Showing posts with label Waltzes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Waltzes. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Putting sets of tunes together (Waltz for Charley)

 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 Meg Wobus Beller and today I'll be bringing you a setting of Waltz for Charley from my album Broke the Floor by Meg Wobus and Charley Beller. 

Hello everyone, I hope you are well. Today we're going to be talking about pairing fiddle tunes and putting together sets of tunes. But before we talk about putting tunes together into sets, a word in defense of just playing the same tune over and over again. So this isn't completely unknown in the world of fiddling. If you go to a square dance or an old time jam, you'll hear people playing just one tune, focusing on that tune. 

I do think there's something in our modern culture where people aren't really used to just doing the same thing for a long time in kind of a meditative way. They're in a hurry, they're anxious to get on to the next thing. And I'm fiddling that can be like let's get on to the next tune. But if you can relax into the repetition of playing a tune 10 times or 20 times, you can find things. I think you can find things in it that you might not notice just from playing it once. 

Sometimes, I'm Jewish, and sometimes on the Sabbath, on Shabbat, we will sing songs that go on, either have lots and lots of verses or wordless melodies that you sing many, many, many times, like you would play a tune at a square dance, and it can kind of shape to just do the same thing again and then do it again, and then do it again. But once that itchy I'm getting tired of this feeling goes away, for me it can be really beautiful and transformative. 

I've read about how some art teachers will have their students just stare at the same piece of art for like 30 minutes or an hour and that as soon as they stop feeling antsy about it, they'll start to notice things. And I find this if I'm like watching the sunrise, which you think, oh, I'm gonna watch the sun rises, oh my gosh, it takes forever. But then I'll keep noticing like, oh, there's a bird flying there now, or now there's a little house I didn't see on that hill over there before. 

So I think when you play tunes over and over again and you're not in a hurry to get to another tune, you can start to, yeah, change your experience with a tune or notice new things about it. It's not necessarily bad, but that's not actually what I was gonna talk about. I was gonna talk about putting tunes together, so let's do that. 

Okay, start with dance sets. So when I was growing up, tunes went in sets. I didn't ever go to an old time jam. I didn't ever play tune 10 times in a row. I put the tunes together into sets for contra dances. You know, working with my dad or with a band in college when I got a little older, you play the tunes five or six times at the dance and go to the next tune. 

If you're putting tunes together that way for a contra dance, often the first tune is a little simpler, because the dancers are hearing the moves called out initially and you don't want them necessarily trying to parse what the caller is saying to do while also hearing this really, really complicated tune. Then you go into the second tune and you always kind of wanna bring the energy up a little bit, unless you're going for something really dramatic and decreasing energy in the middle of the set not sure why you would do that and then at the end of the set you'd either bring the energy up again or maybe end with like a big expansive sort of finishing sounding tune, and the key is usually up. It either goes up a fourth or a whole step or it can go from minor to major. 

So a really common order of keys for like a three-tune set would be tune in D and then G and then A. I mean, if we're just talking about sets for contra dancing, I also look at the personality of a tune. I like to match up tunes that have a similar personality, like maybe a tune that sounds a little bit like a rag or a very kind of smooth Irish sounding tune, with more tunes like that. Or even look at the personality of the A part and the B part separate. You know, if the A part is marchy and then the B part is kind of syncopated, then I might look for other tunes like that so that when they're playing the second half of the dance they'll have the syncopated beat to dance against and that that will remain even when the tune changes throughout the dance. 

You can really get into the weeds about how individual parts of the tune will fit. Certain dance moves, like where the balances are forward and back down the hall for more marchy things. Playful moves like a California twirl is a dance move. Sometimes I look for a more playful tune. There's, of course, the Hay for four, which people go back and forth. Some people like a real dark, brooding tune for Hey for Four. Becky Tracy said she loves sweet marches for Hey for Four. 

So for me, for matching up tunes, I have this huge spreadsheet with all my tunes and then there's all these different rows and it's like how does the A part feel? Where's the balance? How does the B part feel? What is the whole tune driving, or is it smooth, or is it syncopated? And then I'll look at that and look at all the sort of characteristics of the tune. 

