What makes intermediate?

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djones
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Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2005 8:11 pm

What makes intermediate?

Post by djones »

Writing on behalf of my wife, the fiddler of the family...

She is taking up Irish fiddling after classical training.

She wants to sign up for workshops such as those held during Willie Clancy Summer School.

What, she asks, would constitute "Intermediate"? Is it repertoire? Specific skills? What should she be able to do? What skills should she have?

Thanks-
DJones (normally on the Uilleann forum)
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Re: What makes intermediate?

Post by Guest »

djones wrote:Writing on behalf of my wife, the fiddler of the family...

She is taking up Irish fiddling after classical training.

She wants to sign up for workshops such as those held during Willie Clancy Summer School.

What, she asks, would constitute "Intermediate"? Is it repertoire? Specific skills? What should she be able to do? What skills should she have?

Thanks-
DJones (normally on the Uilleann forum)
Well she sure ain't in beginner! so I guess the intermediate class would be the one. BTW we have the same setup, but there is little time for practicing so herself only knows a few slides and jigs, the rest she has to read off if she could be gotten to do it.

Perhaps in your case you should get a few sets of tunes together? then the classes would be more useful.
djones
Posts: 337
Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2005 8:11 pm

Post by djones »

Thanks - that's kind of what I had suggested (ie that she was rightfully intermediate). We went to the east Coast Tionol last weekend and she felt the Intermediate class to be a little tough.

She wants to go to the Willie Clancy Summer School and that would be a significant financial sacrifice for us, so she promised to practice more so the lessons would be comfortable.

DJones
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Martin Milner
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Post by Martin Milner »

When she arrives at the Willie Clancy Summer School on the first day of classes, they'll ask her to play a few bars of a tune, and then they'll assign her to a class. This can of course lead to a few switch arounds durign the first day, but it's probably better than self-assessment.

Being a good classical fiddler won't necessarily make her a good Irish fiddler - though of course there are many shared skills, so she shouldn't get upset if she's in a lower skill class than she thinks she should be.

If she can play a couple of jigs and reels with some spontaneous ornamentation, she will be intermediate. It's not how many tunes you knwo, but how you play them.

Listening to lots of Irish fiddlers and then trying to play to sound like that is probably thr best practise she can do, and try to have at least one of each tune type under her fingers (jig, slide, polka, reel, slip-jig, hornpipe).

It's the slow airs that sort out the intermediate palayers from the masters, so I understand!

Fo a classically trained player, getting away from the dots and into the music is often the toughest challenge.
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that schwing
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