quote:

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Originally posted by Quincy

shuffle attempt

Meanwhile this euro still does not get it .. LOL . I start to laugh out of misery!!!

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I suggest a different tune to learn to shuffle. 

Boil the Cabbage Down

A shuffle must "fit" within a tune. Some tunes are a better fit than others.

Doug, wow that clip is lovely (bonny, as they would say?)!
Actually love it on harmonica. Hope you get first aid for your harmonica soon. :-)
Lochaber No More is definitely going on my learning list!

( And here he is playing one of the Irish tune standards, the Kesh jig! Does really nice things with it...
https://youtu.be/do1ev075OME?si=jKJwx0CiIvhRNJlx. )

Anja...I heard some shuffles making their way through...it's not bad. Remember, for anybody anywhere, it takes some practice to get that groove going easily, where you don't have to think about it while you play it. One thing I would say is just shuffle...don't play notes..just shuffle, if you want, you can think, or say..."One tater, two tater, three tater, four tater: One tater, two tater, three tater, four tater," etc., to sound out the shuffle by vocalizing it while you play it. Try to get it without worrying about getting the notes of the tune at the same time...just for a few practice sessions. You can even put on Strum machine SLOWLY, and just shuffle along. This is how Dwight Diller taught his banjo students to get the bum Diddy going...which is the banjo version of a fiddle's shuffles. I've heard here on FHO some people even vocalize, "HAM-burger, HAM-burger," etc., just to vocalize that same rhythmic bowing you're going for. Anyway, just try that without a melody to get that groove going automatically in your head. Dwight Diller didn't even let his banjo students play melody until they had just practiced that rhythm by itself for a while.

Anyway, Steve has a good point above that the tune, Boil them Cabbage Down just goes by the same rhythm as the shuffle or the bum diddy for banjo...lots of people use that as a starting tune for learning that rhythm either on fiddle or banjo.

Another thing that always helped me was to try to just shuffle...don't play any notes, and SING the notes while you shuffle. That's not easy...I would try to get the shuffle down pretty solid first...but for me at least...I often sing a melody while I shuffle just to find all the ways I might try to fit that melody into my groove once I'm ready for putting it all together.

I'm hearing shuffles...it's coming along, but it takes time. Hang in there and don't get discouraged. If you get exhausted with trying, just play any ol' way for a while and then come back to it another time...it'll get there if you stick with it. Of course as many people have said, shuffling isn't a necessary thing and lots of fiddlers don't do it at all. But if you want it...just keep putting one foot in front of the other, slowly, with doggie by your side...and it'll come, not instantly, but in time.

I've been fiddling on this tune...

folkmusic.lib.wvu.edu/catalog/...rTheHills

There are two recordings in the Chappell collection to draw from. It's a nice tune on the fiddle in G with the c notes being pretty much c sharp... where if put into standard notation it would be in D major or "2 sharps" as the older generation used to say.

Here's the other: folkmusic.lib.wvu.edu/catalog/...rTheHills

OMG Peggy, that Cabbage video is great!
Love the family of happy fiddlers…it’s like Sound of Music!
...and I just noticed that at one point they are playing the tune on their neighbor's fiddle, Woo.!

Shawn, is that tune also called "Over the Hills and Far Away?" Like this: youtu.be/gxOnGTQzmCU?feature=shared
My ears aren't awake yet this morning and I can't quite tell.

I'm assuming those WV recordings are not in standard pitch. Can't get a match to the pitches on any of my D/G whistles. And it makes sense that the C would be sharp as the fifes are general simple system instruments and the C is going to be sharp by default (though a C nat can be played)

Billy, they're both in Eb, or Cmin, the relative minor. I once read that it was conventional to write music for the fife in D, regardless of the actual key of the instrument, which can vary. Don't know if that's true or not.

@chickenman - Yep hmm, it's got:
C nat, F nat, E flat, B flat...it starts on the E flat.
Unusual key for fiddle I think, but there are some "Celtic" tunes with those fingers...

( Sorry I am bad with keys and modes, trying to learn! I will take Doug's word for it!
Or could be a mode...? I dunno.)

Here's a recording of Joe Birchfield, a very rhythmic fddler, playing "Bile Them Cabbage Down." Not my favorite tune, but a visitor requested it, and Joe didn't mind playing it, and I didn't either.

NCnotes - The Lydian mode, the white keys of a piano starting on F, has a raised 4th degree (B natural instead of Bb as in F major). In Eb this would be A natural, rather than Ab, (or in G a C sharp as Shawn noted). In this case I don't think this would be as much a deliberate use of a mode as just a peculiarity of the instrument, as Billy suggested (like the pipes).

quote:

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Originally posted by DougD

Shawn, is that tune also called "Over the Hills and Far Away?" Like this: youtu.be/gxOnGTQzmCU?feature=shared
My ears aren't awake yet this morning and I can't quite tell.

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sure seems related. 

Yep Eb pipes are a thing, and flutes, essentially many of the instruments made during the high pitched A years (lots were then copied and also there are plenty that survived from back then like so many other instruments. And for sure fife can be pitched at Bb (to pierce the air in battle or some such) but written in D to match the D fingering. Well. I'll have to pitch up or down or whichever (probably for D/G) and go from there.

Shawn - Since the version in Chappell was collected in a county adjacent to Pennsylvania I looked to Samuel Bayard, and there are 13 versions in "Dance to the Fiddle, March to the Fife" (#206) under this title as well as "Green Grow the Rushes-O," and also a lengthy discussion of the history of the tune here and abroad. Most are in G, and his version C is very close to the one in Chappell. Its also in Ryan's with the "Rushes" title, although its not so close.
Thanks for posting it. Its a good tune, and quite widely known.

