Fiddlosophy

Lesson with Dayved on strumming and bowing chords

Dayved has been my student and friend for 8 years. He plays viola along with violin and loves Eastern European music.Here’s a clip from a zoom lesson with my student Dayved on strumming and bowing chords.   Dayved is a big part of why FiddleHed exists today. Back in the day, we would have a … Continued

Lesson with Jim on Arkansas Traveller

Here’s a clip from a zoom lesson with my friend Jim… He’s working on on the B part of “Arkansas Traveller.” This is a great tune for micro-practice. Play just the first four notes until you feel your body and breath relax: E3-L2-1-3. Once this starts to flow and sound better, move on to the … Continued

Newsletter July 24, 2020

Hey Folks, There’s still time to enter the zoom lesson giveaway. It ends on Monday at 12 pm PT. Six fiddle students will win a 30-minute online lesson with me. You have a decent chance of winning this since less than 200 people have entered so far. Follow the link below to the homepage for … Continued

Student Stories: Dan H.

Here’s a clip from a zoom lesson with my student Dan on the Georgia Shuffle. Dan is one of the most inspiring students I’ve worked with. A few years ago he suffered a massive stroke. He lost motor control for much of the left side of his body. He was out of commission for a … Continued

Re-post: Renew With Review

Think about the word “review”. It doesn’t sound as fun and exciting as the word “new”. It sounds like maintenance, which sounds like cleaning toilets. But review can be a lot more fun than cleaning toilets (unless you are a fully enlightened being who has learned to equally love every single activity in each moment … Continued

End on a High Note

Try to end your practice sessions on a high note instead of in a state of frustration. At the end of the session, I want you to be saying, “Yes!!” instead of “Rats!!”  Say you’re learning something hard like a fingered double stops scale. You spent half an hour practicing this, your time’s almost … Continued

Re-post: The Four Elements of Good Sound

Do you want to improve the sound of your fiddling? If so, separately work on these four things: tone, tuning, timing and flow. I recently updated an older post on this called The Four Elements of Good Sound. Thanks for reading, and thanks for making music…

Hang in There!

Faith, Evidence and Practice When learning a challenging new skill, we take a leap of faith that we’ll be able to do it. We feel uncertainty and fear, but also excitement and joy. But for the long haul, we’ll need more than just faith. We’ll need to see some evidence that our practice is working. … Continued

How To Use Evernote To Practice Music

I use an app called Evernote to help me track when I practice. It allows me to take text notes, record myself, and embed images all on one page. I can easily keep track of stuff I’ve been practicing over the last month. In this lesson, I’ll show you how I use this cool app. … Continued

America Fiddles – The Early Days

Written by Jim Guinn The Early Days Long a popular European musical instrument and because it was small and easily portable, the fiddle found its way to America packed away in the meager possessions of the first explorers, traders, and settlers to our shores. For years, the fiddle was virtually the only instrument found on … Continued