groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/25/2020:  05:19:57

Cool that Dave is here, and linking to that awesome thread from years back that changed my way of thinking for the rest of my life! I'm so glad I ran into that early in my playing and thinking about fiddling.

On Fujers/Jerry's behalf, I have to say I have run into other people who also called the shuffles the same as he did...he wasn't alone in that.

I guess I've flip-flopped all around on bowing...early on I was all for learning different bowings, later I resisted and thought, blah...then came back, left again...I kept comparing it to when I learned guitar, since I learned as a child and focused on finger picking patterns I struggled to learn, then, after many years playing, they just popped out of my fingers without my knowledge and when other people asked me to show them what I did I was at a total loss to know what I was doing...yet, there were early years I worked hard on those finger picking patterns. I don't play gutiar half as much as I used to, but to this day, if I try to show anybody what my right hand is doing, I fumble and stumble in the darkness and can't play anything at all...I have to not think about that by this time, 56 years later.

With fiddle, I'm not at that point...I'm aware of what my bow is doing, yet sort of surprised by how "off the cuff" I am with it too...kinda scary...if you just find yourself throwing your bowing around you can trip up...I'm getting to where that's not a regular thing, though still a danger. I've only been fiddling for 11 years now...still green.

TuneWeaver - Posted - 02/25/2020:  05:47:35

Recently I watched this really good fiddler struggling to play in a jam in which others kept speeding up/ playing out of tune/ etc... Well, you guys probably didn't know this but I'm fluent at Morse Code.. Yep.. The look in that fiddlers eyes when he looked my way made me realize that he was trying to Signal me with Morse Code using the Long-short movement of his bow.. I watched carefully and interpreted what words he was spelling out with his bow..."Too Late For Me..Save Yourself.. Stay Out Of This Jam." Ya can't make this stuff up..

dsreiner - Posted - 02/25/2020:  06:10:34

Interesting that Groundhogpeggy brings up guitar playing...

Tracy Silverman has recently written a transformational book called "The Strum Bowing Method - How to Groove on Strings" that takes guitarists' catchy strums and applies them to fiddle and cello and string rhythm sections, through a combination of patterns, chops, rocks, ghost notes, and more. It's a new approach that is catching on, although not necessarily "traditional."

tracysilverman.com/featured-ne...m-bowing/ Tracy's comments

youtube.com/watch?v=a3gXiYhvaFE a video taste

NFI.

Dave

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/25/2020:  09:07:59

I didn't have time to watch the whole video, but I think I got the gist. And this reminds me, once more of the banjo player from WV, Dwight Diller. He's all about the right hand in his clawhammering...and from many discussions with him via email and in person, plus watching his video, Just Rhythm, intended to teach clawhammer rhythm...I think I really got the feel for my bowing...even moreso than my clawhammering, which is what my intention was to hone in on. Dwight goes into dividing those beats, but doesn't call it that...still does a great job spelling it out in Just Rhythm.

It is interesting that guitar strumming is virtually the same thing. I've never been much on strumming, but learned fingerpicking, which I guess would be more along the lines of Scruggs style banjo...to get the major rhythms in and at the same sneak in those other little rhythms that bring it all to life. I worked hard at getting my fingerpicking...but forgot what each finger does when...even though I think I still do all of that...just at the point, decades later, that...well, I'm not as good as somebody who's played on and off for almost 60 years oughta be, but I'm comfortable enough with it that I can only do it if I don't try to think about what I'm doing...lol. The patterns are there, though.

Dave, I remember well that bowing thread you started and so many others go into from years back...I guess you didn't realize how much you helped self taught people like me to figure out what exactly to think of our bows...but you did help me a lot...so...big thanks for that!

dsreiner - Posted - 02/25/2020:  09:41:26

quote:

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Originally posted by groundhogpeggy

I didn't have time to watch the whole video, but I think I got the gist. And this reminds me, once more of the banjo player from WV, Dwight Diller. He's all about the right hand in his clawhammering...and from many discussions with him via email and in person, plus watching his video, Just Rhythm, intended to teach clawhammer rhythm...I think I really got the feel for my bowing...even moreso than my clawhammering, which is what my intention was to hone in on. Dwight goes into dividing those beats, but doesn't call it that...still does a great job spelling it out in Just Rhythm.



It is interesting that guitar strumming is virtually the same thing. I've never been much on strumming, but learned fingerpicking, which I guess would be more along the lines of Scruggs style banjo...to get the major rhythms in and at the same sneak in those other little rhythms that bring it all to life. I worked hard at getting my fingerpicking...but forgot what each finger does when...even though I think I still do all of that...just at the point, decades later, that...well, I'm not as good as somebody who's played on and off for almost 60 years oughta be, but I'm comfortable enough with it that I can only do it if I don't try to think about what I'm doing...lol. The patterns are there, though.



Dave, I remember well that bowing thread you started and so many others go into from years back...I guess you didn't realize how much you helped self taught people like me to figure out what exactly to think of our bows...but you did help me a lot...so...big thanks for that!

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I'm very happy to have helped you out! Maybe you'll make it up to our Fiddle Hell Massachusetts Festival this year - lots of OT fiddle, banjo, and guitar...

Dave

Skookum - Posted - 02/25/2020:  10:56:46

quote:

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Originally posted by gapbob

One set of patterns that has not been discussed are the patterns that the bow hand makes during play.

C, U, O, rocking the bow, etc.  I would not try to identify them all.

 

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Agree.  I'm not sure what C, U, O means, but one of the things that makes Molsky's bowing smooth rather than jagged relates to his use of circular and S-shaped bowing patterns.  He says that because of the way the bow lifts and presses alternately in a pulse fashion, the pressure change shifts the main bite of the sound to the middle of the note causing it to "swing".  I think of "swing" having a different connotation, but the effect seems to soften a coarse feeling you hear in some fiddlers' playing.    youtube.com/watch?v=2Kd0DIZ_IOU&t=26s 

Another technique or "pattern" that he doesn't discuss in this video is rocking the bow (grabbing an adjacent string) along with the circular bow movements. 

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/25/2020:  11:14:55

To my mind, rocking the bow is virtually the same as drop thumb is in the way I play clawhammer banjo. I don't know what C U O is, but I do rock my bow quite a bit.