Throw away sheet music for a very very long time, just listen,hum the thing and repeat what you can figure out by just listening. And pay close attention to the way a certain tune is bowed and how the different parts should be connected/ woven into eachother.
Started off with sheet ( cheat ) music , that brought me really nowhere.
Later on one can use traditional tune archive as an extra. That's what I would say.

I consider myself the best proof that old time fiddling is very unique, since it seems to take ages as a foreign student before you start to make some clicks now and then although you spend enough time trying to figure it out. It's NOT easy to grasp the feel of the techniques and I think I'm the living example of this. It really takes an enormous amount of dedication . Still hope to grow.

I'd ask them what fiddlers they like or examples of fiddle music they like... and then study that music...study how those musicians approach fiddling...what they say about it...what they do...go from there.

Honestly, IMHO, impossible, they will always sound like a classically trained reader, no matter who teaches them. THey can imitate the OT sound, but that training will always show through. Bluegrass different story, what with all the slick double stops and 3 and 4th position licks being incorporated these days in breaks. OT, nope. Maybe , just maybe, throw the sheet music away, listen to OT exclusively for a few years and play everything by ear. Then, maybe.

Can always tell if someone was classically trained and then trying to play OT or bluegrass. Always.

If someone is looking to get a more accurate sense of a playing style, there are two things to study: the music and the players.

For folk music, much is poorly transcribed, as it was often not given proper attention, either because it was considered too simplistic to bother with by capable transcribers or transcribed by people who really didn’t know how to make good transcriptions.

Going to the written page yields a good skeletal sense of the tunes, and sometimes removes a lot of the gloss that players’ own interpretations add on top. It can be a bit like restoring a finish on a violin that’s been heavily overcoated—there’s great varnish underneath, but you’ve got to remove all the junk spread on top of it to find it. However, many tunes were deliberately written in a more skeletal form, as they often originated in the baroque era where a line was written with the expectation that the player would improvise on top of it. So reading fiddle music requires you to be aware of this and to take it into account to make much of it.

If you’re looking to play like modern players, then the historical context of the music is less of a consideration, as the modern players tend to be playing based on the morphology of tunes, not their history. This is why no one actually sounds like the source material for the tunes. The styles in which tunes are commonly played now are copies of copies of copies; they’re very grainy, and you can pick out bits of the originals, but the overall sense of the tunes are often lost.

Listening to players only works to a certain extent. First, you have to have a good ear to pick up on the subtleties of a player’s player and reproduce them faithfully—few can accomplish this or care enough to do so. Second, if you can actually accomplish this, you won’t sound like anyone currently playing (as mentioned above). So any way you approach it, it’s a difficult balancing act. Most players end up just giving up on accuracy in favor of playing the way that pleases their own sensibilities. Perhaps it would be most accurate to simply tell an aspiring fiddler to ignore what anyone else said and play however the mood struck and to ignore any feedback. In a sense, that’s modern fiddling philosophy in a nutshell: to defend the right to play to one’s own taste until the last drop of blood, but to accuse all other players of sounding different from source material and to rabidly attack anyone who dares to use the words “sheet music” or “classical.”

In some ways, Old Time is so nebulous a term now that the idea of teaching any technique connected to it seems just about impossible, as no one can agree on what it is to begin with. If it could be properly defined, there could be a better sense of its technique. For now, it just seems to be based on going to jams and mimicking the other players to varying degrees of success.

You can’t ethically advocate for one being one’s own best teacher and then embrace the idea of teaching others how to play.

If they already have some ability to read it can be helpful, so I wouldn't have them drop it if the lesson involves playing tunes they don't already know. I'd show basic shuffles and saw stroke. I'd show them that the style is rhythmic and how the bow strokes achieve that. I'd show various open drones and sliding into them. I'd show them to use open drones double stops almost as much as possible. I might show them they can play passages starting with either up bow or down bow to give them flexibility to do either and not be hung up if they find themself turned around in a phrase. I'd tell them it's not so darned serious and to have fun, musicology be damned.

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Originally posted by Brian Wood

If they already have some ability to read it can be helpful, so I wouldn't have them drop it if the lesson involves playing tunes they don't already know. I'd show basic shuffles and saw stroke. I'd show them that the style is rhythmic and how the bow strokes achieve that. I'd show various open drones and sliding into them. I'd show them to use open drones double stops almost as much as possible. I might show them they can play passages starting with either up bow or down bow to give them flexibility to do either and not be hung up if they find themself turned around in a phrase. I'd tell them it's not so darned serious and to have fun, musicology be damned.