And it doesn't even matter necessarily, for Contra Dance is how the two tunes fit together, cause you can always make them fit. It's a little more about matching up so that the the whole dance, even though the tune changes, that the feel of the dance will be kind of the same, or it'll be how you want it to be. If you want to start kind of dark and brooding and then open up to something big and beautiful at the end, that you have control over that through the tunes that you pick. Ooh, you could talk about that for a while. 

If I'm just playing like a concert or basically just stringing tunes together, you know, playing them in a church or for friends, kind of casually. I don't certainly don't play a tune six times through for that. Maybe just play it twice and I'll mix up the type of tune more. They do this in Cape Breton too. They'll start with the slowest, you know, a waltz or an air, and then go into a hornpipe, maybe in the same key, a jig in the same key, a reel in the same key. 

So the feel of the tune is changing but the key is staying the same. Sometimes they'll just have a bunch of tunes just once in a row. It can be a whirlwind listening to a whole long Cape Breton set. Oh, my goodness For a concert setting. I'll look to that to mix things up more, not just play three reels but try to have another type of tune in there. 

If you're thinking about Irish sessions, sets are big in Irish music I've talked about this before there's some sets. Everybody knows If you go on the session there's a whole section just with sets. People add in the sets that they like and I do feel like Irish players put together jigs with jigs, hornpipes with hornpipes. So they're not mixing like Cape Breton. The types of tunes and the key will change each. Ah, does it change each time? I was going to say the key will change each time, but some of the sets they don't. 

I remember hearing Kevin Burke talk about this and that he had done a set that was all. Maybe it was all A minor and the Abbey was part of it. And then somebody complained to him, said oh, you can't play, you can't play all in the same key, and he was like that made me want to do it. I made a big old set all the same key. It was funnier when he told the story, but anyway, often they're in a different key. So three tunes all the same type of tune but three different keys. 

And I think my impression since I'm not, you know, born and bred Irish musician is that Irish players are very into how the end of the tune fits with the beginning of the next tune and kind of fitting them together and then the general feel of the tune. But you won't really hear them talking about like, where's the balance, where's the like, the specific parts that might fit dances, because with Ceilis and everything, and of course in a session there's not usually somebody dancing and they're not thinking about that as much so it's a little more about getting a really beautiful transition into the next tune. The way they fit together, that's just my impression. Anyway, put some, put some sets together. Let me know how it goes. 

Our tune for today is Charley's Waltz. I wrote this Waltz for my husband, Charley, and I was camping not with Charley, actually, just by myself in a cabin off the AT the Appalachian Trail in Maryland called Bear Spring Cabin and I was playing around with the melody for the A part. I didn't start off thinking I was writing this tune for Charley, but when I got to the B part, which starts with some long notes, it made me think about dancing with Charlie, maybe because there's a Waltz with very long notes by Keith Murphy called Evergreen. That was our wedding Waltz. 

But yeah, as I was playing the B part, I was just imagining dancing with Charlie. Charlie and I have danced a long time. We actually met on the dance floor so in contra dancing. Both of our parents were folk dancers and involved in the folk music community, so we dance a lot and I thought about it. So I named the Waltz after him and I'm pretty, pretty proud of this tune. 

I've gotten the my scale of if I've written. A good tune is. One is if other people want to play it and ask for the music or I hear them play it, and another is is I like it? People say, oh, did you, you wrote that? Who wrote that? Did you write that? That's usually a good sign Making a tune that sounds really like settled, like it's been there a while Maybe it has, who knows. So yeah, we're going to hear Waltz from Charley. This is from my new album called broke the floor.

Tuesday, May 23, 2023

Starting fiddle from scratch (Flat Water Fran)

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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 Flat Water Fran by Phil Cunningham from a session at the Arthouse Bar in Baltimore, Maryland.

Hello, everyone. Hope you're well. Today I'm going to be talking about starting fiddle from scratch. So the questions that I usually get about starting from scratch, people ask, you know, am I too old, too young, musical enough, or I can't read music or I have arthritis in my hands? 

So people will wonder if it's okay for them to play fiddle if they feel like they can't do it at a high level. Which, you know, I think, I always say, nonsense, anyone can play. The only good reason to not play is if you don't want to play. And if you want to play, I don't see any reason why not to. 

