intonation, tone, and rhythm are all good. But you are leaving a break beween sections that should not be there. One part should roll into another. Years since i heard or played this on thanks....Just remembered i put a double stop on the C natural in the B part (E & C natural).

Hey Anja it sounds pretty good to me. As far as wanting to sound more fiddly...I guess we all do...I've always thought if you wanna sound fiddly listen to the way and accent of the talk of the fiddly you wanna sound like. I mean, to me, when I hear good Irish fiddling it sounds like good Old fashioned Irish speech...the same rhythms and the same way the words connect to each other, rhythmically. For people who want upper south type sounding fiddling, upper south of the U.S., that one's easy enough for me, having spent all but ten years of my life either in SE KY or E TN...although I didn't pick up the accent, for various reasons...which ain't necessary to explain now...but everybody, especially the old folks who weren't influenced by outsiders, radio, tv, etc., the people who were old when I was growing up...the rhythms of their speech and the drawls...they are exactly the way the fiddle progresses from one note or one passage to another. One thing is they put "A," pronounced "Uh," in front of a lot of verbs...so, instead of saying..."I'm tired today," which is a crisp and pointed sounding sentence and would be a crisp and pointed fiddle passage, they would say something like... "Ooooh, I'm a-draggin' t-daahhy." And that's the way their fiddling would handle such a passage. This is just my own little theory...lol...but when I fiddle, I think of my great grandparents and grandparents and old friends and neighbors' speech patterns...and if I was fiddlin' Canadian style...I'd try to find some good old fashioned traditional Canadian talking to get the feel of the rhythm and how they connect one word to the next, and figure the fiddling is the same. It's hard to find talking from other places  in this day and age where radio and tv and all that have destroyed old speech patterns, but one example I always noticed is when Tommy Jarrell speaks in youtube videos...very similar to the old folks I knew of...to me...I always saw a similarity. Sitting next to my great aunt in church...when she spoke or sang, and she only sang the hymns in church...lol...that's it...I thought I heard the same connections, distances, reflections and passages that I hear in fiddling of the upper south in the U.S. Just my crazy theory...might be wrong, might be right...I don't know.  The way local=color speech delivers words, inflections, rhythms, and just how each word connects to another in a sentence, seems to me to perfectly match the speech of the same local-color.

Anyway, I thought it sounded good and just keep puttin one foot in front of the other like all of us fiddlers have to do...keep fiddling on!

Well ... there is nothing wrong with your fiddling that a few years of fiddling won't cure. Fiddling has to flow, you may be paying so much attention to each tone / note that you are sounding "stilted". The tune sounds like a bunch of notes strung together more than a melody. This is a stage fiddlers go through. Continue in the direction you are heading and you will get there. Fiddle on! R/

Quincy, you sound great! All the basic elements of good fiddling are there. One thing I hear. There are breaks in your rhythm. Make sure to count the beats and maintain the timing between the parts during the silences, and through out the tune. A rhythm guitar would cement things for you. Find some back up tracks that you can slow down. Ask the members what to use. Let me know if you can find some. I like Staten Island, it's a good tune. (My friend lives there and I go there a lot). As you progress and are able to play a little faster, your bowing will change and you will be able to add more of the things that make it sound "fiddley" but don't push the tempo, it happens naturally. You're right where you should be.

Hey Anja, your fiddle sounds great and you've been making great progress. What you are calling stagnation is just one of those normal plateaus we all seem to get stuck on from time to time. The one I'm on right now seems to be around 50 miles wide. I've been trying to sound fiddly for the past 10 years and it's no easy task. Mostly, and this is just my opinion, because that fiddly sound comes from the right (bow) hand. That hand connects to you which means the rhythm or what I guess is the soul of fiddling comes from within you. All those shuffles are a way to get at it but it still has to come from within YOU. Keep plugging away and it's sure to come. Peggy has a couple of great teaching vids on YT on the Nashville Shuffle.

Sometimes you're on a plateau - or 'stagnating' - for a (good) reason - in this case, I'd say it's so you can really learn the tunes you've already learned.  In other words, so that can get to the point where you're relaxed with them both mentally and physically.  Then you'll find the groove that's natural to you (along the lines of what Peggy was saying).  Just keep playing the tunes and enjoying them, and it will come.  I'd say you're coming along great, if a vote of confidence is what you need!

