Fiddlosophy

I Just Can’t Make It Sound Good Today!

Do you ever feel that way? Have you ever thought, “It sounded so much better yesterday! Why is it so much worse today?” I think this happens to everyone. And it is especially apparent for beginners. I’ve been playing for almost forty years, but there are still times when I play better or worse. So … Continued

Work At Your Edge

If you want to get better at the fiddle, you need to carefully work at the edge of your abilities. Strike a balance between easy and hard. Try to practice things that are in the “Goldlilocks zone” of difficulty: not too easy and not too hard. If a task is too easy you get bored. … Continued

Mistakes And Discoveries

For all my talk of playing every day and focusing your practice, I still fail to do these things at times, even after almost forty years of playing music. For instance, I set a practice challenge goal of an hour a day, and have stuck to it except for last Saturday. I spent the morning … Continued

Branching Streams

On the first day of the Fall Practice Challenge, I wrote a new tune which I called Branching Streams. It seemed like a good way to practice certain intervals, like A0-D3, D0-G3 and A0-3 which are challenging but good practice for students. So I’m sharing a recording and TABS below:   Branching Streams A PART: … Continued

Repeat A Thousand Times

Earl Scruggs wrote a banjo book and in it, he shows how to do an exercise and then says, “Repeat a thousand times”. It may sound funny (and it is) but it’s true. You may think you know something, but you can always go further. You may think you’ve practiced something enough and are ready … Continued

Keep Your Brain In The Game

Adding variations is a way to keep your brain in the game. The body needs to do things over and over in order to learn, but the brain gets bored. Variations are a great way to keep the mind engaged in repetitive practice. And variations also help your arms, hands, fingers and ears learn music … Continued

How To Learn Tunes From Recordings

Can’t figure out how to play the B part of Bill Cheatham because the band is playing it so fast? You could have your teacher slowly teach you each part of the tune and then practice the parts on your own until you can play the whole thing. Or you could learn it with me … Continued

How To Improve Your Violin Playing Through Recording

You can accelerate your progress on the fiddle if you record yourself playing and then listen back to it. Do this on a daily basis. If you’re learning on your own, you need to Be Your Own Teacher, and so recording yourself is especially useful. Maybe even necessary. Recording provides you with the feedback you … Continued

Fisherman’s Blues

I recently did a lesson on how to play the solo from the song Fisherman’s Blues. My first girlfriend introduced to this magical album of the same title by The Waterboys. At the time I was a junior in college, learning jazz, playing in the university symphony and not doing any kind of fiddle music. … Continued

Slow Down To Speed Up

Music teachers are always trying to get students to slow down. Maybe they should tell them playing extremely slow is the Jedi-knight secret to playing fast. It may seem counter-intuitive, but if you practice slowly and carefully, you’ll be able to play tunes faster and learn them in less time. But don’t let speed be … Continued