Patty

Very nice! Great intonation

I’ve been learning some new tunes by ear and playing scales. I’m working on Dvorak’s Largo/Going Home, Loch Lomond, and a few others.

I really enjoyed the lesson on The Old Gray Cat because of the challenge of learning those quarters out of order. While I could play each of the quarters when we were doing call-and-response for them, when it came…[Read more]

That’s really wise and insightful. It’s good to have a balance between things you don’t know, yet things that are partially mastered, and things that you can play with the flow. Don’t let too many things collect in the partially mastered category.

Good general practice tip is to practice everything on single notes. So practice one double stop until you can really do it well. Or practice dynamics on a single now. For example, play Ace notes as quietly as possible with a millimeter, phone, like a whisper. And then gradually get louder, using the full bowl until it’s ridiculously loud. Go b…[Read more]

When in doubt, play, it is simply as possible. Let variations and other ideas emerge organically. Listen to a lot of fiddle music to help you get the field and get to this point of natural variation.

What music do you have to learn for the string band?

As much as possible, try to play rhythms on single strings. I call it extracting the rhythm. Knowing the practice by doing it on simple tunes.

When in doubt, play it as simple as possible. See if any patterns emerge as your practice it.

If your teacher has marked up Boeings for tunes, and work on small chunks with a Metronome. Try to master them at slow tempo’s and then at your fastest tempo. Enjoy the physical feeling of playing something really slow and having it settled into your body..

Really like this tune! Looks like we will be sliding up to a new position!

Sounds like a fun tune! Looking forward to the lesson on Monday!