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Brian, your comment is Great Stuff!!.. Hands on.. When I find someone who can play a fiddle tune similar to the sheet music for a tune I how BOWING, drone opportunities, and unison notes......I MIGHT take that same music and add some bowing slurs and show the some Possibilities... without demanding the tune be played one way or another.,,I DO expect them to get away from sheet music and play from the heart.. Personally I love sheet music As-A-Start but Only as a start.......So much of OT music is Variable..

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Originally posted by TuneWeaverStart but Only as a start.......So much of OT music is Variable..

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Yes, sheet music for a start, or occasional reminder. I have more tunes than I can always remember, especially if I haven't played one for quite a while, so I use it for learning and reminding.

(...a slight fudge on Lee's original question - but follows the thread)

For old time - I think there is only 2 things sheet music can do. And neither of those will teach you how to "play" in an old time fiddle style. That is more a matter of immersing yourself in the music with the dedicated purpose of imitation. Don't worry - "you" are still going to come through - whether you want to or not. As much as you will want to sound like who you are wanting to imitate - very few ever "get there". How important is that?  IF it is very important - go find that fiddler and beg them to teach you exactly what they do. Some can do exactly that.  You can join the ranks of all the others - BUT - THAT ain't always a bad crowd to be a part of.

1) Sheet music is good for helping you remember how to start a tune when you can't remember (if you read).

2) And it will give you an advantage over others when you're trying to find old tunes that no one else plays. The issue with that is will certainly learn the proper "order: of the notes to play ( not know for sure if it is really correct) - and have to give that melody your own spin when it comes to the rhythm, accents, ornamentation, and hooks. But - on the other hand - who is going to say - "that's not how it supposed to be played!"    

 

SO, the kid comes to your house. He can play the bones of CLuck Old Hen in standard tuning.. He asks, "How do I make this sound Old Timey?" What would you tell/demonstrate/teach him? What techniques will you teach?

It’s a myth that playing from sheet music is responsible for inauthentic style. If you play directly from the page without adding any context, it’s like reading a book aloud in a monotone voice. That may be an accurate recitation of the words on the page, but it's not good reading and it's not good performance. Good readers bring the written word extra life. I don’t think anyone would say reading a book aloud makes one a bad presenter of stories, so it’s equally nonsensical to focus on the use of sheet music rather than the presentation of it.

Any passable performer has the ability to do more than parrot back notes like a midi player. Use or lack thereof of the written page isn’t what determines the quality of the performance. It’s just a misinformed and convenient way to take potshots at musicians who have learned to read, akin to ridiculing people who have learned to read books as if their literacy is a hindrance to their lives.

I suppose it’s true on some level that literacy can be identified easily. But who in their right mind would condemn anyone for being literate? Should musicians really feel bad about knowing how to read and should they really take it seriously when they’re told that they’ll never sound “right?” Just imagine having a conversation with someone and then saying “I can tell you’ve been reading books. You’ll never be able to learn to talk in slang properly now and you should quit pretending and just stay in your own lane.”

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Originally posted by The Violin Beautiful

It’s a myth that playing from sheet music is responsible for inauthentic style. If you play directly from the page without adding any context, it’s like reading a book aloud in a monotone voice. That may be an accurate recitation of the words on the page, but it's not good reading and it's not good performance. Good readers bring the written word extra life. I don’t think anyone would say reading a book aloud makes one a bad presenter of stories, so it’s equally nonsensical to focus on the use of sheet music rather than the presentation of it.

Any passable performer has the ability to do more than parrot back notes like a midi player. Use or lack thereof of the written page isn’t what determines the quality of the performance. It’s just a misinformed and convenient way to take potshots at musicians who have learned to read, akin to ridiculing people who have learned to read books as if their literacy is a hindrance to their lives.

I suppose it’s true on some level that literacy can be identified easily. But who in their right mind would condemn anyone for being literate? Should musicians really feel bad about knowing how to read and should they really take it seriously when they’re told that they’ll never sound “right?” Just imagine having a conversation with someone and then saying “I can tell you’ve been reading books. You’ll never be able to learn to talk in slang properly now and you should quit pretending and just stay in your own lane.”

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I have to agree with you about this. I think the rap about reading comes from some classical players who try to play old time with no other reference than the sheet music. It's not the fault of the sheet music, it's just that those players haven't otherwise absorbed the sound and feel of what they're trying to play.

As for sounding like yourself, too much emphasis is made about that. I'm happy to steal, although I don't really think of it as that. If, say, Kenny Baker plays a cool lick in a tune I'm learning I'll transcribe that lick and try to learn to play it that way. I don't need to worry I'll be mistaken for him, and if anybody ever recognized that I played his lick I'd be flattered, not disappointed that they didn't see ME playing in MY unique personal way. Where did that come from, having to put your own stamp on it? Sometimes that's just giving yourself a license for being too lazy to learn some cool licks and bowing. 