But people also ask, do I need a teacher? Is it okay to learn fiddle from a classical violin teacher? What do I do about my technique? Is it bad to have bad habits? What tunes should I start with? A lot of questions, which makes sense, when you're starting something new, that you'd have a lot of questions about it. I'll get into the nitty gritty. 

But first, started thinking about the philosophy of starting new things, I think it's like getting into water, going swimming, and some people dive in. And some people go in very, very slowly.

As I was thinking about, well, what's the what would be the best way to start from scratch? I think a jump start, more of a dive in, is probably a good way to start. I would compare it to kind of riding a bike where you wouldn't want to just necessarily spend two minutes a day trying to ride a bike. 

Probably better to just spend the whole weekend working on it, and you have your balance. And then once you have it, you could get better at biking in various ways. But you've got the skill of like, balancing on a bike. You kind of had to put a bunch of work in at one point to do that, and then you've got it. 

So in terms of just basically holding the fiddle getting used to playing notes on it getting used to the bow. I would say if you have the opportunity to go to a camp or a weekend or a festival, or to have pretty frequent lessons at the beginning to just get over the hump of being able to sort of hold and play the instrument, then from there, there's a lot of different ways you can develop and learn. So that's kind of recommending the jump start.

Although Charley and I, who both learned a lot of instruments, and neither of us really learn that way. We're both, we both get in slowly. So I don't know, there's stuff to be said for the other side, trying it a little bit and then trying it more and just gaining momentum, as you slowly get more of a feel for it. 

I am working on guitar. I think I'm getting a little better at the guitar. Last year had to play it when I was teaching some general music and singing with kids playing guitar, and kids didn't seem to mind that I only know a couple of chords. And I was just a beginner. So I had the opportunity to practice it. But I wasn't really working on it on my own at all. I was just playing a little bit at school when I was there teaching.

But gradually because then I had the skill of doing it. I started working on it more and asking questions of players, sort of realizing things that didn't sound good asking people how to fix it. And now I'm at the point where I'm probably practicing about 30 minutes a day, I feel like I'm making pretty good progress. So practicing playing fiddle tunes and, and playing backup for songs. 

I didn't start with a big jump in it was a very kind of slow momentum. And now I'm practicing regularly, now that I'm better at it. So it's a little more fun for me to practice when I'm better at something. I don't think that's always the case. But that was my experience most recently of learning, learning an instrument.

In terms of just kind of nitty gritty, getting started on the violin. Very important to have a working instrument. So not a VSO a violin shaped object. You need a decent wooden instrument with tuners that work, new strings, a bow with all the hair, and rosin and your shoulder rest.

It's worth getting help, you can rent something, it's fine if you don't want to invest a lot of money. I know fiddles are expensive. So if you don't want to pay the money, rent something, but get some advice, make sure you're renting something that is good quality and tunable. So that you can learn. 

Some instruments are so bad, you can hold it in your hand, you can move the bow on the string, but you're not gonna be able to learn anything because the strings don't tune up and the bow doesn't. Yeah. It's don't buy those cheap instruments on Amazon, folks. If you rent something you can rent from Shar Music or any of the major string shops now will ship instruments out. Yeah, look for look for a violin specific, I wouldn't even run from like Music and Arts. I'm being a little snobby.

Get a decent instrument. And another thing is just to find a way to immerse yourself in the sound of fiddling, I've made this analogy a lot, but it doesn't get old. learning an instrument is like learning a language. And you want to just go to France to learn French, like as much as you can. You want to be hearing the sound, the accent, all the kinds of intricacies of the genre that you're interested in.

Look up my my playlists. So I have, I have YouTube playlists, and Spotify. If you look under Megan Beller for some different fiddle genres, so find you know some time in your life to put the music on and listen to it. Also go to live shows, it's a great way to hear it. If you don't like to listen to music, not everybody does, then get some live shows on your schedule or go listen to a jam or a session in a bar.

Another thing to think about is just having an easy collection of music to work on both tunes that are easy, and also easy for you to access. So having a collection of tunes in a book or or binder if you just print them off the internet, or a YouTube playlist that you're working through. But make it easy for yourself, to know what to work on and to have new stuff to work on when you're in the mood for something new. And to be able to go back and access the things you've already learned. When you are in the mood to play something you already know. 

