. This will make skill practice more fun. You will also understand why skills are important if you do this practice.
• You will hear the scale in the tune. This is good because it will help you to learn tunes more easily.
• Learn more here: Alternate between a tune and its scale.

If you take note of what you practice today, you will go farther tomorrow 📈

• Write down what do you practice in a journal.
• Record yourself.
• Use a wall calendar or have a tracking app to track your daily practice.
• Taking note of what you practice will make it easier to review what you’ve done in the last month.
• Seeing the path you’ve travelled can be a great source of joy. It helps you to overcome The Emotional Challenge of Fiddling.
• Learn more here: Fiddling With A Music Journal

Don’t feel obligated to do these bonus lessons.

The tunes complement the core lessons above, so they are a good way to supplement your learning.

Remember that it’s more important to do one thing well than lots of mediocre things.

Bonus tunes

• Lazy John
• Dargason
• Tennessee Waltz Duet
• Shortnin’ Bread
• Row Row Row Your Boat
• Wabash Cannonball
• Will the Circle Be Unbroken
• Camptown Races

Supplemental lessons

• The Slow Scale
• Interval Practice
• A1 (B) tuning exercises
• A2 (C#) tuning exercises
• A3 (D) tuning exercises

Note-reading lessons

If you’re interested in learning to read, I will teach it to you in a step-by-step manner as you work through the main course. You can also learn this later on in the Note-Reading For Fiddlers course.

• The Note Name Game on the A String
• Reading Notes on the A String 
• Intuitive Note-Reading

Do I really need to use a drone when tuning?
Nope! But once you try it, you might get hooked—like a fiddle-playing fish.

What if I forget what I practiced yesterday?
That’s why journaling helps! Even a few scribbled notes make a big difference.

Can I skip the scales and just play tunes?
You can—but scales are the secret sauce. They make your tunes sound better, faster.

Student story: Dayved B. From San Francisco

My student Dayved was instrumental (pun intended) in the development of FiddleHed.

Back in the day, we would have a lesson at 8pm. By 9, I would be pretty hungry, ready to knock off and have a can of soup. But he always wanted to make a video of what we did at the end which meant that I had to spend an extra 5 minutes filming.

So I started filming the lessons in advance. That way, I could eat dinner at a reasonable hour. Instead of emailing him the videos, I just put them on Youtube. Other people started to watch them. Fast forward 8 years and now I’m doing FiddleHed full-time. Funny world!

In the clip above, we learned some mandolin chords and then strummed them on the fiddle. This is a way to visualize how to play double stops chords. It’s also technically easier and a more relaxing way to explore chords. Then we translated this to bowing the chords. I have a series of lessons on how to play chord backup on FiddleHed.