My course would be focused on the style of my region...the potomac/allegheny region. I'd begin the course with breakfast every day... buckwheat pancakes, sausage, maple syrup.

I would have the students promise to ignore all "old time" fiddle techniques and terms found on the internet and consider use of them or mention of them an automatic fail.

The students would then be expected to split firewood...some hickory, maple, pine, and oak...to understand the materials they are dealing with in the fiddle.

Those students not capable of splitting firewood or not cut out for it would stack the wood up.

That might be the first semester before we get around to listening to fiddle music.

Yes, they would probably have grasped the basics of which Sappie or Pickaroon was best for their chosen genre by then.

quote:

---

Originally posted by ShawnCraver

My course would be focused on the style of my region...the potomac/allegheny region. I'd begin the course with breakfast every day... buckwheat pancakes, sausage, maple syrup.

I would have the students promise to ignore all "old time" fiddle techniques and terms found on the internet and consider use of them or mention of them an automatic fail.

The students would then be expected to split firewood...some hickory, maple, pine, and oak...to understand the materials they are dealing with in the fiddle.

Those students not capable of splitting firewood or not cut out for it would stack the wood up.

That might be the first semester before we get around to listening to fiddle music.

---

This is the type of attitude that gives the Fiddle Hangout a bad name. There's a contempt for serious inquiry and for any kind of scholastic approach. It's the same elitist attitude that leads to mocking questions about learning from established sources or from anything outside an imaginary version of what's acceptable as genuine, and it's the same one that leads to comments about people not being able to learn to play if they weren't born in the "right" place or if they ever took lessons from the "wrong" kind of players.

It reminds me very much of an old thread where a fiddler considered to be a top Old Time player currently was attacked for not being properly Old Time. It got so ugly that one of the members eventually called it out and said that some of the posters ought to be ashamed of themselves. There was also a thread where a popular Clifftop player was praised, but when his Suzuki background was mentioned, there was an immediate attempt to discount it--no one that authentically Old Time could possibly have had a classical background.

These superstitions are harmful, and even in the sarcastic comments the disdain for genuine curiosity is omnipresent. There's nothing wrong with discussing ideas for how the music might be presented to new players. I think the distinction between players new to fiddling and those new to the instrument is helpful because in the former case, it would be easier to get into more stylistic discussions and to present things that participants could try right away without having to go into the mechanics of general playing first. It might be possible to gauge the interest in one approach vs. the other by conducting a survey of the potential participants so a course could be planned to match.

Yeah that Shawn Craver, he's the sort of guy that gives the rest of us serious violin players a bad name. Bad Shawn, down! - no treat for you.

Rofl hahaha ?????? Was thinking : let's see what's going on in that one topic ... Not disappointed. Gotta love all of you <3
Rich, have you listened to Shawn's playing? I think , based on what I read from him also in other topics, he would be like the Snape of all fiddle teachers, yay for that!!!

That dark side in his sound.... is completely attractive.

Haha.

Well...I have hesitated to defend my hypothetical course on fiddling, but I must apologize. When pancakes were mentioned, I just got to thinking about buckwheat cakes and how delicious and nutritious they are. Apologies to those raised on white fluffy pancakes. I should be more sensitive to the intrinsic elitism buckwheat projects.

And I also must apologize for the other comments regarding informal/pragmatic learning technique and enculturation (that other musical forms openly celebrate and propagate freely). We Appalachian-folk must remember when to be silent about such things in the presence of more gentrified company.

Oh... and 'listening". Am I really the only one who mentioned listening to fiddle music? Totally out of line.  

Embrace the darkness... 

Shawn - That's a great plan. If this link works, here's an example of your method in action:
youtube.com/shorts/em6PsWyz9Zg?si
That's Mariam Kurasbedianii, and here she is playing her instrument, which perhaps she whittled with her pocket knife (or perhaps not) with her group Trio Mandili (69 million views I think):
youtu.be/EDK9KOfknTw?si=vFV0anasGJ3B63AM
These young ladies are from Georgia, but I don't think from very close to Atlanta!

quote:

---

Originally posted by DougD

Shawn - That's a great plan. If this link works, here's an example of your method in action:
youtube.com/shorts/em6PsWyz9Zg?si
That's Mariam Kurasbedianii, and here she is playing her instrument, which perhaps she whittled with her pocket knife (or perhaps not) with her group Trio Mandili (69 million views I think):
youtu.be/EDK9KOfknTw?si=vFV0anasGJ3B63AM
These young ladies are from Georgia, but I don't think from very close to Atlanta!

---

They're excellent, but an odd choice as an example of the tongue-in-cheek idea suggested earlier. While they perform traditional Gerorgian music, they've also performed music of India, Spain, Italy, and several other cultures. They competed on Eurovision and have amassed a huge following as they've gotten more widespread media attention. That's an entirely different path.