Switching from classical to fiddle (Stool of Repentance)

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Welcome to the Fiddle Studio Podcast, featuring tunes and stories from the world of traditional music and fiddling. I'm Megan Beller and today I'll be bringing you a setting of Stool of Repentance from a workshop with Jenna Moynihan.

Hello, everyone, I hope you're well. Today I'm going to be talking about switching from classical violin to fiddle. Coming over to the dark side. This applies to people who know the basics of violin and read sheet music. If you play some classical violin now, or you played when you were a kid, you were younger. This is my advice for how to get started with fiddling.

If your fingers have really been on strings at all, even if it was viola, cello, I would argue guitar, you have activated that part of your brain, your left hand, the fingers are used to being on strings. Even if you haven't played in a long time ago, it was a different instrument. In my experience, it is still easier for those players who have had their fingers on strings. To pick up the fiddle and learn it. I think it gives you an advantage. 

If you haven't played in a while, just a little tip, it's a good time to reset your technique if you're picking it back up. By reset your technique, I mostly mean identify the ways you are tense. And try to learn to relax. If you're a teacher when you were 10, or you were 15 did not work on relaxing your shoulders, relaxing your arms, relaxing your hands, you're going to have some tension there. That's an old habit. But if you're restarting after a long break, that's an opportunity for you to reset what's happening with your body. Look into technique. Try to identify with the mirror, or just feeling in your body what's going on, where things are tense and get some advice about how to loosen that up. It's a good time to do that. 

Another important component if you're starting fiddle, you should be listening to fiddling. You know if you learn classical, that's kind of one dialect. And if you're switching over to fiddle, whatever style it is, if you want to learn Cajun fiddle, if you're getting into old time fiddle, to different dialect from what you're used to. You should be listening to it a lot to just get the sound of it in your ear. That'll make a difference for you. 

The fiddle sound, so sounding like a fiddler while you're playing a fiddle tune. If you know how to read music, you can sit down and play Soldier's Joy. You can play through a fiddle tune, but it won't sound like fiddling. Where does that sound come from? It comes first from the right arm from your bowing. I wouldn't even worry about doing fancy things with your left hand. See if you can start to learn how to get the different components of fiddle sound with your right arm and then drill them practice them with scales. You play classical violence you know all about scales. 

You can learn a basic shuffle, you know just Tick ticket Tick ticket and practice it with an accent on the offbeat. One of my colleagues Daphne she calls it Strawberry, strawberry strawberry and she tells the kids punch the berry, strawBERRY, strawBERRY strawBERRY. Work on that shuffling with a heavy accent.

Also work on your swing, Dakka Dakka Dakka Dakka or even kind of accenting the shorter note. You can work on using very small bows, fiddlers, at least when they're playing dance tunes do not use a lot of bow so using less bow. Even things like bite and grit. And you can practice all of these fiddling techniques in your right arm and your bowing with scales or with little ones during warm ups. 

You know, slow it down and use it to rehearse the different parts of fiddle style that you're learning in your bow arm. Also learn some slowing patterns basic jigs slurring Dakka Dakka Dakka Dakka de Yukka to to learn the Georgia shuffle, practice those and scales and then when you're ready to add in some left hand ornaments that will make it sound fiddly. You can do those in skills you can do them in easy fiddle tunes.

One of the workshops I went to they had us put an ornament in. And then they said, okay, now put it on these notes, more notes. Like, Okay, now put on these notes. Now play the tune and do that ornament on every single note, it sounds ridiculous. But I was like this is a great teaching tool, just do the ornament on every note. 

The other aspect of learning to fiddle besides just what's happening with your bow arm, and what's happening with your left hand is learning to play by ear, which is kind of learning to learn by ear, and also play by ear, be comfortable without the music, and play with others match what they're doing. So you're not just internalizing a beat and playing off a sheet, you are having a musical relationship with other people. 

And the way that Bruce Molsky, great Old-Time fiddler talked about this, at the little conference that I went to is that you want to connect what you're hearing, with singing, and then playing. So it's like, in your brain, your ears with your voice, your memory of the tune with your fingers. And you want to listen, sing, play, whatever the best way for you to do that is if you have someone you're learning from by ear, if you can learn in chunks, or learn to sing it, and then work it out yourself on your instrument, you want to start getting the dunes organized in your memory without a visual reference.

Doesn't mean you can't go and play them off the sheet just to check things. I don't think that's a problem at all. In fact, I like it when my students are a little more advanced practice transcriptions of jazz solos of fiddle tunes. In my book three, I put in a bunch of basically transcriptions of my playing. So I put in all the slurs and ornaments that I use. And I think those are useful because you're playing them, experiencing them that way. If you are good at reading music, it's a great way in but I wouldn't just practice transcriptions. 

You also want to develop your ear and your ability to play where you're listening to what you're doing, and you're listening to what other people are doing. You're gonna love it. And the tunes aren't hard, so that's great. 

Our tune today is beginner tune. It's called the Stool of Repentance. It's a Scottish jig in D major that I learned from Jenna Moynahan at a session at Fiddle Hell. Jenna Moynahan is a great Scottish Fiddler in Boston. She has albums, and I think she teaches you can check her out. I first met Jenna in a string shop in Rochester, New York. I was a young teacher, and she was getting ready to go to Berkelee. So she already played the fiddle. She must have been like 17. 

And I happened to be in this string shop. And she was there at the same time trying out bows. And while she was trying out bows she was playing fiddle tunes. And she sounded great. And I said to her, Hey, who are you? Do you live around here? Do you want to come work at my camp? So I just on the spot, hired her to come kind of intern as a teenager, learn and teach at my middle camp in Rochester. And she came back for many, many years. I mean, she wasn't an intern for long.

 She was has been a professional now teaching and playing and now teaching at Fiddle Hell. So I really enjoyed going to Jenna's workshop, watching her teach this tune Stool of Repentance is I guess, a common beginner tune. It was new to me, but my Scottish repertoire is really small. So think I know a march or two that's about it. 

It's an A major, it reminded me a lot of Steamboat Quickstep, which is a beginner tune that I use out of the New England repertoire. So maybe there's a theme. A major jigs with arpeggios good for beginners. You could find it in a William Dixon manuscript from 1734. I don't know how you would find it in that. But that's where I saw it coming out of to very old traditional tune. 

So what is a stool of repentance? I guess it's an actual stool. This was in Scotland. In the Catholic Church, they would have a stool in church up in the front and was the stool of repentance. And you had to sit on it if you were in trouble. If you had done something that church did not agree with, and you'd have to sit up there for length of time or during the service. So then everyone was sort of looking at you shaming you. Maybe the priest would lecture you from the pulpit while you're on the store. It's a surprisingly happy tune forSuch a strange and dark history.

 We have it here for you, Stool of Repentance.

Thanks for listening, you can head over to fiddlestudio.com to find sheet music for this tune and more information about becoming a member of Fiddle Studio. I'll be back next time with another tune for you have a wonderful day.