Your fingers know the truth.

I have been visiting my son Graham in California in recent days, and I left my fiddle behind in New Hampshire. I never would have done that if he didn't have a very nice fiddle, so I am not stranded without one. Every time I pick up Graham's fiddle, it takes me a while to play it in tune. It's not the fiddle; it's me. My left hand is just very used to my instrument, and though the two fiddles are set up pretty much the same, they are just different enough so that the "feel" takes some getting used to. This is nothing new. Any fiddle has its own personality, and it takes some time to get acquainted.

Tablature vs. classical notation--Which is better?

So what is fiddle tablature anyway? It is a method of writing down a tune that tells you at least three things: (1) which string to play, (2) which left hand finger to use on that string, and (3) how long the note lasts. The method does not rely on "notes." By that I mean you won't see lots of dots with stems running up and down, some with little curly flags at the ends; and there is no "staff". The lines you see in tablature instead represent the fiddle strings themselves (though some prefer to use five lines and have the spaces between the lines represent the fiddle strings). Either way, when you see a number on a line (or in a space between two lines), you know what string you should be playing, and the number itself tells you which finger to press down on it. The problem with classical notation is that it is a great deal more complicated than tablature, but for all that complexity, it fails to convey what the fiddler really wants to know: Which string? Which finger? Classical notation does do an excellent job of passing along the third piece of information (how long the note lasts), but even that is not simple and takes a long time to learn.

In my case, I learned classical notation as a very small child, and so it seems to me that I have always understood it, Even so, I think most fiddlers are better off with tablature, especially if they are in the beginner or intermediate stages of learning.

There is one shortcoming that tablature usually shares with classical notation--neither tells the player how to bow the tune. Bowing, of course, is the essence of fiddling (and violin playing for that matter), so this seems like a pretty glaring omission. NOT TO WORRY. I have developed a simple way of adding this ingredient to tablature, and it can make all the difference. Using this method, even the beginner can learn to bow a tune so that it sounds like fiddle music instead of just a series of notes played with the so-called saw stroke. More on that in another post.

Should you be learning tunes from a MIDI player? Maybe.

There are several sites on the internet that offer traditional tunes in a MIDI format. You can just click on the tune and something that sounds a little like a piano dinks out the notes of the tune. This is pretty cool. It serves a purpose, but it's important to keep the limitations of this format in mind. The main problem with it is that it drains all the rhythm out of the tune. Duh! It is, after all, a computer reading a piece of sheet music. If you use this method to learn a tune, and you don't already have a clear idea of what the rhythm is, you won't be any the wiser for learning this way. If you are a beginner or intermediate player, you should consider staying away from the MIDI format until you are sure the rhythmic shortcomings of the technology won't lead you astray. Remember that most of these tunes are dance tunes. When they are played well, they reach out, grab people, and make them tap their feet whether they want to or not. This is magical. This is glorious. It's not the melody that makes it happen; it's the rhythm.

Bowing Tip: Use the classical grip.

At any gathering of fiddlers, you will see a variety of methods for holding the bow. Some players have only a couple of fingers over the top of the stick; others hold the bow closer to the mid-point than the end. Not all of these methods are good. I have noticed that if a player is getting really good tone, especially on slower pieces with longer notes, he is almost certainly using the classical grip. This means that the bow is held near the end (at the frog), the tip of the thumb touches the stick at the pad and is used as a pivot point, and all four fingers rest on the top of the stick in a relaxed way. This is necessary because you need both the first and little fingers to control the bow properly. The first finger's job is to apply downward pressure when the contact point is near the tip of the bow. The tip of the little finger must be near the very end of the bow (for the adult hand maybe 1.5 to 2 inches from the end) to counter balance the weight of the stick when the contact point is near the bow hand. These things are essential for good tone, and they can't happen if the bow is held with some kind of "shortened" grip, or if only a couple of fingers are on the stick. I have heard people say that the best way to hold the bow is the way that feels most comfortable. Not true. Consider this: The bow was designed to be held with the classical grip. If you want to get the most out of it, use it as it was designed to be used.

BTW: I am well aware that some fiddlers don't want to do anything the way classical players do it. If you feel this way, you need to chill. Just steal the classical grip from the symphony players and tell people you learned it from your uncle in Appalachia.

Are you trying to play too fast?

If you listen to much fiddle music, you know that some tunes are played pretty fast--especially in the bluegrass and Irish traditions. If you are a beginner or intermediate player, you might be tempted to try to play at that same speed. This is natural, but it is almost always a big mistake; and you need to fight the temptation. If you don't, you'll soon make a habit of dropping notes and slurring your fingering, and the rhythm of the tune will just disappear. If this sounds like you, try this cure. Get a metronome and set it at a slow speed. Take a favorite tune and play it at that speed. If all the notes don't come out clean and rhythmically correct, slow the metronome down some more and try again. Once you find a pace where you can play the tune really well, force yourself to practice the tune at that speed for a few minutes each day for a week or so. Then try a few other tunes at that same pace. Once you can play maybe 4-6 tunes really well at this very slow speed, pick up the pace a little, but not much. The objective is to build speed slowly over time, and not lose the clean notes and solid rhythm that you found with the slow approach. If you can make yourself go through this process (think "no pain; no gain), you'll do your playing a real favor.

Learn to play fiddle in minutes? I don't think so.

Not too long ago, I saw an ad on the internet claiming that you could learn to play fiddle in just a few minutes. If you have been struggling and wondering why you don't sound great after only a few minutes, forget it. It doesn't happen for anybody. Learning to play the fiddle takes awhile, even if you are very gifted and have a great teacher. I don't know what can be learned in a few minutes, but it sure won't sound like anything that you, or anybody else, will want to hear. There is no "miracle method" that instantly will turn you into a good player. Patient, steady progress over time is the key.

Should you play the notes as written?

Sometimes, maybe; but definitely not if the tune is a jig. We don't have many jigs in traditional American fiddling, but in the Irish tradition they are a mainstay. In most tune books featuring standard music notation, jigs are written in 6/8 time with two barred sets of 3 eighth notes per measure. On the page, each eighth note has the same value. If you play it like that, though, it sounds pretty awful. The trick is to play the first note in each set of three notes for a little longer, and shorten up on the time devoted to the middle note in the set of three. The last note in the set is not shortened or lengthened--It gets the time value of a regular eighth note. You'll get the hang of this if you try holding the first note almost the value of 2 eighth notes, and then quickly squeezing the middle note in just before you play the third note. Click HERE to hear the difference. In the first part of the clip I play the first few notes of Connachtman's Rambles as they are written in most books. The second part shows how the tune sounds if you accent the first note in each set of three, draw it out so that there is very little time left for the second note, then squeeze the second note in just before the third note, and then play the third note as a normal eighth note.

Become a better fiddler

For me, much of the fun of playing the fiddle comes from constantly trying to become a better player. Even after 35 years, I get the most satisfaction from improving. I know there are fiddlers out there who have been playing the same tunes for years, always exactly the same way, and apparently they are happy with that. I'm not. The really good players I know became really good players by always trying to improve. They love working on a new tune, or a new riff or ornament, or adding something new to an old tune that takes it to a new level. That's where the real fun is.

Because I like playing fiddle so much, I tend to give it a fair amount of thought. In the past, most of these flashes of insight have just disappeared because I have not written them down. Sad, really; but no longer. This blog will have my tips and observations on lots of fiddle-related stuff, including the care and feeding of the instrument, how to practice, how to play music with others, session and pickin' party etiquette, sources for good fiddle music, sources for learning tunes, good ways to approach learning a new tune, etc.