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Jan 22, 2025 - 9:59:11 AM
41 posts since 8/21/2009

John's thread got me thinking about my new journey and what I could ask. I could post a dozen questions a day but that's what teachers are for. I can schedule a lesson for that. So, the slow playing reminded me of a bit from my lesson and what my told me.

I mentioned to my teacher that one issue I'm having is I don't always get the fingering change down in sync with the new bow stroke; I'd often get a double start to some notes, a hammer one and then a bow or a pull ofr and then a bow. I asked my teacher and see responded with one word "slow." ;-) And then elaborated on that a bit.

So what I'm doing now is consciously finger first, then bow. That means that sometimes I break tempo just a little bit. Or if I'm playing with an accompaniment track, make notes a bit short/staccato so I could get to the next note and do "finger then bow" in time. But, from what I know of learning anything, it's isolate a skill, work on it, then go back to the big picture and try to get everything to blend.

So that finger then bow thing is what I'm concentrating on now.

Edited by - learn2turn on 01/22/2025 10:00:09

Jan 22, 2025 - 11:18:30 AM

41 posts since 8/21/2009

What I've been working on--

Doing the exercises in Essential String - Violin - Book One. The beginning stuff went quickly as I play mandolin and the pizzicato stuff that the beginning was easy. But as the exercises involve bowing, I'm slowing down now. What I really like about the book is each exercise is only a teeny tiny bit harder than the last one. I've work with books in the past where the first five or ten pages are easy peasy and then next one is like jumping off the deep end into a pool of sharks.

I've been working on bowing rhythm along with backing tracks as that's what I'd be doing 95% of the time at a bluegrass jam. Whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, and the two rhythm patterns "tuck-a tuck-a ta ta" (1/8,1/8,1/8/1/8,1/4,1/4) and a shuffle "Ta tee-tee Ta tee-tee" 1/4,1/8,1/8,1/4,1/8,1/8). The shuffle is hard to keep up before the brain gets saturated and I change to something easier. And the feel is tough. I watched some videos on the "Nashville Shuffle" and I guess you are really supposed to put the accent on the first of each pair of 1/8th notes (2 and 4 beats, like mandolin chop). I can't do that at all yet. I'll keep trying. Maybe I'll get it after a while.

Also, I know a dozen or so fiddle tunes from playing mandolin and Irish whistle. I'm starting to working on figuring tunes out from memory based on how I hear them in my head, rather than from sheet music. Working on Old Joe Clark and Cripple Creek and have them down but not smoothly up-to-speed. I run through them super slow to try to get the notes clean and then once or twice faster at maybe 3/4 jam speed to try to get the feel of the tune. It's a trade off; slowly always working on getting the notes exact but the feel of the tune is lost; faster is a tad sloppy but you can feel the tune. I'll try to throw slides in on a couple notes which sounds cool. I can play a four-note Bile Them Cabbage Down up to speed; I can play it with double stops but only real slow. But gosh darn, those fiddle double stops are enough to melt your heart when you get them right.

So, I try to split my time with working like a classical musician learning to be precise and just experimenting and having fun aka "playing."

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