Pete Healy

I like this a lot – a LOT! My fiddle’s with a local luthier getting a new bridge, but I should get it back tomorrow (knock on wood), and I can’t wait to start using this approach!

I think the “Play Slowly” is suitable for framing, for its message and its style! 🙂👍

In terms of practice techniques, not just letting myself play slowly, but actually *savoring* the sound of playing slowly. And then with that, from the standpoint of emotional engagement, letting myself smile – sometimes even laugh – at those moments where I struggle (instead of getting frustrated and quitting).

By the way, you really should *categorize* this page so it’s easier to find and return to! (For now I’ve saved it as a Favorite, but that doesn’t help others who may never stumble across it!)

Fantastic article and examples! Thanks for a powerful Music History course in miniature!

A fiddle lesson from a hospital waiting room. A life lesson. I’m so deeply happy to be part of this community. 🙂

Thrilled to have become a FiddleHed early this year, just a few months after I started learning fiddle! What a fantastic community, guided by an amazing teacher in Jason! Really looking forward to going and growing as a FiddleHed in 2023. Happy New Year!

I’m barely one year in to fiddling and am thrilled at how this has reignited musical skills I learned nearly 50 years ago as a Music major, but never used in my career. (I’m recently retired.) So this lesson hits me deeply, and gives me yet another reason to be very thankful that I came across FiddleHed.

Good lesson, but here’s a mundane question: How can I mark this lesson as Complete so the donut graphic for Mod 2.2 will show as 100%?

Excellent lesson because small loops (or micro-practices) let me focus on better intonation and more efficient fingerings. Btw, I was going to bookmark and start using Tuning Exercises, but the link above just took me to what seems to be an unmaintained page.

Just read your email, “How To Sing And Play Backup” and couldn’t believe that the original “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” was in F#! Checked the official YT video on my keyboard and found it was true. Seems like such an UNidiomatic key for any of the instruments involved. I wonder if it was really done in F or G, then slid with the recording…[Read more]

Hey, back again because there’s some great call-and-response with a fiddle on Cyndi Lauper’s recording of the Country song, “Begging To You.” Fits perfectly with the “how to play on songs” theme!

Very cool! Yes, the mix of simple rhythms, chords and arpeggios, and short riffs really works well. And the “Norwegian Wood” interlude is frosting on the cake!