The Butterfly

Irish Slip Jig in E Aeolian

Learning Chunks

I’ve made some “Learning Chunks” to help you learn more easily. These focused exercises contain sheet music, tabs and mp3 snippets to guide you on your fiddle journey. The idea is to start with small musical bits, get good at those, and then put them together into bigger pieces until you have the whole tune. I call it Micro-practice.

For those of you who read (or want to read), all snippets use this key and time signature:

Preparation

Warm up with E major scale using E drone.

Warm-up Exercises

If you slowly play these before starting the tune I guarantee it will be easier for you to learn the melody and play it in tune.

Intervals

D1-A1

A3-EL2

E3-3-4-4

More warm-ups

G major scale

E Aeolian scale: D1-2-3-A0-1-L2-3-E0

A1-D1-3-1

EL2-3-4

A part, first quarter

First quarter: A1-D1-3-1-2

A part, second quarter

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A part, third quarter

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A part, fourth quarter

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B part, first quarter

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B part, second quarter

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B part, third quarter

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B part, fourth quarter

E4-3-L2-0-A3-1-0

C part, first quarter

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C part, second quarter

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C part, third quarter

A1-1-0-D3-0

 

C part, fourth quarter

A1-3-EL2-0-A3-1-0

Further Practice

Practice the song at your own pace with this drone track.

Drone in E – No Beat

Tip: on the A part, hold first across both D and A strings.

The A and B parts are in E Aeolian (a minor mode of the major scale} while the C part is in G major. Practice these two scales and see if you can hear them in the tune. See if you can hear the change in emotion from the B part to the C part.

Full Tabs, Audio & Sheet Music

A PART

First quarter: A1-D1-3-1-2

Second quarter: A1-D1-3-1-2-1-0

Third quarter: A1-D1-3-1-2

Fourth quarter: A1-3-3-1-0-D2-0

B PART

First quarter: A1-L2-E0-1-L2

Second quarter: A1-L2-EL2-0-A3-1-0

Third quarter: A1-L2-E0-1-L2-3

Fourth quarter: E4-3-L2-0-A3-1-0

C PART

First quarter: A1-1-0-D3-0

Second quarter: A1-1-0-1-3-1-0

Third quarter: A1-1-0-D3-0

Fourth quarter: A1-3-EL2-0-A3-1-0

 

Sheet music video

Learn to intuitively read sheet music with this animated video. If you’re an absolute beginner, then I suggest you don’t worry about fo it for the moment.

This is here for continuing students who want to learn about sheet music. It’s part of the Note-Reading For Fiddlers course.

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Leave a Reply

8 responses to “The Butterfly”

  1. Good grief! This is Rosalie, again. I went into Vimeo to try and see if I could use that but now I see my YouTube video has popped up in my earlier comment. I’m confused but if I can figure out how I did it then I can start participating more. All the best, ro.

  2. [youtube]

    I don’t know what I just did. I’m trying to post a video that I put into my YouTube and I can’t get it to work. It’s a recording of me doing my first attempt at a bad “Butterfly.” I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.
    Thanks, ro.

  4. It looks/sounds like you’re using trills vs. vibrato in different spots in the tune. Am I hearing that correctly? Would vibrato work just as well, or do you use trills because of the need for speed? Thanks.