Shifting and Positions Part 2 (Money Musk)

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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 Money Musk, from a jam at the Peabody Heights Brewery in Baltimore, Maryland.

Hello, everyone, I hope you are well. Today we are going to talk about shifting. This is the second part of a two part series on shifting and positions. But I did positions first. So if you go back last week, we talked about positions and what positions are on the violin or fiddle. And now we're going to talk about shifting, which is how to get into positions.

First position, most people play in it several years before they start to learn about shifting, and it definitely becomes a comfort zone. Besides the fact that you have the open strings there to kind of ground you, there isn't specifically a reason that first position would be wildly easier than the other positions. Because most of the mechanics are the same, you're pressing a finger down on the strings, and you know, there's a certain amount of space and then you've got your next finger and you're going up in a scale or you're going down or you're skipping or you're stepping a lot of it is the same. 

And I'm working with people who are trying to improve their shifting, I feel a little bit like a motivational speaker a little bit. Because I try to help them reframe in their mind, people will feel like the higher they get on the violin that the scarier and the more difficult it is, and they'll get very tense. And they'll have a very hard time. And it's almost like they're, they're straining to get up to those really high notes. You know, these are for advanced classical players. 

In fact, the higher you play on the violin, the closer your hand is coming to your wall to your face, really to the front of the violin where your head is, and having your arm closer into your body, it gives you if anything more control than trying to control something when your arm is way stretched out away from your body, I'll often take the violin out of the hands of students and say, Okay, now do your your shift. And they just, they just see that it's not, they don't have to think of it as way, way, way high up there, they can just think about it as I'm just bringing my hand closer to my nose. Easy peasy. 

So that's just a way to think about shifting and leaving your comfort zone. But many things are gonna stay the same. And you're just coming home, you know, you're just coming up to your nose there.

The mechanics of shifting, here's a rule for you. There's always a finger down when you shift. If you're I'm sitting in front of a desk right now. And if I have two spots on my desk, and I know where one spot is, and I want to touch the other spot. And it has to be exact, I can learn to get to that other spot by dragging my finger across the desk. And I can sort of teach my finger how far it is in what direction and practice getting to that spot. 

But if I'm just randomly touching my finger down in random spots on the desk, it's going to be very hard to measure and get to a specific place. I hope that made sense. I'll show a student I could play in first position. Now let go of the violin, nothing's touching it. Now try to find third position or try to find fifth position. Even a pretty advanced player will have a lot of trouble with that just finding fifth from nothing from note from not touching the violin at all. You want to have your finger on the string because feeling this string under your finger. You will learn how far and how long it takes to get to the position.

So which finger is it, it can be the finger that you start with from the note before the shift, or it can be the finger that you're going to finish with for the note. After the shift. A shift goes between two notes.

Most of the time, it's the finger that you start with. Okay, shifting up on the finger that you're going to finish with is a little bit of a special effect. I use it a lot in klezmer or playing something very romantic or schmaltzy. But normally we're going to shift on the finger that we're kind of leaving from if you're just going from like a one to a one, if it's the same finger, that's great. In fact, that's where most people start, is they start learning shifts that are just one in first position, up to one and third position.

And then back down to one, and then you try your to two to two, three to three. How do you know where you're going? Well, you know, check with your three, you don't just slide and pray that you're going to get there, you go very slow. So you can hear when you get to the note and stop at the right time. If you're going super fast, you're going to overshoot. And basically you'll just be practicing overshooting, which isn't a good way to get better at shifting. 

So you go, you go very slow, and you stop when you get there. And at first, you're just really kind of dragging your finger. So it sounds like this very thick glissando. Then when you get better at that, you'll practice in order to get some speed into your shifting, you need to release the pressure on your finger. So you're kind of pressing down on the string playing your note. And then you'll release the pressure, but not release the string, fingers still touching the string, very lightly, do the shift with a very light pressure on the string and then come back down into the string.

A classical player, when they're learning to shift will plan, every shift, I write into my students music, all the information, what position they're in, where the shift is, what finger it's using. And they'll practice that shift. Once you get really comfortable, for instance, shifting to third position, I don't necessarily write in every shift, just a third position in my music. But really any other position, I'll put a little fingering in there that will in my brain translate to, oh, that's a shift to fourth position. 

But for a student Oh, you know, I might literally write the words shift to fourth position for someone who's just starting out. So they don't, you know, practice and and just make something up. If you're constantly just moving your hand around wherever trying to, you know what it's supposed to sound like trying to find the notes way up there. I mean, I'm not saying you can't do that. But for someone who is trying to learn to be really precise with their shifts, you want to plan it, write it down, and practice that. 

There's books full of like, every conceivable combination of finger positions string. Hence, as I said, last week, you'll walk through the practice halls of Eastman or Juilliard and you you hear these D. D, people practicing their their shifts on string instruments. Oh, my, that was a lot about shifting. I will be at some point, working on a shifting course. That's gonna be fun. It'll be good for me actually. 

