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.

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, second half

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C part, first half

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C part, second half

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Play Along Track – Full Tune

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.

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

Full Tabs

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

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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

4 responses to “The Butterfly”

  1. 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.