TimK Says:
Tuesday, December 9, 2008 @7:58:06 AM

VERY GOOD! You are off to a great start. Your intonation is very good for the length of time you've been playing. Speed & timing will come along. If you were my student, You'd get an A>

tumbleweed Says:
Tuesday, December 9, 2008 @8:48:52 AM

Well done sir. I agree with Tim K re: your intonation.

bj Says:
Tuesday, December 9, 2008 @10:19:44 AM

This was one of my first songs as well! Yes, you did well on intonation and tone and you are to be congratulated on your relative lack of SQUEAKS AND SQUAWKS! Very good! The only thing I can suggest is to start working with a metronome and pay just a bit better attention to the duration of the notes, especially the very first couple in the song. But you've already gotten past the hardest part! This timing thing should be easy in comparison!

Tennessee Tom Says:
Tuesday, December 9, 2008 @2:59:02 PM

Good choice for a first tune. When I began fiddling, I thought Orange Blossom Special would be a good one to start with. Then I quickly realized I had better pick "She'll Be Comin Round The Mountain" instead. Actually, I found "She'll be comin...." to be a great first tune to practice double-stops.

Cheers,
Tom

Wakicuza Wasake Says:
Tuesday, December 9, 2008 @9:08:25 PM

WOW! Thanks everyone! Talk about a moral booster!

Actually, I have no idea where I should be at my 6th week, and that's probably my biggest reason for getting the courage to post my first. I know you've all been here.


And thanks bj for the metronome suggestion. I actually have one downloaded here on my computer, but forgot to use it. I believe subconsiously my greatest concern starting out was to get past those SQUEEKS AND SQUAWKS. I still have my moments, but thanks to everyones posts on proper bowing I hope I've gotten past the worst part of it.


Tom, OBS is a long term goal I hope to attain.

Thanks again for the encouragement everyone, and also pointing out what I need to work on. It means a lot.

Percy Says:
Saturday, December 13, 2008 @5:16:19 AM

This is an excellent start. Your intonation is very good! If you want my two cents (few people do), my suggestion would be to keep working on this one tune -- and only this tune -- until you're so sick of it it you never want to play it again. Find a backing track to play along with (that will help you work on timing). In my opinion (and it is only that), too many new fiddlers try to work on too many tunes -- playing all of them badly. Get yourself two or three tunes (so you don't go crazy) and work on them over and over and over. Get them polished to the point where you CAN play them in front of folks with confidence. Once you have a couple of tunes under your belt -- where you can play them REALLY well -- learning new tunes will be a breeze.

The problem is, every time we learn a new tune -- we have to work on the tune itself, learning the melody and all of that. You can't concentrate on tone, intonation, timing, bowing... the key elements. By playing a tune over and over -- so you don't have to actually think about the tune itself -- you can concentrate on the fine details.

I know people who brag to know 100s of tunes... but none of them are very good... and their playing in general isn't something anyone would want to listen to.

And play things slowly to begin with. Speed will come later...

holmansf Says:
Thursday, December 18, 2008 @2:43:06 PM

Your tone is awesome for the amount of time you've been playing. I agree with Percy about finding a backing track. It helps a lot (to at least pretend) to play along with other people, and it's more fun!

ChickenMan Says:
Wednesday, January 7, 2009 @1:59:50 PM

I just posted a link to some great backing track midis and a player on a thread titled "bluegrass has got me down".
Highly recommended by me!
http://www.vanbasco.com/karaokeplayer/
then, www.virtualbluegrassband.com has midis of all manner of tune.