The Fiddle Thread, For all things traditional Options

[sarah123]

I'd still tell people - at least for the first few years - to avoid any kind of notation system and listen to the tunes played by real people, and learn them by ear. That way you pick up the right feel, rhythm, swing, ornamentation, variations etc right from the start.

I'd find it frustrating if I didn't have a copy of the music as I have a habit of getting home from a lesson and already I've forgotten most of the tune I just learned. For the first couple of weeks I didn't realise you can easily get most fiddle tunes on the internet, so i was stuck not being able to practice at all.

Most people coming from classical music do find it frustrating at first, but you really do need to let go of the scores - most top irish and scots musicians agree that a score should only be used by a very advanced player who is already comfortable with the idiom - if you're just starting out, the score may seem like it's helping you but you ultimately end up stuck in a version of the tune - even if it's one with variations and ornaments etc - it will ultimately hamper your ability to pull new variations and ornamentations out of the hat on the spur of the moment, and to vary your style to fit in with the people you're playing with.

I totally understand how it feels though - I was convinced that I would never be able to remember them without the scores and it was hard for the first few months, but now I find it so easy that in the midst of a session, I can usually play a tune I've never heard before by the second time through and am quite solid by the third.

Give it a go - go on, go on, you know you want to (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I can remember them without the scores eventually and I try not to play directly from the scores, but especially with new tunes, I need something to jog my memory (I have a short term memory comparable to that of your average goldfish!). The week before last, in my lesson we did that white petticoat tune and I had it pretty much there, but i forgot to ask the name. By the time I got home, literally all i could remember was 3 notes of it. I spent the entire week really annoyed that I couldn't play it at all.

The notes on the score may not be exactly the ones that you play, but they do help you remember how the tune goes.

[rosfrog]

Hence the purpose of learning to sing the tunes before playing them. All good trad players do this - they listen to it until they can sing it, and then they start to play - that way you don't forget!

It could be that you're an exception, but everyone I've seen try to learn with scores ends up hampering their progress and some of the top teachers report this too. Remember that in the course of a session, you may have to play up to five hundred tunes if it's a good one - you'll need to remember them!

Try it for a week - listen to a tune over and over, don't read the dots. Once you can sing it, pick up your fiddle and then play it. You'll be surprised at the results and you'll find you won't forget the tune.
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[sarah123]

Hence the purpose of learning to sing the tunes before playing them. All good trad players do this - they listen to it until they can sing it, and then they start to play - that way you don't forget!

It could be that you're an exception, but everyone I've seen try to learn with scores ends up hampering their progress and some of the top teachers report this too. Remember that in the course of a session, you may have to play up to five hundred tunes if it's a good one - you'll need to remember them!

Try it for a week - listen to a tune over and over, don't read the dots. Once you can sing it, pick up your fiddle and then play it. You'll be surprised at the results and you'll find you won't forget the tune.
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

and where might i find a tune to listen to?

[rosfrog]

Well, on a CD of a good fiddler would be the best place to start (your teacher will have recommended people to listen to?), if you haven't got any CD's you could start with Youtube - search for any of the great fiddlers (Frankie Gavin, Liz Carroll, Fergal Scahill, Gerry O'Connor etc if you like Irish, Alasdair Fraser, Alasdair White etc if you like Scottish - if it's English you're doing, river will advise you better than I).

This really is an Aural tradition - build yourself a huge library of the playing of great players and listen to it - it's the only way to get it right - just like the only way to learn a language is to listen to it spoken by native speakers and copy - sure you can learn bits from books, but it will always sound unnatural and odd that way.

Plus it's an excellent excuse to buy shedloads of new CD's!

Maybe even try listening to the White Petticoat on youtube and seeing how different people play it - that would be a great way to get used to it.

[Devil_Fiddler]

Hi, just sticking my head round the door to say great thread (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Haven't got time to read it all through at the moment, but I'll sit down some time and digest it all and look at the tunes etc. and maybe offer some of my own. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[rosfrog]

Brill, Anna - Please do post some tunes, or observations on stylistic playing etc. The more the merrier !

Allan (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Celeste]

What a great thread - thank you, Allan. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[rosfrog]

No problem, Miss Ross! I bet you've got a few nice Scottish tunes hiding up your sleeve, hae ye no ? Go on, post one!

[lottie]

If you learn the tunes by singing them first how do you know you're playing them in the right key?

Or are there just standard keys everyone uses? Or do you practice them in every key? And then in a session does someone announce the key before you all start to play?

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif) I'm never going to pick this up (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

[rosfrog]

That's a good question, Lottie (and of course you'll get it!)

Most traditional tunes, with very few exceptions, are written in G, D, A, E, F and C major, the relative minors and the modes (mostly dorian and mixolydian) thereof. You get the odd tune in Eb or Bb, but it's quite rare.

When starting out, it's best to learn 'standard' tunes that you know other trad players will definitely play - whilst the standards vary from one session to another, there's a body of a good thousand tunes or so that most sessions will know, or at least have one other player that knows. As all good traditional musicians learn by ear, you can bet safely that these standard tunes have come from Standard recordings so the first thing to do is listen to standard recordings (using the artist names I've mentioned) - perhaps I'll post a wee list to get people going as well.