Btw, where I come from, we play Staten Island as a reel, as we do most hornpipes.  You could always experiment with that .....

I might suggest that you try playing Staten Island HP a bit faster. I think your phrases will become longer and that might help you sound more fiddle like.

You seem to have learned this from printed music. If you want to sound more like a fiddler, learn tunes by listening to a fiddler you like. Printed music is like the skeleton of the body; it has the bones of the tune, but what makes a tune alive is all the extra things that are not notated.

Youtube allows you to slow down the music, which makes it easier to learn.

Others may have mentioned this: Listen to some of the youtube videos of the tune..Old time musicians TEND to not play hornpipes like other musicians... and Yes, if you relax and speed up a little you may get what you are looking for.. Good luck..You've come a LOOOng way...

quote:

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Originally posted by Quincy

I find I'm stagnating ... The only progress I seem to make is I get a more clear sound and the rhythm itself is not too bad , but damn I want to sound completely fiddle. I try to pronounce the A here and use double string for the A but ...I guess I could try to speed up a little but what else can I do with this tune?

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You've gotten a general idea of the notes and rhythm. To make it sound more musical, especially for a fiddle tune, you should focus on phrasing and bowing. You are playing exclusively with a marcato bow stroke now, which means each note is played with separation, so there's no sense of continuity. One of the hallmarks of fiddle playing is a bowing style wherein the bow seems as if it's permanently attached to the strings. Incorporating any other bow stroke can cause a panic!

Fiddle tunes are short and they're often split into an A and B part, but within each part are phrases. Sometimes it's useful to think of each phrase as a sort of a call or response to another phrase. It's not unlike a poem, where each stanza contains lines that are linked to each other in ideas and in reading patterns. Right now, the notes in the fiddle tune sound like words read independently from each other, so what's missing is the framework that ties them together.

Another thought: be careful about accents. From the recording I hear an accent at the beginning of the note and then a fade into a pause between notes. This is often caused by starting the bow stroke with a lot of speed and then stopping the bow or slowing down or by putting too much pressure on the bow at the start of the note and then letting go. One of the biggest hurdles for beginning players is making the whole stroke even. There are types of bowing where you need to adjust bow speed and pressure, but those are found in other playing styles, and your focus now should be on control and evenness.

I can tell you've been working on hitting double stops for color. If that's the style you like, keep working on it. I would recommend really working on avoiding the accidental double stops, though, so it will come across clearer when you're playing them intentionally. It might help you to avoid ornaments as you're first learning, though, so that you can be confident in the melodic line before adding details; if you're baking a cake, do the piping and garnishes after you've baked the cake batter, assembled the layers, and frosted it.

This is an area where just listening to a tune and trying to play it can be problematic. If you get too caught up in trying to learn the little intricacies of a player's rendition of a tune, you may miss the forest for the trees, as the saying goes.

It's great that you've been enjoying the fiddle so much and have been trying to take a deep dive into the milieu of the playing world. Keep going, and keep playing with other musicians who can help you progress.

Hi Anja. I've been following your music posts because I think you and I both started learning at the same time, so we are in a race to greatness (and you don't even know it!). I'm just teasing of course. I'm not in any position to advise on how to sound more fiddley, I just wanted to say that your intonation is much improved! You sound great. Also, I admire that you are so brave to post your music. I can't even get up the nerve to record my music and listen to it myself!

I just want to echo everybody and say, yay, your playing is coming along great!

I struggle also with getting the feel/sound that I want…one thing that helps me is just a lot of listening to how a tune is played by other fiddlers… I just listen, listen, listen…sometimes I slow down the YouTube and try to play along…eventually I can pick up their accent/rhythm/lilt/swing…and it gets a bit absorbed into my playing…I think that’s part of what makes something sound “fiddley”.

( Oh and I think feeling like you hit a plateau is normal! I don't think anybody learns in a straight line of rapid progress upward! )

I am a bit overwhelmed by the answers :-) You all seem to make some valuable remarks and I will try to answer in detail - that is to say: limited by my tv and movie English.

