Welcome to the Fiddle Studio Podcast featuring tunes and stories from the world of traditional music and fiddling. I'm Meg Wobus Beller, and today I'll be bringing you a setting of Bill Malley's from a session at Fergie's Pub in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Hello, everyone, I hope you are well. Today we're going to be talking about taking lessons, preparing for your lessons. Being in a lesson for students and for teachers.
I'm going to do a quick check in on my Kickstarter, still active July of 2023. We are looking for people to contribute. Please check out the link in the description or just go to fiddlestudio.com. And I hope you'll see it right up there at the top. This album is going to contain a lot of original music. And where did these original tunes come from? From my head, I guess.
So the story is that I was going this winter and the spring to do some cabin camping because I love to hike and I love to stay in a cabin really close to a trail. The Appalachian Trail, Tuscarora, those are the ones that are in my area. And these cabins often don't have Wi Fi or even cell service. So I might hike, then come home, play my fiddle, then do some more hiking, play some more fiddle kind of conducive to composing. Because you play a little a part then you let it go around in your head while you're hiking. See if a b part occurs to you.
Later in the spring, I actually had a foot injury that made it so I couldn't hike so ended up doing even more composing. But that's how I got these new fiddle tunes. I'm really excited about them. It's been really fun to play them. I am looking forward to recording them with Charley for this album. So yeah, go check out the Kickstarter, share it, contribute to it. Just send it good vibes, whatever works for you.
Let's talk about lessons preparing for a lesson and taking a lesson. We'll start with students. And the first lesson. Okay, I will just say this, it is typical to be nervous for your first lesson. My adult students are much more nervous than my, my young students. I've had adults doing their asthma inhaler like because they were short of breath. I've had them cancel at the last minute. Because they're just decided they they're too worried to take a lesson. I've had them shaking from an adrenaline drop kind of so hard. It's almost hard to play or just talking from nervousness. So they almost can't talk.
And we got through it. We got through it every time. But if you're feeling really nervous about taking a lesson, that is totally normal. Yeah, I see it a lot. I'm kind of assuming that you found a teacher that you like, and you told them about your instrument and your previous experience. Maybe we'll do another podcast on finding a teacher.
Bring your stuff. Okay, bring your violin your bow, rosin, shoulder rest tuner, any music you have. If you can tune before you go do that, if you can warm up before you go even better. You know, sometimes half the lesson is, I don't know wasted but we're still remembering how to play and if someone had played a little before they came more of a handle on it wouldn't take so long to get them warmed up in the lesson. If you can warm up before. I know not everyone can some people come from work I get it.
If you can come early, I would say there are a lot of cultures that have a practice of respect for teachers coming up with Suzuki, which was a Japanese school of music. They emphasize that pretty strongly. You know I also did a lot of Muay Thai, which is a martial art from Thailand. And it was the same thing show respect to your teacher come early. Like that. It's not great as a teacher to be kind of five minutes in and wondering is this person going to show up? Should I text them if you're going to be late just text that's all you got to do.
I would bring a way to take notes or record. I'm not the biggest fan of being video recorded just without notice. But an audio recording is totally fine. Or when I'm taking lessons, I'll usually have a notepad. And I'll just quick jot down notes in between none of my teachers have ever reminded that.
If you're feeling nervous for your first lesson, it's one of those things in life, where it's your first time doing something. But just remember, the teacher has done this a lot. So they've seen a lot of different things. I just told you, some of them, and it's not a big deal to them. If you can try to adopt that energy, just relax, because even though you haven't done it a lot, somebody has, and they're going to lead you through this. And once you do one start to get a feel for it gets easier over time.
Playing is pretty important in a lesson. So as a student, I wouldn't spend too much time explaining things. Okay, don't don't spend so much time explaining that you don't actually get a chance to play and ask questions.
Questions. So important. Questions are a beautiful thing. It's so much easier to teach someone who has just asked you a question. It's like, by asking the question, they've gone in their brain and made a little space for the answer. So if you just notice something about their left wrist and you say it, I don't know if that's gonna sink in. They've heard a lot of stuff today, it may go in one ear and out the other. But if they've asked you, what about my left wrist, they've made a space for that information, and they're waiting for it. So as a teacher, it's great when students ask questions, because then that's something I can tell them that they're ready to receive, and to focus on and hopefully to remember.
Be flexible, about timing. You know, I try to go over in lessons if I can, unless I'm on a tight schedule. But I occasionally run into a student who's worried about being shortchanged, and only getting, you know, 59 minutes instead of 60. I mean, here's what I'll say about that. You're not paying for 60 minutes of my time, you're paying for 21 years of weekly lessons, some of them at you know, the Eastman School of Music, one of the top conservatories, you're paying for the cost of my instruments all the way coming up to my now professional fiddle, you're paying for practice, you know, if it's not 10,000 hours, it's, it's probably eight.
