After nine months of violin lessons (and practice!), it’s satisfying to be able to see actual improvement. I can play some basic minuets, my scales keep improving, and my general intonation also sounds better. I’m working on controlled staccato bowing and being able to execute 16th notes (so fast!), thankfully not at the same time. But lately it’s been, well, feeling a bit dull.<\/p>\n
![](\"http:\/\/craigduncan.net\/music\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/04\/masterfiddling.jpg\")
Not so any more! I asked my teacher if I could learn some fiddle technique, since she also plays fiddle music. She immediately recommended “the only fiddle book you’ll ever need,” which turned out to be “The Craig Duncan Master Fiddle Solo Collection.”<\/p>\n
Fiddling is done on a violin, but with a different style and some different techniques. My first fiddle tune is “Cripple Creek,” which is so simple that I was able to sight-read and play it for the first time during the lesson with only a couple of mistakes. It still astonishes me every time my teacher presents me with music I’ve never seen and apparently expects me to read and play it in real time, like this is the most normal thing in the world, even though we’ve never actually talked about or worked on sight-reading. It’s always an adrenaline rush and one of those surprise-myself things when I manage it.<\/p>\n
But ah! After this simple tune comes some variations, one of which has two “slides” (which my teacher insists are not<\/em> glissando, but I don’t know the difference yet). To play a slide, you start on one note and slide into the second. It sounds, and it is, fun! (Some of the fun is because it feels like you’re breaking a rule. On the violin, you’re taught to avoid sliding into your pitches, as you’d rather hit them correctly on contact.)<\/p>\n Once I master the tune, the next step is to add a “drone.” This seems to be where you play everything in double-stops: the bow touches the string you’re playing on and a neighboring string… ON PURPOSE! Another rule to break! The result is a series of chords instead of single notes, and it sounds really neat and fiddle-y when done right. When done wrong, it sounds awful. Like so many things.<\/p>\n I couldn’t resist trying out some more tunes in this book (there are 150 total). I found “Star of the County Down,” thinking it was one of my favorite Emerald Rose songs<\/a> (which actually doesn’t feature a violin, which should have been a clue). Instead, it is this haunting and beautiful waltz<\/a>. I’ve also started playing “Turkey in the Straw,” because really, who doesn’t like that song?<\/p>\n My conclusion: fiddle tunes are just FUN! Violin practice has now become the treat I reward myself with after getting chores done, instead of a chore itself. :)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After nine months of violin lessons (and practice!), it’s satisfying to be able to see actual improvement. I can play some basic minuets, my scales keep improving, and my general intonation also sounds better. I’m working on controlled staccato bowing and being able to execute 16th notes (so fast!), thankfully not at the same time. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[34],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2958"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2958"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2971,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2958\/revisions\/2971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}