Style doesn't really come from sheet music. If a person relies on their sheet music to understand how to play their instrument in any style - they will discover that they can only play the written score in the style they have learned. And the style they learned was not the product of reading notation.

As for sounding like yourself - how can anyone play and not sound like themselves - regardless - professional or rank amateur?  OK, I agree: too much emphasis on developing your own style as a "goal" can be counter productive - depending on the circumstance. And - in the same way - I think it can be just as counter productive to put too much emphasis on learning how to play tunes "exactly like" someone else.  

I steal licks ALL the time. I want to learn how to play clever phrases that catch my attention, and that usually means the entire tune that has the phrase (a certain fiddlers version of a tune - for the context / where it came from). And I'm continually getting better at learning to play them when I hear one. But there is no mistaking me for those fiddlers. And I've learn to accept - it is ok for me to play like me. Perhaps - over time - my playing may eventually develop to the point where folks say they know when it is me playing - and they enjoy hearing it. 

I think there’s a lot of wisdom in the old adage “There’s nothing new under the sun.” Every “new” idea tends to be a reformulation of an older one or the product of a mix of them presented in a new combination.

In applying that to music, I think it’s a bit unrealistic to put so much emphasis on sounding unique during development. A new learner can’t really yet understand how the building blocks of the style are formed, let alone how to assemble them. A good player has the building blocks at easy command and then thoughtfully assembles them in ways that may sound unique or compelling. Asking a beginner to listen to the finished product is like trying to teach the fundamentals of architecture by showing a picture of a cathedral without any explanation of the principles that governed its construction.

I have to reluctantly agree that listening to players is how fiddling is transmitted and tends to be the standard advice. But I just don’t think it actually works very well. Although fiddlers often feel that they have special and unique sounds, the listening audience (even those who are musicians themselves) often concludes that they sound surprisingly alike. Brian’s comment about laziness resonates as well because it really does seem like a lot of the wingeing about professional, teacher-taught, or literate musicians comes from a resentment for having devoted the time and effort to accomplish those things when the complainer isn’t willing to devote the same.

The great artists didn’t just start painting masterpieces on their own. They learned how to imitate masters first. At one time, it was common for an art student to directly copy a master’s painting, and a class of artists would produce multiple iterations of the same subject. Each one would come out a little differently because 1) the students were still learning how to pay careful attention to detail and 2) even a great artist is not a photocopier. Humans are imperfect by nature, so every attempt at a perfect copy is naturally imperfect. That doesn’t mean the imperfection can’t be beautiful, just that perfection is a goal that can’t be fully attained even though it’s the goal toward which the best strive. The closer to perfection one gets, the better one is at the subject. And again, perfection in music isn’t a cold recitation of notes. Since music has an emotional impact in its essence, the performance that doesn’t engage the emotions is unmusical even if the notes are correctly timed.

The example of someone reading notes off a page and not sounding musical is a straw man argument, because it presupposes that the player plays unmusically. A good reader doesn’t do that, even if there is a lack of context. Details of articulation may be missing that give a better sense of the style, but the essentials of the tune should come across without any embellishment. The argument against the printed page just focuses on the absence of the ornament, not really on the substance of the music.

The OP was about advising a player who played from the page already in the matter of developing the style to sound more authentic. If that player was a good player, even the unornamented playing of the skeletal form would have a musical impact. Then it would be a matter of simply fleshing out the skeleton by adding the ornaments and patterns that are common in the style. The more that was added, the more it would begin to sound authentic. Of course, this is where things would get complicated, because there is no consensus on what constitutes the style. If the player was not playing musically from the page, jumping into the details of ornamentation and bowing patterns would be a waste of time because the fundamentals had not yet been established. In that case, the best advice would be to refocus on learning the foundational aspects of playing and reading music. Only after that would it make sense to dive into the deep end of the pool unassisted. To tell the player, “Sorry, but you’ve drunk the deadly poison of literacy and your fate as a fiddler is now sealed in death” is not going to encourage much interest in the genre from younger players, the majority of whom now learn about fiddling only after having studied with a “classical” teacher or played in a school strings program.

The first approach I'd try is to start them out the same way I would any beginner-- Bowing pairs of strings, and aiming for an even continuous tone that is punctuated, but not interrupted, by the change in bow direction. (This is where most violin students need to un-learn some of the basics of bowing mechanics as they've known them) Then, I'd show them a 2-finger pentatonic tune, being specific about the bowing, and tell them to work on just that piece for a while, aiming for getting the bow to speak the rhythm, without adding any more notes.