Have your your kind of music in one place, you don't want to be searching all over. Where's that tune my teacher gave me can't find anything to play, oh, well, I give up. Have your book or your binder or whatever's on your computer, easy to access. I would start with some tunes in a major you know, I love to start with the high 2, get used to playing. And then find your genre build your ability to play in that genre.

 The more that you learn, the more you'll kind of find out what you like, and try to go towards that. Zoom in on it. And of course, find people to play with very inspiring. I have, if you're looking for support starting from scratch, I do have a book. It's called Fiddle Studio, Book One Fiddle for the Complete Beginner. So it's a lot of information about if you just have no previous experience.

Information getting you started playing with little tunes, but also about the instrument, about the gear, all the kinds of different things to think about and consider. If you want a deep dive, you can get that book. Or I also have a course if you're more of a visual kind of video, like to see it person. So if you go to fiddlestudio.com the course one is Fiddle from Scratch, and it's basically just, you know, the video version of that book. 

But there's a lot of great resources out there. And yeah, if you have questions email me, meganbeller@fiddlestudio.com.

We are going to do a waltz today. This is Flatwater Fran, and it's a waltz by Phil Cunningham. I guess it was named for someone who like to paddle on flat water. That's what I saw somewhere. 

Phil Cunningham is a composer and musician, still live. It's born in 1960 in Edinburgh, Scotland. And so he's Scottish folk musician, composer. He grew up I think in the US and started on a toy accordion. Somebody got him a toy accordion that sort of inspired his his love of traditional Irish and Scottish music. 

When he was a little older, I think he got an album by Planxty. And so that really got him got him into Irish music and it actually dropped out of school at 16 to join a band. The band Silly Wizard, tour around playing traditional music singing. He wrote a lot of songs for it. That was his life for a little while. 

Now. He's, He's older. He is still performing in the United Kingdom with Aly Balan. They have nine albums together. They have a version of this. You want to listen to them play it. He writes a lot of different kinds of music. Now he writes classical music, scores for video and TV and still of course performs traditional music and sings really interesting funny guy. Yeah look them up Phil Cunningham. So we're gonna play this waltz of his Flat Water Fran. Ready?


Tuesday, January 31, 2023

How to get better without playing (Give Me Your Hand)


Sheet music for the waltz Give Me Your Hand as played in Baltimore. Hear the tune and discussion on the Fiddle Studio podcast on Apple Music or on SpotifySupport Megan's work on the Fiddle Studio Podcast and Blog.

Hello, everyone, I hope you're well. Today I'm going to talk about how to get better at the fiddle without playing. It might be a little silly. 

The reason I think it's not silly is that I have taught for so many years, and I've worked with a lot of students who had good intentions, and they actually really enjoyed practicing and playing. But there was something that made it hard for them, there was an obstacle in their path. And once they solve that, they were able to get better so much faster. 

With my dad, we talk about this stuff in the car, on the way to gigs, we're on the phone, we're always talking about what we're practicing, or I'm telling him about my students. He helped me with this list. I think I put it in fiddle book one, but here's how I've been thinking about it lately. 

There are three areas I want to talk about. One is mechanical, one is environmental, and one is mental. These are areas where you can do things that will make you better at the fiddle, that don't involve playing the fiddle. 

I mean, we all know that the best way to get really good at the fiddle is just to play the fiddle a lot. I'm assuming you're on board with me with that. But here's some other tips. 

We'll start with mechanical, you want to have working equipment, it does make a very big difference to have working equipment, I have taught people playing VSOs violin shaped objects where the strings don't tune up, the boat doesn't tighten. It, it's nearly impossible to have any kind of enjoyable learning experience without good working equipment for the fiddle. 

You wanted to have newish strings cleaned off, you know, if you remember to clean them off reasonable action so it doesn't hurt your fingers to play. If the strings seem weirdly far from the fingerboard. Maybe go into a shop have them take a look at your bridge, see if they could lower the action a little bit. 