About the break I added and I seem to get several remarks about it: to me, it seems to be on the sheet music, that's why I added it, you can check on abcnotation.com. I can leave it out though, that is no problem :-D

@Gapbob : You are completely right to assume I learned this with sheet (cheat ) music. I first searched for the notes AND also checked the Staten Island instructional video from The Tune Project on YouTube. The young lady from The Tune Project plays it almost exactly like I found on the sheet music available on abcnotation.com. At least : at first, in the beginning of the video, she plays it completely her style, then she breaks the tune up into pieces.
My version is a lot like that instructional version of the Tune Project.

@Groundhogpeggy: I well understood you are quite lyrical about finding my own dialect in fiddle. That is language I can relate to! I live in the province of Limburg and others often make fun of our intonation because we 'sing' when we speak . They say the longest one syllable word in Limburg is a 'hooooooooooooooooooond' (a hond/ a dog ) .
In my own language I have a rather rich vocabulary and once I have been called a language virtuoso during a job interview. Not sure if I can reach this in fiddle hahahaha.
I haven't been playing often last half year, but when I play I play for several hours with a few short breaks in between. It's usually in the weekend. I wish I could play more but reality seems to want other things from me.

@RichJ: That my fiddle itself sounds great I realize very well <3 From the moment I had this fiddle in my hand, even though I was just a beginner and could barely play it at all, I knew that was the one I wanted, for its brilliant and to my ears very attractive sound. I wish I could give my instrument in hands of a very experienced fiddler, that would just rock. I bet a very experienced fiddler would make it shine. BUT: it needs the helicores on it. As for the right bow hand: it's getting more loose, but if I watch others it's not yet what it should be like, other players seem a lot more flexible in wrist.

@UsuallyPickin, Peghead and TuneWeaver: That sounds like a reassurance to me. I sure hope this is just a stage. I am not planning to give up yet! Next summer I am playing for three years already.

@Oldscratch: This also seems like the most attractive approach to me : instead of adding quantity and keep on learning new tunes, zoom in on the tunes I learned so far and learn how to make these sound as fiddly as possible. Thank you for this vote of confidence - I needed it. But the day I can tell a tune is a jig, a polka or a scottische , a reel or a hornpipe is not on the calendar yet hehe.

@TheViolinBeautiful: "You are playing exclusively with a marcato bow stroke now"==> I had no idea what technique I am using and also your explanation of a bowing style wherein the bow seems as if it's permanently attached to the strings makes a lot of sense. For a long while my bow seemed to end just a little too soon. I found out if I use all of my bow and sometimes play to the frog and sometimes to the tip sometimes in the middle and allow myself to switch between spots I struggle a lot less to 'find enough bow'.
Avoiding the accidental double stops is something I started working on a little while ago, but it's really a very bad habit I need to get rid of.

@doryman: You made me very curious about your playing, so feel free to show what you sound like on the fiddle! I don't know if you should call me brave, more people call me 'brave' (also around here), but it's not that I do not fear , the truth is: my curiosity is just most of the times bigger than my fears and believe me, not seldom this appeared to lean closer to stupidity than to bravery hehe.
I guess I only just reached the level where an average player would start to upload a recording on the web for the very first time. But you have to understand: I was desperate to find out about playing the violin like a fiddler and around here really noone knows.

I might one day - in a couple of years or so - plan a visit to the USA or Canada or both, to attend some fiddle events. I never planned to visit the USA nor Canada (when it comes to travelling I always dreamed of a long trip throughout Central and Eastern Europe), but it seems that fiddling is starting to change what's on my wishing list. I bet some of the band members I play with would love to join me on this trip!

There's some really good advice given so far, and I would include emphasis on pressure of the bow and left-hand fingers.
The excessive pressure of the bow on the string would most likely be due to excessive tension in hand/bow hold. The result is a suppressed sound which doesn't allow the notes to ring out and vibrate. It is a common tendency for beginners to hold on too tightly for various reasons, some of which maybe; fear of dropping or playing for long period without rests for relaxation. There are little exercises I believe one should do to establish the relaxed feeling in the hands. If you've ever done basic meditation, you'll understand what I mean.

