Amber Thompson

Interleaving is alternating between different skills as you practice.

Instead of pounding away at a difficult scale for an entire session, a difficult bowing in another session, and then a hard tune in […]

Did you know that you can change the speed of videos?

Here’s how.

Hover the cursor over the settings wheel.
You’ll see a popup window.
Click Playback speed.

You can choose a pre-set […]

It would be nice if we could make music all day long. But life gets in the way: work, chores, social obligations, health issues. Shoot, sometimes we just need to relax on the couch with Netflix. So most of us have […]

A student named Abee was taking my recent lesson on Sliding The Left-hand Fingers.

In the video, I mention how the chromatic scale can help with sliding. More on that in a minute. First, this scale contains […]

Most people learn an instrument because they want to have fun. They want to do something enjoyable. Others may thrive on the sense of accomplishment. It’s important to constantly return to the joy and fun of […]

Document Your Fiddle Journey 🎯 What You’ll Learn Feeling stuck or unsure if you’re improving? This lesson introduces a simple, powerful practice: recording yourself. By creating shor […]

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 […]

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 […]