And easy to tune. This is probably the biggest one so pegs or screws, whatever is on that fiddle to help you tune you want them to turn easily and stick easily. And you want a tuner that's very easy and accessible. Even just one of those little micro tuners leave it on all the time. Or a tuner that you can clip on, you know like a little guitar tuner. 

But you want it to be easy to tune because it's just gonna sound a lot better. If you can pick up your fiddle, get it all tuned up and get started right away. Speaking of getting started right away. 

Second area for getting better without playing is environmental. And the question I often ask students, when we start to dive into the topic of practicing, is where is your fiddle at home? And where's your stuff that you use to practice? Is it in the case under the bed? Or is it hanging on the wall? 

I mean, we have we have my kids fiddles on the wall just to cut down on that hole, get the case out and zip it all the steps. I don't hang my fiddle on the wall because I don't really trust my family around it. 

But the guitars on the wall, the ukuleles on the wall. If you fiddle is not too expensive. Consider just getting one of those wall hangers and leaving it out there so you can grab it. And it's that easy. I've also had students who just leave their case open on a desk or a piano or if you don't have little kids or a pet that's going to get into it. You can just leave it open so you can pick it up. 

If you have five or 10 minutes and play a little it can make a difference. In addition to having your fiddle accessible, any music or books that you're studying from, you want those to be easy. 

I have at times thought, Oh, I really want to practice that piece. And I start digging into my I mean I have a really big sheet music collection from teaching Suzuki and classical. I mean, I would teach from twinkle all the way up to Mendelssohn concerto, so I have a gazillion books and music and even though I gave a lot of it away, I still have so much.

So I could just I could get lost in there searching for some specific thing I want to practice. So you want to have your books pulled out, it's part of the reason I made my fiddle books is just so that it would be really easy for my students to open up and have the version of the tune that I teach. And for beginners have it with the fingerings. Right there. Easy, easy. 

That's kind of about your environment. The mental side, or the aural, the hearing and listening and remembering side. This is a big part of becoming a musician on any instrument is having the music in your head knowing the music really well.

You can learn a tune, it's kind of two parts of it. One is knowing the tune really well, just in your head that you can hum it. The other is knowing how to play it on an instrument, the playing it on the instrument part well, that's you got to play to do that. 

But the learning it in your head part you can do by just listening to it, folks, listen to the tunes you're learning. Find a recording of them. If you're learning my tunes, it's the whole reason that I put out recordings on Spotify and Apple Music and YouTube. 

And I try to, any tune that I'm teaching really in any capacity, whether I'm doing it on the podcast, or teaching it at a workshop or teaching it to students, or online, I try to make sure there's a really easy to access recording. So you want to have your playlist, get your tunes on there. And you know, listen to the style of fiddling they inspires you. 

When you first start listening to really great Fiddler's and you don't fiddle a lot yet, you'll you'll be hearing the tune the outline of the melody. And the more you listen, the more you'll start to pick up on the ways that the player is interpreting the tune the ornaments, they're using the way they're bowing. It takes a little while to get used to hearing that and hearing those details. 

I was just listening to a Liz Carroll album that I grew up listening to on, you know, my parents LP collection. And I was listening to the way she slides her one up into the note and I realized she doesn't always get to the note. And I've heard her do this for so long. And I slide in my Irish slide my one up into the note. But it never sounded exactly like Liz Carroll. 

And I think that you know, whatever, 35 years later, I finally figured out why. Because she's not, she's sliding up, and she's not always getting all the way to the note. It's a really beautiful way to make kind of a blue note and Irish music. It was great. 

So now I can try it. I've been trying it doesn't sound exactly like Lewis Carroll, but I don't think it's ever going to. 

So those are three ways to get better without playing. Check your equipment, check your environment, and work on your mental, you're listening. 

Let's move on to the tune for today. This is a waltz called Give Me Your Hand. It's from a session an Irish session at the Art House bar in Baltimore. We did play this waltz at this session. Full disclosure, it's because I asked to play it. I wanted to work on this wall. So I was kind of planting it there to pull it for the podcast. 

It has an Irish name. Charlie coached me on how to say it. Let me give it a go here. Tabhair dom do Lámh. I don't know why an M and an H together make a V. I have not studied Irish but my husband is a linguist and he did. 