I say sing them, but that's because I'm a singer - you can also just listen to them over and over until you've got the melody in your head perfectly. Because these tunes are short, you can get that very quickly - it used to take me around a day, now it's a matter of minutes - it gets easier because the same figures keep repeating (doh, mi, doh, soh, doh, mi - for example) in a lot of tunes.

So, choose your tune - let's say the jig saddle the pony - then you listen to a version of it over and over again - preferably from a 'standard recording'. Those that are really score dependent (as I was - I was definitely one of the 'Oh, I understand that's what you're meant to do, but I can't do that - I NEED the score' crowd !) can use software to really slow the tune down without changing the key - then it becomes a matter of listening to it slowly until it sticks.

Then try playing with the recording slowly - stopping as often as you need to.

Then gradually speed up. Session speed is ridiculous, though, and it will probably take a while to get that fast with good execution, rhythm and ornamentation, but that's ok - play your tunes as fast as you can play them well and you'll gradually reach session speed. When you're a little below session speed, start to go to sessions and let them 'drag' you higher as it were.

Once your tune is under your fingers, listen to lots of versions of it to hear how a traditional musician will spontaneously vary the melody, use chords and double stopping, ornament, swing the rhythm (good excuse to go to lots of ceilidhs here...) and add one, just one, variant or ornament to each part of the tune.

You'll find - especially if you think you can't do it - that when you learn your first tune by ear, you'll be so proud of yourself!

The second one will be easier again and it just gets quicker from then on in.

So, you've learned your jig in the same tune as the recording, then you go to your session and have a go! Very rarely you'll find that they play the tune in a different key at the session - that won't matter, if it's you that starts the tune, the others (if they're good) will spontaneously play it in your key instead of the more usual key.

The freedom you get to focus on the actual music when you're not using a score is excellent!

So, here's the challenge - go to youtube, click on fiddle4u's channel and look for his version of saddle the pony - it's about as standard as you can get. Listen to it (he plays it very slowly and he's not the most technically assured player, but he does have a cracking swing!) and see if you can learn it. I bet you can!

[rosfrog]

Here's this evening's offering - a really easy reel - but such a nice sounding one.

X: 1
T: Old Copperplate, The
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Ador
A2 EA cAAe|aged cAFA|G2 DG BGBd|gedc BAGB|
A2 EA cAAe| aged cAGB|ABcd efge|aged cA A2 :|
ageg a2 eg|aged cA A2| gfef g2 ef|gfge dBGB|
ageg a2 eg|aged cAGB|ABcd efge|aged cA A2 :|

So, in Irish fiddle style, the reel is a 4/4 dance, played with essentially just two beats to the bar and a fairly marked accent on the off beat to make it swing.

A good bowing strategy on this one would be to bow by threes, with a separate note now and then - for example, in the first part perhaps we could bow it :

(upbow) A2 (downbow)E (upbow) ACA (downbow) e | ag (downbow) e (upbow) d (downbow) c (upbow) A (downbow) F A G(doublestopping with open G).

Just an idea!

Hope you like it.

[Gorf]

hi Sandy! don't worry--not only do i remember what it was like as a beginner, i am in fact still a beginner myself, so i can relate ;-)

well, to start, here's a nice English tune i've been playing this week:

X:1
T:Old Tom of Oxford
K:Dmaj
M:4/4
L:1/4
|: A B/c/ d A | G F E F/E/ | D F/G/ A d | c d e c/B/ |
A B/c/ d A | G F E (3A/B/c/ | d A G F | E2 D2 :|
|: F A F A | F A d/c/B/A/ | G B G B | G B d/c/B/A/ |
F A F G | A B/c/ d (3A/B/c/ | d A G F | E2 D2 :|

this is a good tune to play around with--i like to play the quavers slighted dotted, almost like a jig, and the B part almost cries out for a bit of double stopping.

Now I am very confused! I'll stick to learning notes and things for the moment. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/party1.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/party1.gif)

[rosfrog]

Hi Sandy,

Don't worry about it if the ABC looks a bit odd - if you can only get your head round dots for now, you can paste the tune into an ABC convertor and it will generate a score for you!

[all ears]

By the way, what do X and L refer to?

[river]

By the way, what do X and L refer to?

X is the "index" of the tune. it's used in collections of ABC (tunebooks): you write several ABCs in one text file, one after the each, and give each one a different X: number. then you can refer to a particular tune by its number. (it's more useful for computer programs than humans--but to be a technically correct ABC file, the X: is required, so i always write X:1 when writing out a single tune.)

L is the length of a "plain" note. for example, 1/4 would be a crotchet ("quarter note" in Americanese), so "| A B C D |" would be four crotchets. if i'd written L:1/8, "| A B C D |" would be four quavers (eighth notes) instead. L:1/8 is actually a lot more common in tunes like this (especially fast tunes like reels) but i felt L:1/4 was more readable here.

you can still change the length of a note from the default L: length; e.g. A/2 for an A half the length of the default, A/4 for a quarter the length, etc. you can abbreviate /2 to just "/"; so in "A B/c/ d", the B and c are half the length of a 1/4 note, making them 1/8 notes. to make a note longer, write A2, A4, etc. if i'd written this using L:1/8, the first line would look like this:
|: A2 Bc d2 A2 | G2 F2 E2 FE | D2 FG A2 d2 | c2 d2 e2 cB |

rosfrog--do you know the reel Eddie Moloney's Favourite? this reminds me rather a lot of that! unfortunately i didn't get very far with your jig, but i shall have a stab at this one today...