• You can learn an instrument (or anything) if you simply ask yourself, “What is the hardest part?” Once you identify that, practice it. Then once again ask, “What is the hardest part?” (of the hardest […]

  • I recently took a musical field trip to India to learn more about Hindustani classical music. I took lessons, learned informally by playing with people, went to a lot of concerts and even did a recording session […]

  • Think of learning a tune as a relationship. Like an old friend, the relationship will change over time, revealing new things about you, your playing and the tune. Tunes are not something to check off a list before […]

  • It’s no wonder I flunked out of that life coaching course πŸ™‚

    There are lots of ways to think of goals. But ask yourself, what are they for? If you reach the goal you have some gratification. But that […]

  • Myth: I’m too old to learn how to play an instrument.

    Maybe you don’t need to hear this, because you’ve already proved it wrong! But there might come a day when you feel discouraged. Then you will need to […]

    • I always wanted to play the fiddle but with family and career always put it off. When I retired I picked up a fiddle and never looked back. Actually I surprise myself with my progress. I play everyday and love the way Jason teaches.

  • Learning how to practice is the heart of the FiddleHed method. There are two complementary ways of working on music: micro-practice and macro-practice.

    Micro-practice is focusing, figuring things out and […]

  • I Just Can't Make It Sound Good Today! Do you ever feel that way? Have you ever thought, “It sounded so much better yesterday! Why is it so much worse today?” I think this happens to everyone. And it is […]

    • I’d like to have a “Complete Lesson” button on this so it will gray out on the list of lessons… pretty please πŸ™‚

      • Melba, thank you for notifying us of this. I will add it to our suggestions. Jason is working on a new and exciting system to support our navigating and guidance within the Course, that will replace the progress tracker. Thanks for your patience and understanding with this malfunction in the meantime. Happy music making to you!

  • If you want to get better at the fiddle, you need to carefully work at the edge of your abilities. Strike a balance between easy and hard.

    Try to practice things that are in the “Goldlilocks zone” of […]

  • Can’t figure out how to play the B part of Bill Cheatham because the band is playing it so fast? You could have your teacher slowly teach you each part of the tune and then practice the parts on your […]

  • How To Improve Your Violin Playing Through Recording You can accelerate your progress on the fiddle if you record yourself playing and then listen back to it. Do this on a daily basis. If you’re learning on your […]

    • Hi Lisab~
      Great question, maybe others will chime in on this.
      I use voice memos quite a bit as well and ensure I title it ASAP if I’m keeping the recording so I can find what I’m looking for later.
      Google Drive can be a good platform for storing/organizing recordings.
      If you use your iphone to video record, I’d suggest right clicking on the video your going to keep and adding it to an album to access more easily later.
      Calling Apple support can be a great help for getting this all familiar and easy to do πŸ™‚
      Looking forward to hearing how you make out with this, a challenge we can all relate to in these times!

    • I’ve recorded myself playing with the webcam on my photobooth thingy on my imac. It is helpful-the video showed I’m making huge movements with my left hand instead of keeping my fingers as close to the strings as possible. Part of why I do that is that I started out playing 12 string guitar and when I play from sheet music I’m looking at the notes instead of my fingering. Watching myself on video is quite instructive… my motto this week is : The best time to take up learning a musical instrument, like the best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago…the second best time is right now.

    • Also, the trees I planted 10 years ago are doing pretty well, I’m more critical of my fiddle playing , since I look at video recordings of myself I find myself distracted by how grey my hair is getting, so I’m switching to audio recordings on my handheld sony digital recorder that I record lessons and tunes I want to learn on…eliminating the vanity distraction..

  • Music teachers are always trying to get students to slow down. Maybe they should tell them playing extremely slow is the Jedi-knight secret to playing fast.

    It may seem counter-intuitive, but if you practice […]

    • wow! That was beautiful! is this song in the library? I’m going to look πŸ™‚

    • This is probably, for me, the best and hardest advice to follow. I am not a very patient person. I always want to move along and see what’s next, but, I am learning that playing slowly does have many benefits.

      • Thank you for shedding new light on this, Bill. It’s amazing what can come from slowing our endeavours, and takes continuous gentle efforts to come back to this focus. 🙂

  • To be a musician you need to do two things:

    Play every day.
    Listen every day.

    You can listen either passively or actively. Both approaches are useful and necessary.
    Passive listening
    Passive […]

  • Student Stories: Fiona Higgins Here’s a short video of my student Fiona playing, Uisce Faoi Thalamh, a tune she wrote while playing around with triads. Fiona started learning fiddle as an adult. Now, […]

  • Easy And Hard Some things are easy to understand but hard to practice. Perhaps you are learning to play double stops on the fiddle. You understand that you have to play two strings at […]

    • This is so good, I feel like I should read a small version of it every time I practice. Thank you, Jason, for reminding me it’s a process.
      Starting small is best.

  • An online student recently wrote in asking, “How did you start with fiddling?”

    One day while driving to the beach with my family, I was staring out the car window and said, “I want to play the violin”. I was […]

  • You may ask:

    How can I become better at the fiddle?
    Could I get good enough to play in band?
    Could I learn to pick up tunes and songs more quickly?
    How can I do this??!!

    First, find a way to play […]

  • In Aesop’s most well-known fable, a grasshopper plays the fiddle in the summer while the ant works to store up food for the future. When winter comes, the grasshopper begs for food and the ant refuses. The […]

  • jason kleinberg wrote a new post 9 years ago

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    Jerry Seinfeld is credited with a great productivity tip (though he claims to not remember talking about it). He felt that to be a great comedian, you had to write every day. His technique will be useful […]

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