This is a traditional waltz that's played at weddings. Give me your hand. I guess the joke about it is that the wall to play divorces is Give Me Your House.

You can look this tune up on the internet. The big question is who wrote it. Seems like it wasn't O'Carolan. You'll see it attributed to the blind Irish harpist O'Carolan. sSeems like it was a different blind Irish harpist who wrote it by the name of Rory Dall. Unfortunately, there are two Rory Dalls. 

So I was in the weeds a little bit trying to figure out what the origin of this waltz was. We think that it was Rory Dall O'Kane and not Rory Dall Morrison. They didn't live at the same time. O'Kane died before Morrison was born. 

And O'Kane, Rory Dall O'Kane wrote melodies and Morrison mostly didn't write melodies instead wrote lyrics was a poet and then set them to melodies. So we think this was Rory Dall O'Kane. 

Francis O'Neill certainly thought that and wrote this story about O'Kane being very proud player a very high status and conscious of his status that he had moved to Scotland was traveling in Scotland and went to a castle. 

When he was there, the lady of the castle commanded him to play the harp seeing him with his harp, in kind of a low status way and he was so insulted. He refused to play and he packed up his harp and he left and when she heard who he was and realized who he was, she was overcome and reached out to him to try to reconcile. 

He ended up writing this tune for her. Coming back together. Tabhair dom do Lámh, Give Me Your Hand. This is our wedding waltz that we're going to play. This was actually not the waltz at our wedding that was Evergreen, but this is a beautiful wedding waltz here we go.

Thanks for listening, you can find the sheet music for this tune at fiddle studio.com. You can also find my books and courses for learning the fiddle and get more information about becoming a member of Fiddle Studio. I'll be back next Tuesday with another tune for you. Have a wonderful day.

Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Why Go to a Fiddle Camp? (Si Bheag Si Mhor)


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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'm bringing you a setting of Sí Bheag Sí Mór from a session at the Bru House in Dublin, Ireland.

Hello, everyone, I hope you're well. Today I'm going to be talking about Fiddle Camp. I just got home from the fiddle camp that I started way back when I was just out of college in Rochester, New York. It's at the Kanack School of Music. I brought my younger two kids to Fiddle Camp for the very first time. They have some experience with fiddling, but they haven't played a lot in groups. So it's very interesting to watch them. 

They went to camp every day, and they were learning fiddle tunes. From their perspective, they learned some cool tunes, they met some fun people. And that's kind of what they got out of Fiddle Camp. But as a fiddler and a fiddle teacher, I was watching them and wondering what they were going to get out of it. I noticed sort of from an outside perspective, some of the things they were learning that weren't just the fiddle tunes. 

I wanted to share that with you, because a lot of people think about going to a fiddle Camp and wonder what they might get out of it. And if you think you're just going to learn a couple of new tunes, well, you can do that on your own with YouTube. But there are so many more things you can get out of going to a music camp. So here's what I saw. 

The first thing is they were hearing fiddle music all day long. This seems to be expected. Since it's Fiddle Camp, you're hearing a lot of fiddle music, but it's really a lot more fiddle music than they normally hear. Maybe they hear me practice a little bit, they might hear their father play a CD in the car, they might play a tune to themselves, but to be hearing it all day long really gets the sound and the style of fiddling into your ear. 

In hearing these tunes all the time, they were for one thing, learning the tune. Not just learning to play tunes, but they're also memorizing and hearing those tunes that they were learning and a lot of other tunes to that they now have in their memory, whether it's their short term memory, their long term memory. They have so many more tunes that they've been exposed to, and that they've heard a lot. 

In addition to getting used to all the different fiddle tunes, they've also gotten a lot of experience now with the form, the form of fiddle tunes playing the A part, repeating, playing the B part, repeating. it takes a little while before people are very comfortable with that form. I'll notice that a student doesn't really have the form yet when they'll play a tune, and they'll just play one B part and then stop. And they're not looking at me like "Oh, should I do the repeat?" they just thought the tune was over there. And they don't have a sense of oh, there's something missing here. The tune's not complete until I play the B part. 