Our tune today is Money Musk. Money Musk is a really old and well known tune, you might say 'How appropriate then Megan's doing Money Musk'. As a New England Fiddler who grew up playing New England music. This is actually pulled from an old time jam. They were playing an old time version of Money Musk, fiddler's who are friends of mine actually right on my street named Brenna and Shane, and they have this great version of Money Musk. I love it. 

The song was played in Scotland originally, but definitely spread to Ireland and then different parts of North America. So I think it was a Scottish pipes tune. There was a country dance that went with it. So came to America. And I think the old time version we're playing was kind of in the mountains. But it went other places went to New England and together with the Money Musk dance was a very popular for hundreds of years dance and tune. And now people don't play it as much. Apparently it was a dance that people would do right after the break. It's considered like an old chestnut now. I grew up hearing it.

Also played out west. I heard it was used in Texas and Missouri for like fiddle competitions. It's a real kind of show off tune if you want to hear people show off with it. I mean, check out Rodney Miller's version that would be the New England or if you look up Jean Carignon. He was playing this on YouTube. There's a video of him playing it. Astonishing is sort of the word I always think of when I see his playing. It was awesome. I saw him playing it in G and in A.

There is a story that Paul Gifford when he was in Montreal, asked Jean to play Money Musk and Carignon said, Do you want the French, the Scottish or the Irish version and he could apparently play all three. Oh my gosh. So the version that we play is from what I can tell and Brad Kolodner who helps run the jam also helped me with this. It's from the Highwoods String Band. They have a version of Money Musk that you can find on Slippery Hill look up Money Musk. There'll be a bunch of different recordings there. 

And this was from the Brandywine friends of old time music festival. 1974 the Highwoods String Band was a revival String Band in the 1970s alongside bands like New Lost City Ramblers. I mean, I have these records from my dad's collection on Cranberry Lake, Delaware Water Gap. 

Do you want to read more specifically about the Highwoods String Band? There's a an excellent documentary by Larry Adelman called Dance All Night, the Highwoods String Band story you can dive into that folk revival mid 70s era. Great music coming out of there. And this is a great tune here. Money Musk.

Shifting and Positions Part 1 (Chips and Sauce)

Listen to the Fiddle Studio Podcast on Apple or on Spotify!

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 Chips and Sauce from a jam at the Peabody Heights Brewery in Baltimore, Maryland.

Hello, everyone, I hope you are well. Today I'm going to be talking about shifting and positions. This is a two part series. First time I've done that the first part will be positions. So we'll talk about positions this week, and then next week, I'll come back to you and talk about how to get to those positions. 

Before I start, I just want to say thank you. A couple of months ago, I asked for reviews and ratings on the podcast specifically from Apple podcasts. And I got some really nice reviews and ratings. So thank you very much. And I just especially wanted to call out thank yous to BJ Rhoades six. John Stinson, String Dancer, Vagabond Stan and Gabby Portu. 

So let's talk about shifting and physicians. Working on this topic made me think about when you're in music school in conservatory, there's certain sounds that are unique to different instruments. Like everyone does scales. So no matter what instrument or even vocalist, you'll hear people practicing scales, but brass and woodwind instruments will play long tones. It's kind of the only instrument you'll just hear them playing notes over and over again, as long as they can. Yeah, piano doesn't do that. You know, drummers always have their metronome on singers have their their vocal warm ups, which are very unique to singing. 

And string players have their shifting exercises, which are sort of ... and so on and so forth. For every conceivable note on the violin, or viola. Those shifting exercises are how we practice getting into positions. 

So we'll start with the basics of positions on the fiddle. When you're learning fiddle. Whether you have tapes on or you're just finding the notes on your own, you are playing in first position, open string, A string is an A, and you put your first finger down your one and you're playing a B, your hand is positioned so that your first finger your one is basically a whole step above the nut of the violin, where it's just the open string, there is kind of the up position, people will call half position where your hand is really centered around just a half step, playing in B flat, some people would call that more maybe like B flat minor, they would call that half position. 

But first position, and then if you were going to move your hand so that your one is now instead of playing a B on the A string, it's playing a C or a C sharp, that second position. So you've, you've shifted your entire hand one note up. And now you can play you know, 1234, you can play scales up and down the fiddle. But if you play your open strings, they won't be in the places you're used to them being in first position. 

And if you come up a note from there, your third position and it goes up and up and up. You know, your hand comes around the shoulder of the violin. And you can actually play in position kind of all the way up to where the rosin dust is. If you you know if you go hear a soloist play concerto on the violin, they'll be playing notes at the very top, what I think of as the top of the fingerboard, very, very close to the bow and lots of notes all over and down in first position. 