For the right hand, after a few minutes of playing test the relaxation degree by tapping each finger separately on the bow stick without removing bow from the string. Lift the finger up and let gravity rest it back on the stick, focus on the relaxing feeling this movement initiates. There are many other little exercises like this which I believe would loosen up your bowing style.

I think your intonation is very good, but still, I think you could free up your fingers by reducing the amount of pressure. Little exercises again; start with the first finger from the open string put it down as lightly as possible, just enough to hear a note and the string will not touch the fingerboard. Then flick the finger up like a bouncy finger, but never straighten the finger only move from the base knuckle and keep all other finger joints curved so the finger will still be very close to the string; always focus on the point of relaxation during every movement, allow gravity to place the finger down.

Lightness of touch and looseness is my idea of 'making it sound fiddley'.

The little exercises between playing the tunes may put a halt to the stagnation..

That's a LOT of stuff to think about. Seriously, though, Anja...we are all going through the same thing here...whatever stage of fiddling anybody is in. I remember hearing John Hartford say in an interview one time that he could never get the fiddle to play like what he had in mind, in his head. Well if HE couldn't do it, I don't know if it's ever really possible for any of us to play like we really want to...but each time we pick up our fiddles and practice, we are crawling closer and closer to our own personal goals. I think you're doing great.

quote:

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Originally posted by groundhogpeggy

That's a LOT of stuff to think about. Seriously, though, Anja...we are all going through the same thing here...whatever stage of fiddling anybody is in. I remember hearing John Hartford say in an interview one time that he could never get the fiddle to play like what he had in mind, in his head. Well if HE couldn't do it, I don't know if it's ever really possible for any of us to play like we really want to...but each time we pick up our fiddles and practice, we are crawling closer and closer to our own personal goals. I think you're doing great.

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Thank you, before this post I felt a bit demotivated , but you said it right: LOTS of things to think about...

...bottom line...just keep fiddling!

Well I'll be...

I learn so much from this site. That was a long read for a Monday morning! Wonderful post and fiddling! Cheers~

I love that you are asking this question right now. It means you are ready to grow. Your question reminds me that "fiddle" covers a lot of ground - when we talk about American Old-Time fiddle (which I believe is your zone), we're talking about something rather different than Canadian fiddle, Irish, and all the rest.

Keep your bow moving every moment - don't pause between notes or between phrases, but without compromising the beat, of course. Discover drones. You can hit those double strings if you just let your bow do the thinking. Likewise, rocking your bow on those longer held notes will help you discover a different dimension. Don't think rocking as of a lot of rat-a-tat notes, but more like a gentle dip your bow just gently moves from one to the next and back to home base. Your wrist should be relaxed, but really your whole person is relaxed, from spine to fingertips. Something else I've notice in the Old Time fiddlers is a crisp firm edge at the front of each note. The attack of the note is nearly as firm as if the fiddle were a drum. Listen for it in others' fiddling and I think you'll start noticing it a lot.

One thing to try, is to just listen with all your ears to a few recordings one of the fiddlers you love the most, listen long enough to get the feeling of their music in your body. It doesn't matter what tunes they play, but it should be a close match to the style you're looking for. Just live with their sound in your ears and let it affect your body. Feel the tempo, the lightness, the flavor, and whatever their special sauce may be. When you move directly into your own playing, you'll discover something new that's intangible and precious.

One more quick thought: I find that increasing speed is fine and adds energy, but “urgency” is a little different angle on it. I think that urgency is often more relevant, and is can sometimes be the missing ingredient.

This may sound totally off the wall, and I apologize in advance, but try dancing to the tune as you play. I'm not talking about Hillary Klug clogging, just bob and sway a little to the tune, follow the up and down, side to side motion of the melody, rather than concentrating on the beat. It helps me take my mind off of the mechanical and technical aspects of playing, and it entertains my dog. It is dance music, after all. Relax and enjoy.

Not sure what "more fiddle" means?

Might try more diddle.

1. Starts with listening. Find a good recording to use as a model. Not just abc like version of sequence and timing of notes... but actual playing with lilt or bounce. There are lots of examples, try and find that appeals to you (and sense of fiddly). I might suggest initially, for beginner might focus on moderate hornpipey versions rather than faster reels. (but that's up to individual).