Again, just being someplace where you're hearing fiddle tunes all day. And always with the proper form A part, repeat, B part, repeat, you're really getting the form ingrained in you to where you aren't going to just play an A part and forget the repeat. At least not every time, you're gonna get that repeat in there because the tune will sound kind of too short without it. 

Another skill is the skill of jumping in. Jumping in is so important to musicianship. So that's when other people are playing. And then instead of starting with them exactly at the beginning of the tune, like 'one, two, ready, go', and everyone starts, they've already started playing. And then you need to jump in to match what they're doing kind of right in the middle of the fiddle tune. It's very hard to learn when you're all by yourself. You can try with recordings, but it's just not the same as having a lot of experience playing with people who aren't waiting for you. 

So it's not your teacher. I probably do this too much where I stop and wait for a student because I do think it's important for people to have time mentally to think through where they are in the tune. But at a camp, they're just going to keep going and you're going to have to jump in. And then if you fall off, you're gonna have to jump in again, keep getting on that wagon. 

When you're jamming a lot, not just going to a jam on Thursday night, but every day multiple jams. You'll have a lot of exposure to noodling, which is what I call it when you don't know the tune or you only know it a little bit. Have your fiddle up on your shoulder and you're trying to pick out a few notes. And if the tune gets repeated, you get to pick out hopefully a few more notes every time. I encourage people to noodle especially when I'm leading a jam, that's a beginner jam or a slow jam. I'll kind of explain what it is and say it's totally fine to do this. 

If you don't know the tune at all maybe don't play as loud as you can while you're trying to get it. But if you want to quietly noodle along, that's highly encouraged. I love to noodle it jams it definitely depends on how tired I am and how much familiarity I have with the tune. If it's the beginning of the night, I might be noodling along on everything I don't know. By the end of the night, a very notey real comes up, I'm much more likely to just put my fiddle down and drink my beer and enjoy the experience. 

Hearing the chords played, and the steady beat of an accompaniment is also a really big asset for going to a camp, we normally don't play with accompaniment at home. In my fiddle lessons, I try to accompany my students every week, it's not a big part of the lesson. If you go to a camp where there's accompaniment several times a day or throughout the camp, you'll really be hearing the rhythm and the timing of the tunes. How a jig sounds and feels different from a real and how a waltz sounds and feels different from an air that's in four. And you'll get a sense of that because you'll be hearing the accompaniment. 

Also just for playing in tune, hearing the chords behind it or how the notes line up with the key. I find that students play much better in tune when they're hearing the chords. And when they've heard them enough that they internalize the key. They have a sense of the resting tone. They have a sense of the dominant tone in the background of when they're playing they're hearing the tonality, and it's really going to help you play in tune. 

The whole immersion experience, I think is why people find going away to camp to be very moving. When you talk to people about their experiences at Pinewoods or Ashokan. Even the kids who have come to my camp, just a little day fiddling camp for many years. They'll say things like 'this was life changing. It was magical. It was amazing.' I think that really speaks to all of the things you learn just beyond a few new tunes. So go to camp. Plan on it for next year.

Our tune today is from the same Irish session I've been pulling from from, that Bru House session. I have this waltz and two more tunes. So this waltz is called Sí Bheag Sí Mhór. It's a very famous Irish waltz in D. It was composed by the blind Irish harpist Turlough O'Carolan, the years I have are 1672-1738. 

O'Carolan played for many years as a harpist before beginning to compose tunes and ended up composing a whole repertoire of fiddle tunes and dance music in traditional Irish style. The story about Sí Bheag Sí Mhór is that it was his first attempt at composition. His teacher said it's time for you to start making up your own tunes, sent him home. He wrote this waltz, which is a beautiful waltz. The title could be big hill, little hill or even big fairy Hill little fairy Hill. 

Charley and I are going to play it here for you.I hope you enjoy it.

Hey, thanks so much for listening. You can head over to fiddlestudio.com for the sheet music to this and all of the tunes I teach. I'll be back next time with another tune for you have a wonderful day.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Ashokan Farewell Sheet Music





Sound File


This waltz was made popular by it's use as the theme for Ken Burns' Civil War Documentary. It is not actually from the civil war era, but was written 25 years ago by Jay Unger.