So those are the positions but for the first couple years of violin or fiddle, you're playing in first position and you don't have to worry about those other ones usually about three years in. I like to introduce people to third position if they haven't, you know asked about it, we start learning third position, and maybe working on a tune that has some third position in it, or just getting familiar with getting up there and getting back. 

For fiddle, if we're just thinking about fiddling, most of those positions are really not used very much at all, you would use third position, mostly just for a note, there are tunes that have notes above the B. So on the E string, you know, the b is your pinky. And there's tunes that have a C or even a D, or an E. I just saw John carry on playing his version of money mask and was playing that Hi eat fourth position, or an extension from third? Oh my goodness. So you would basically just use third position in attune that called for it.

The only other time I use positions in fiddling unless I'm playing something like klezmer where I play a lot in position, because you play everything down the octave and up the octave. And you're kind of competing with the clarinet and they're loud and you have to be either louder or higher, or both. Anyway, I digress. I will sometimes and this might just be a me thing. But I like to experiment with droning. I don't really cross tune at this time very often. But I'll shift up to third position just to drone different notes against an open string. That can be fun. Yeah, something I experiment with. 

Oh, I have a little list of fiddle tunes that use third position or these are just ones that I play Brilliancy, Sweet Milk and Peaches, that's an old time tune McArthur Road, Irish, Reel de mon Gibard, that was on the podcast. Naftali's Favorite. That's a term that I wrote and the Road to Erogie. Lots of students like that one. 

For classical violin. Third position is also the most used position besides first, but it's used in different ways. Classical players and fiddle players have different goals. So fiddle players love to be loud. And they don't usually mind if notes stick out. Classical players like to keep everything very even. And you don't want anything to stick out. So fiddle players will play a lot of open strings. And in fact, when you're droning, you're just adding, adding more and more open strings, all the open strings, think about cross tuning, as many as possible open strings, classical players do not like to plan open strings, they'll use their pinky. 

Or once you have third position. If you're like me, and your pinky is not that strong, you'll shift up to third, very consistently, for playing notes like you know, a ie D, where you could play it with an open string, or you could play it with a four. But instead shift up to third position and play those sort of weaker finger notes with your stronger fingers. second position is used in rare cases, sometimes there's a passage that uses just the note, sort of right above the pinky, you know, on the A string like the F sharp over and over again, or on the D string, it would be the B and it just keeps going back and forth. 

And so if you're in second position, you can do it on one string, classical players love to keep it on one string. fifth position specifically has some very useful aspects. fifth position, when you play the notes, you're using the same fingers as first position. So your play a B with a one, just like first position, but it's one string over. But if you can kind of forget about the string thing, it can feel very familiar to be playing in fifth position. So a lot of times if you have a passage that has high notes and low notes, and they're all mixed, rather than try to shift up and down, people will just hang out in fifth position, because they're pretty comfortable playing on all four strings because the fingering so similar to first and they'll just play over the strings stay in position around there. 

You will hear classical players a lot of composers sometimes will ask for something to be all on the G string. And in that case, the D string is very thick and it has a very particular quality of tone. And so they want that part to have a very dark, rich tone. So they want you to shift up and it it can sound very dramatic to play a whole opening on the G string like the opening of Csardas, or the Saint Seans Concerto Number three, something like that.

Just a little tip about positions. And we might get into this more next week with shifting but it is good to know that the way the string works. As you get higher on the fiddle, the notes get closer together. So a whole step in first position is kind of the biggest whole step on the fiddle, and a whole step in seventh position, your fingers are much closer. The higher you get, the more your fingers will creep in to be closer to each other because the string is shorter. That's kind of how much I know about that. Somebody has a great explanation of that phenomenon. I could use it because I have students ask about that a lot. 

Our tune for today is Chips and Sauce by Ira Bernstein. So Ira Bernstein is a very well known dancer. A lot of different kinds of traditional American forms of of dance. I think he does other French Canadian Irish. I think he does all different kinds of folk dancing, but he is especially known for clogging, or it's called flat foot. He grew up outside of New York City. He also lived in Vermont, in Maryland, and has now I believe, lived in Asheville for for many years and won numerous competitions in old time flatfoot and he goes to Clifftop a lot.

I have to say we at our jam in Baltimore, we play a lot of tunes from Clifftop because a lot of folks go there. So this is one of those tunes I think that kind of came via Clifftop and I referenced in wrote this he plays old time fiddle. It's played on all over kind of on fiddle and banjo. Some people will play this cross tuned. 

It's played by Earl White. You can also look for a version by the Onlies their album long before light. I guess the story that I heard about this tune, I was like searching through long discussions and Banjo Hangout and stuff. So I found this story somebody wrote that what Ira said about this tune was that he wrote it while he was staying with friends in the Northeast. And the host that was hosting him had a really good homemade salsa that they made but called it sauce they called it chips and sauce. So that's the name of this tune and we're gonna play it for you you're ready.