Tips for improving

Where are all the fiddle players?

I am a relatively new fiddle player, and would greatly love tips on what helped others learn and what exercises really helped them improve their playing.

If anyone has any advice, I'd love to hear it.

Thanks

I think scales are always great to practice when you can't think of anything else. I've been warming up with double stop scales here lately.

Oh lordy, where do I begin? I've not been playing very long myself but I've picked up a lot of good tips over the last few years. Here's my number 1 tip for how to start your practices:

I like to start by just playing long bows on open strings, just to remind myself that there is actually an entire bow there at my disposal and not just the middle bit. I try and listen to the tone and make it as even as possible. Then I pick a scale and play it slowly and carefully, especially in regards to intonation, like this: Take a C scale, for example. Play C - D, slurred, then C - D slurred again (using the whole bow), listening to the interval, and keep doing this until you're sure it's in tune. Then do the same for D - E. Do this all the way up and down the scale. This really "opens up" your ear and makes you better at hearing and correcting your intonation. Then do the scale normally, with single bows or whatever, but never letting yourself carry on if you play a note wrong; always do it again and again until it's right. Excruciating sometimes (especially for cohabitees/roommates) but worth the effort! Whenever I've failed to do this at the beginning of a practice, the entire practice has been sloppy. But maybe that's just me.

I've got loads of other good tips and excercises I've found useful so if you're still in need of more just ask! I'm new to this forum and look forward to exchanging useful ideas with other bluegrassers!

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 12/31/2008 19:17:14

One Tip:
I improvise a lot while playing and the basis of my improvisation is structured around the chords that are being played so I practice the 1 3 and 5 notes of chords. I do this by playing the 1 3 and 5 notes of each chord while going around the circle of 5ths. Example, start with the G chord (play G,B,D notes) then the C chord (play C,E,G notes), then F etc. I go around the circle until I play the 1 3 and 5 of all 12 chords. I would do this as a warm-up making sure I get the correct intonation of each note.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 01/06/2009 11:04:09

Don't forget that on our news page there are many top tips from our instructors - including some great exercises for all levels from Casey Driessen.

Andy

Hey there!

I've been playing about 1 1/2 years now. I started with focus on my bowing and feel pretty good about it right now thanks to some really great teachers. I've learned how to use my wrist and/or hand to move the bow as well as the weight of my arm to drive it. This really improved my tone and will allow me to go fast...except now my left hand can't keep up.

Since it's hard to get everything right from the start, while working on my bowing, my left hand position developed a few problems. I'm currently working on improving my left hand position.

A few problem areas I need to work on include keeping my thumb anchored. I was moving around too much and going flat whenever I played a difficult chord combo or reached up with my pinky or low with my index finger. I put tapes on my finger board at the 1 and the 3 position. Now I watch my fingers more rather than watching my bowing. I try to play slowly to build up good muscle memory (not always easy). The tapes also provide a mark for the thumb to feel as well.

My fingers do not do what I want them to do. They are currently in training. I have found using a loose rubber band around 2 fingers is one way to train your finger to be where you want it. I've used it around my #1 and #2 for keeping my #2 finger low when I reach up and back with my #3 and have used it on #3 and #4 to help keep my pinky near my #3.

I'm trying to keep all of my fingers close to the fingerboard all the time. This is one of the keys to getting up to speed. My fly away pinky is messing my position up big time. My pinky brings my whole hand away when I play certain combos. I'm on it now so hopefully in a few weeks That won't be messing me up so much.

I was playing on the tips of my fingers, which is good but too much so. I was not making good solid contact with the string against the board. I'm still using my finger tips but not so close to my finger nail. More like on the ball of the tip. In addition, I was use to sliding into a note because my fingers were always coming down flat (from fly away pinky, jumpy thumb, ect...). So I was told that when your learning a tune, get it right on the first contact or redo it. If you slide into it then you train your fingers to find the wrong spot.

My hand was sometimes hitting the E string giving me a bad sound. I still am trying to avoid this one. The better hand position has helped some.

Any other ideas are welcome!

Amy

Hi there!

I agree with Fiddlinang above: the key is to be really careful and care about details all the time. It's taken me 14 years of playing the fiddle to realise that I'll never get as good as I want to be if I don't make sure all the basic bits are there, like REALLY being in tune, not just "in-tune-enough-to-get-away-with-it". It's really hard work to practise that much in detail if you're sloppy by nature (like me), but totally necessary, I think. So be careful with the details! Someone told me to practise in the dark to get your ears to work harder, and I think that works well.

Good luck!
Sofie

I don't want to be discouraging, learning to play violin/fiddle is probably the toughest instrument and a long road, however proportionally rewarding.
There is no worse sounding instrument than a poorly played violin/fiddle, perhaps a bagpipe
Most important : intonation must be dead on, most important, the bow hand, if the right hand doesn't do it, the left hand don't matter.
My best advise is , get a good teacher, preferably one with classical background.
To improve.
Learn: perfect intonation
play all the scales and arpegios , shifting, 1st 2nd 3rd position.
Develop a nice smooth fluid bow hand
Develop nice tone (bow hand and intonation)
Learn nice vibrato (fingers, wrist, arm)
practice properly (poor practice will become imbedded in your muscle memory)

One of the best books on violin playing, Basics by Simon fisher, expensive but worth it.
Do play the songs that you enjoy, as a reward for all the hard work.

I am still working on all the things I have mentioned
and remember, if you don't practise one day, you know it, if you don't practise two days,
everyone else knows it, do practise every day , if you don't have time , just pick up the violin for 5 minutes and play some scales or anything .
Anything else for improving ?