Fiddlosophy

Overcoming Fiddle Demons

It’s almost Halloween, a strange holiday when we get to try on different identities. By dressing up as demons, ghosts, zombies and other monsters, we explore the dark side of our personality: fear of death, doubts and self-loathing. Are these monsters real? Do they actually exist? I can’t say for sure. I’ve never seen a … Continued

Tone-building And Looping

In this post, I’ll show you how to alternate between tone-building with looping. This to make your practice fun and productive. Say you’re working on the first quarter of any tune. I’ll use Blackest Crow in the video. Use the practice of tone-building to make each and every note sound good. Some tone-building techniques: Throw-away … Continued

Are scales really necessary?

Somebody recently wrote to me asking, “Are scales necessary to learn if all you play is old-time music?” The short answer is no …but scales will help you tremendously. And you might be surprised by how fun they can be. Maybe you had a bad experience with a draconian music teacher. And now you fear and … Continued

Leverage

A FiddleHed named Bob wrote to say that after playing banjo for seven years, he became fascinated with what his fiddler pals were doing. “How on earth can those fiddle players do that?” he asked himself. “I decided I’d give it a try.” Hats off to you Bob! Though I haven’t learned banjo, I have studied … Continued

Play Every Thing Twice

A good rule of thumb is to play everything at least twice on the fiddle: scales, exercises, melodic phrases, and full tunes. Notice what happens the second time through Do your hands relax a bit? Can you listen more closely to what you’re playing? Does the mind relax? Can you move from thinking to playing? … Continued

What are the best scales to learn on the fiddle?

The better you know your scales, the more quickly you can pick up tunes. Scales don’t have to be torture.  There’s an art to making them fun. Practice them along with tunes that use that scale. Simply alternate between a tune and it’s scale. Then you’ll start to hear the scale in the tune. And you’ll hear … Continued

Fiddling With Flow

“Learning the fiddle is hard because there’s too much to remember all at once!”  I hear some variation on this a lot from people in comments and emails. As a student, it’s challenging to keep track of all the different things you have to do when playing the fiddle. Is the bow parallel to the … Continued

Old Town Road – Fiddle Cover

Pop song in G# Minor | Intermediate Here’s a fiddle cover of “Old Town Road,”a hip-hop country song by Little Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus. It’s the debut performance by KittyFiddler, a strange new character roaming the hills and valleys of San Francisco. While bringing unexpected joy to casual passersby, KittyFiddler’s very presence has also incurred … Continued

I Can’t Fiddle Fast Enough!

“I can’t play it fast enough! How can I speed up this tune to the right speed? Will I EVER be able to do it?” Before we get into how to play faster, I want to ask you something. Why do you want to play fast?  “Because I heard a famous fiddler play it fast.” … Continued

Six Ways To Overcome Fiddle Frustration

A lot of you have told me that you’re frustrated because your current level of playing is nowhere near where you want to be. You want to be ripping mind-crunching solos like Mark O’Connor. But it seems like you’ll never get there. In this Fiddlosophy post, I’m going to suggest six ways to overcome fiddle … Continued