2. Sing, or Diddle along with the tune; pay attention to not just the notes, but the rhythmic lilt bounce and flow of phrases. Do this without fiddle, nor thinking about the notes, fingering, bowing or technique. Don't necessarily have to worry about getting all the diddling notes, but just absorbing the overall idea of the feel/flow of the tune. Get it to the point of being able to diddle the tune with that lilt/bounce/flow... without the recording.

3. Once you have the tune in your head via diddle, then pick up the fiddle. When playing the notes... think about how the diddle felt, and incorporate that in. This is the part where start focusing on how to interpret sound to mechanics/technique. How to make the bow or fingering create the diddle; listening close if it actually does; and maybe think what alternative might create that. 

Using notation, might be useful to show what might not be able to figure out; but still using the diddle to help correlate or interpret what's written in the symbols. Bear in mind the notation isn't usually a transcription of the diddle model, and so might not match in places. Alternatively, "by ear" method works for many; so might try it, most folks find it becomes easier; but even if not entirely by ear, can use partially to help reconcile with the notation. (transcribing diddling; or editing, is also a good exercise)

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I guess I could try to speed up a little

Tempo does play a role in the feel, inertia and flow; and too slow can make it much more difficult; esp for beginners. In how we experience music related to temporal and physical domain. As well can effect some of fluidity of the mechanics.

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Added note. There are lots of recorded examples; some folks find it useful to listen to many examples. In hearing variations to get an general overview of tune, idea of aspects that are common; gives possibilities of what can be put in, ornamentation, articulation;, but as well what can be changed or left out, not initially necessary. This doesn't work well for everyone, as might seem more advanced, or confuse them more. 

Lots of good advice here, but I'm not sure how much of it applies in this case. I'm also not sure what you mean by "more fiddle." If you mean playing with drones, shuffles, syncopated rhythms, this is just not that kind of tune. According to the Fiddlers Companion this is a Scottish/English tune first published in the 18th century - it was not meant to be "fiddly" in the Appalachian sense.
You are so far removed from this music geographically and culturally that its hard to give useful advice, but I think there are better sources than abcnotation.com. I saw dozens of versions of this tune there - they can't all be great, and probably not even that good. I think this tune became popular over here during the folk revival, and early old time revival. I don't think I've ever known a traditional fiddler who played it. It is in "Ryan's Mammoth Collection" from the late 19th. century. More about it here, including a link to download a .pdf version: blog.charliewalden.com/wp/1000...le-tunes/
I know its tempting to look to YouTube for instruction, but I'm pretty skeptical about a lot if that too. As others have said, the key is lots of listening to good fiddlers. The recordings Alan Jabbour made of Henry Reed for the Library of Congress are a great place to start - many of the tunes are fairly simple, the tempi are moderate, but still have a "fiddling" feel. The recordings of Emmett Lundy are also great, but considerably more complex. JP Fraley played some great tunes at moderate tempi, and there are YouTube videos where you can see how he did it. There's also Tommy Jarrell and the great KY fiddlers like Luther Strong and William Stepp, but those guys were masters and maybe not so easy for beginners to use as models.
Hope this helps a little.

I'll chime in, too. You are doing great!! Your intonation and timing are very good.

Others have given some great suggestions! Some of us have been at this for half a century or more. Trust me. They all work. And, we can attest that the struggle is real and life-long!

One of my favorite contemporary fiddlers is Charlie Walden. He has LOTS of resources, including transcriptions and sound files on his website www.charliewalden.com. He also has a Youtube channel.

Since you mentioned Staten Island Hornpipe, here's Charlie's rendition. A word of caution: don't get discouraged listening to this. I sometimes think he might be from another planet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5JXcuS-7UA

Regardless, keep up the good work!

Fiddler - Yes, I linked to Charlie's site for his discussion of Ryan's/Coles. As he says he's "The best damn fiddler in his price range."* Interesting in his "Staten Island Hornpipe" video he mentions that its in "Cole's," but that's not how he plays it. In "Ryan's" at least, the B part doesn't use that obnoxious "C" note that's become so characteristic of this tune.
*Guess you have to pay more for April Verch, Patti Kusturok or Calvin Vollrath!