Friends – Activity – Tom

jason kleinberg wrote a new post 6 years, 8 months ago

A good rule of thumb is to play everything at least twice on the fiddle: scales, exercises, melodic phrases, and full tunes.

Notice what happens the second time through

Do your hands relax a bit?
Can […]

jason kleinberg wrote a new post 6 years, 9 months ago

The better you know your scales, the more quickly you can pick up tunes. Scales don’t have to be torture. There’s an art to making them fun.

Practice them along with tunes that use that scale.

Simply a […]

jason kleinberg replied 4 years, 6 months ago

good to hear that Rob.

jason kleinberg wrote a new post 6 years, 9 months ago

Pop song in G# Minor | Intermediate

Here’s a fiddle cover of “Old Town Road,”a hip-hop country song by Little Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus.

It’s the debut performance by KittyFiddler, a strange new […]

jason kleinberg wrote a new post 6 years, 10 months ago

I Can't Fiddle Fast Enough! “I can’t play it fast enough! How can I speed up this tune to the right speed? Will I EVER be able to do it?” Before we get into how to play faster, I want to ask you […]

jason kleinberg wrote a new post 7 years, 2 months ago

The Power Of Adding Variation On The Endless Plateau So you’ve learned the fiddle and can now play a bunch of tunes. Do you feel like you’ve reached a plateau with your playing? Does it seem like […]

jason kleinberg wrote a new post 7 years, 3 months ago

Why do you practice the fiddle? What do you hope to achieve? Do you want to be able to play a certain tune? Or do you want to be able to play with people? Do you see a vision of yourself doing something with music […]

Amy replied 3 years, 9 months ago

Every practice isn’t going to be great or even good. However, you are actually learning. It comes as little surprises for me. Holding the bow; I struggled just trying to hold it properly to rosin. The struggle to hold it properly and also be able to move it sort of to my will lasted about 4 days. Then, half way dreading the struggle, I started to practice bowing when I realized I had tightened the hair and started to practice with no struggle. WOW. How tight is just right? Sweatsweat. Then I started making small adjustments. Start at “my little finger”, start at same width as the bow. I finally just tightened it, then adjusted it til it sounded good and didn’t bounce. I AM THE MASTER OF MY BOW. Well we’re still in negotiations but I feel relaxed adjusting it. Same with shoulder rest and position. When it comes, it just feels natural and I become so very impressed with myself.

jason kleinberg wrote a new post 7 years, 6 months ago

Thanks for everything, no complaints whatsoever! Are you grateful? How often do you feel gratitude? It’s ThanksGiveMeMoreToEat day! The first thing thing most people think about when they hear the word “Thanksgiving” is […]

jason kleinberg wrote a new post 7 years, 8 months ago

Lilting Banshee – basic and variation Here’s a short performance of an Irish jig called Lilting Banshee. I play a very simple version and then play a version with some variation added. By listening to a […]

Kayli Atkins replied 2 years, 11 months ago

This is so helpful and I love this tune! Thank you! I can feel my understanding expanding 😁
- Jocelyn Martens replied 2 years, 11 months ago
  
  Thanks for your feedback Kayli, great to hear how it’s going for you.
  - Kayli Atkins replied 2 years, 11 months ago
    
    Thanks!
Kayli Atkins replied 2 years, 11 months ago

In practicing this repeatedly, a sixteenth note duplet just came out of me for the first measure a part, like you did for the first measure of the b part..I’m so happy that variations are coming more naturally to me with this course!
- Jocelyn Martens replied 2 years, 11 months ago
  
  Ah yes, progression towards natural familiarity to what we want more of is a great thing 🙂
  And always coming back to the simplest form is so helpful for making space for new experiences to arise.

jason kleinberg wrote a new post 7 years, 9 months ago

The FiddleHed lessons are taught in a style I call “Incremental Learning”. We learn small pieces of things and then put them together into bigger pieces. It’s like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. And as […]

Pete Healy replied 3 years, 5 months ago

I’m barely one year in to fiddling and am thrilled at how this has reignited musical skills I learned nearly 50 years ago as a Music major, but never used in my career. (I’m recently retired.) So this lesson hits me deeply, and gives me yet another reason to be very thankful that I came across FiddleHed.
- Vera Algoet replied 2 years, 8 months ago
  
  I also did the 50 year hiatus thing! Played violin from age six to twelve, and then not again until age 62. Just a short break. LOL.

jason kleinberg wrote a new post 7 years, 10 months ago

Renew With Review Think about the word “review”. It doesn’t sound as fun and exciting as the word “new”. It sounds like maintenance, which sounds like cleaning toilets. But review can be a lot […]

jason kleinberg wrote a new post 7 years, 11 months ago

What does it mean to have good sound? It seems clear when something sounds bad and when something sounds good. But exactly do we mean by “good sound?” What are the components? Knowing this, how can you improve […]

Tom

@tszalay