And you're paying for all of the experience I've had from teaching other students. So I mean, this is just talking about me. But whatever teacher you're using, you know, when somebody's paying me money, they might be thinking I you know, I'm paying for a certain number of minutes of her time. But really, you're paying for the investment I have put in by teaching for 25 years, playing for 39 years, taking years and years of lessons, buying a professional instrument, all of that is going into me, watching you play, sorting through the infinite number of things you could work on or songs you could learn and helping you find just the things that are going to help you right where you are. So that's what you're paying for, not that extra minute. Don't sweat it.
For teachers. Teachers, remember to be curious about your students. It's not just about what you know, it's also about what they want to learn. You I've done some teacher training, both training Suzuki teachers helping people learn to teach fiddle, I went to Peabody teaching those teachers how to do some improv, make their lessons a little more fun.
And some teachers are not curious. And I hope that they that they get there because because of that thing that I talked about earlier, where if a student wants to learn something, that's when they will be most receptive to what you can teach them in that area. So find out what they want to learn.
What do they hope to get out of it? Do they just want to play with you? Do they want to learn things that they can take home and practice? Do they Just want a reason to stay on track practicing, do they want to build their repertoire or do a lot of work on their technique, find out what they want.
If you're teaching beginners have the right gear have tapes, or stickers, an extra foam pad in case they don't have a shoulder rest, you know, extra rubber band rosin music for advanced players, I would have, you know, a couple of books you normally use, like scale book Wohlfahrt, Suzuki, or Solos for strings. And that way you can take a picture and send it to a to a student out of the book.
And check out their instrument by playing their instrument, even if it's just like, Oh, can I check your tuning or can I try your instrument, you play it and you'll get a sense of what sound you can get out of it. That will be very helpful, then when you hear them play, compare the two and think about what they can do to get a better sound out of their instrument, I always try to play my students instrument.
Pick one technique to work on at a time. The brains not great at multitasking, they're already playing the fiddle, which is a very complicated thing to do. So if they're playing the fiddle, and trying to fix the wrist and trying to curve their fingers and getting their bows straight and make the C sharps hire too much work on one thing at a time.
What's another suggestion? Don't be afraid of repetition. Or at least ask if they want to do it more times. A lot of people are ready to do their reps and a lesson. So I have sometimes myself I think, oh, you know, my student looks a little tired. Maybe they don't want to keep playing this. When I asked Do you want to play this five more times? 10 more times? It is most often a resounding yes. They want to get that work in under your supervision. So they can know that they had some practice doing it right.
Explain things. But don't go on and on and on. Maybe I'm setting a terrible example for this right now. But I actually don't talk a lot in my lessons. I prioritize playing together, technique, work questions and answers. Both the improv game and then students asking questions and me giving answers. But avoid long winded explanations or stories from your youth. I might break that one sometimes.
Take the time to make sure they have what they need to practice at home and have clear directions for that. Don't assume anyone's going to remember what happened after their lesson, they may have six other things they're working on that day. So take some time at the end of the lesson to make sure they can go home. And they'll have what they need. And they know what to do to work on what you just worked on.
So teachers remember prioritize playing in the lesson. Put your reps in, prepare them to practice at home. Hey, I'm into teaching the fiddle. You know, I am teaching some lessons. There'll be over zoom unless you're in the area in which case, have a location I'm happy to teach you in person as part of our Kickstarter campaign, if you're fiddler, and you'd like to take a lesson with me, or if you're a fiddle teacher, and you'd like to take a lesson for me anything you're having trouble teaching you how to work on. Yeah, the vibrato sequence or how I teach Boeing or any of the things you can sign up, go to the Kickstarter, get the lesson reward and we'll arrange a time to get together. Really looking forward to that.
Our tune for today is Bill Malley's. And this is a great teaching tune by the way. This was written by Fiddler Bill Malley, from County Clare popularized by Martin Hayes. It's a barn dance. So these barn dances go a little slower, great for beginners, kind of stately, not too fast, not like a real. And it's a nice contrast to the speed at an Irish session where people will take jigs and reels sometimes very fast.
The barn dance is a little slower. It's not it's not like an air or a waltz. But kind of a medium tempo. People online, we're calling this a Scottish tune. It's not I don't think it is. Gosh, the Irish players are playing it either way.
We think it's written by Bill Malley in County, Clare and that Martin Hayes got the tune from him. He was a Bill was a fiddler. And a farmer from lower Glendree. His playing was, I'm gonna quote the article here, characterized by a rhythmic pulse and syncopated style, very rhythmic bowing pattern suitable for dancing. Hey, that's a that's goals for me. That's what I aspired to.
He was a regular playing partner of concertina player John Naughton. And the flute player Joe Bane also from Glendree. They would play down in East Clare play dances play fleadhs, and he wrote this tune. Lovely little barn dance. We will play it for you now. Here we go.
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