Here's a nice version of "Over The Hills And Far Away"

About 40 seconds into the vid Over The Hills "Sharp"

Notice the constant A&D Double stop running throughout ... And the omnipresence of our Northern Saint "Sean Bean"..

quote:

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Originally posted by groundhogpeggy

Anja...I heard some shuffles making their way through...it's not bad. 

...
I'm hearing shuffles...it's coming along, but it takes time. Hang in there and don't get discouraged. If you get exhausted with trying, just play any ol' way for a while and then come back to it another time...it'll get there if you stick with it. Of course as many people have said, shuffling isn't a necessary thing and lots of fiddlers don't do it at all. But if you want it...just keep putting one foot in front of the other, slowly, with doggie by your side...and it'll come, not instantly, but in time.

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That is honestly so nice of you to say!  Thanks for believing in me even though I have the feeling sometimes I will never be able to play the way I want to sound.    If I listen again to this attempt I can only think: oh help NOOOOOO!!!! Not to feel discouraged then is the hardest part if you ask me.

On the other hand people who know me would say I can have a strong will so eventually IF I do not give up it must be possible to make progress regarding rhythmic playing. I wish I had more time to play and practice. There is always work, now a 40 hour week job and  my dog Ziva needs her training and activities also ofcourse  :) 

Over the Hills And Far Away how I hear it.

Anja, one thing might be to go over some shuffling just for a few minutes at a time, three or four times a day. I know that's hard to do...but sometimes chopping up a few minutes here and there is the only way to find enough time to really work on anything, plus you don't get so exhausted on an instrument if you keep practices short and to the point. I used to make myself a little scorecard...take one little passage I wanted to play...and just over the course of one day, mark when I've played it through. At times I would maybe play a short passage, often very slowly, especially at first, maybe 15 times through, just through that passage...sometimes this would take me only 10 minutes to do...but after a few hours, with just ten minutes here or there, I'd have maybe 100, or at least 40 or 50 times practiced through the little short segment I was working on. I first started doing that as I learned fingerpicking guitar as a child...but later used that same thing to learn to play the fiddle at the age of 55. Small segments of a tune just several times a day can really add up fast...think how much could be done between now and Christmas Day if a person could find a few quick 10-minute sessions each day.

Anyway...don't stop believing in yourself...most of us can end up doing more than we originally thought...not just music I'm talking about...I think most people can do more of anything you could name than they think they can. Just some dedication for a few months does a lot, no matter what it is. But the same with music. Keep going...I think you will get it.

I have been playing since the early morning.... I am in love with the main melody of the tune that I am uh...'remixing' here (I have no other word for it for the moment)
I hear some slight shuffling here and there also.  Just trying out how I eventually want to play the tune, it is not meant as the tune itself.

I hear you Peggy , I agree with what you say about practicing in small pieces and with repetition,  and I just feel what you say is the right way to go,  step by step building up. But you know, sometimes life is hard and this was what I needed at the moment. To fiddle it all away :')

Sounded very nice, Anja, and I think it's a good point you make...that being, that a person cannot just practice new things all the time...after all it is an art form...it's essential to stop and get some musical relaxation and pleasure from it and not just have to work at it constantly. Great to hear you playing something so relaxing and nice. I'm sure doggie likes it too!

I've circled back to one of my first tunes, Soldiers Joy. I just celebrated 2 years on the fiddle! When my teacher was showing me tunes, he could provide what I called the "elementary version" or the "Childs Version"...LOL. I have a running list of tunes on my phone I refer to every morning and pick a couple to go through. Which usually means me finding a version and playing along with it. As simple as Soldiers is for many, little parts of it I was skipping over. The ending phrase of the A and B I was still doing this very simple take on that part. Upon listening to it this morning, I was able to add. I'm learning to discipline myself and just going over a part...over...and over...and over.
At the moment, I had to switch to some FUNK music to get Soldiers out of my head...it's not working...Happy Friday!

Eric - "Soldier's Joy" is a good tune for learning because it can be played several ways and still work. The beginning of the A part, for example, was originally an arpeggio on the D major triad A-F#-D and back, but it can also be played as a D major scale. And the whole tune can be played as quarter notes instead of eighths and the melody is still recognizable.
Yesterday I played some old familiar D tunes - "Forky Deer," "Cricket on the Hearth," "Hell Among the Yearlings" plus "Little Burnt Potato" and "Avalon Quickstep."

quote:

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Originally posted by DougD

Eric - "Soldier's Joy" is a good tune for learning because it can be played several ways and still work. The beginning of the A part, for example, was originally an arpeggio on the D major triad A-F#-D and back, but it can also be played as a D major scale. And the whole tune can be played as quarter notes instead of eighths and the melody is still recognizable.
Yesterday I played some old familiar D tunes - "Forky Deer," "Cricket on the Hearth," "Hell Among the Yearlings" plus "Little Burnt Potato" and "Avalon Quickstep."

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I've heard "Cricket on the Hearth" but none of the other ones. That's what's amazing about this music. You'll never ever hear it all! 

LOL yes, and people keep writing more good tunes, too...
Today I'm learning "Limerick Liftoff", a tune written by Shannon Heaton that I really like. I heard her play it and then I just could not get it out of my head, was humming it in the kitchen, then gave up and started learning it. 

Congrats on two years, Erockin!!!