Got a teacher!

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 6:02 pm

I'd wager she's half my age, but what the heck. She grew up playing fiddle in her Scottish family. Next Tuesday. Now I'm gonna go and feel all high strung about it. No pun intended.

Doug_Tipple · Post by **Doug_Tipple** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 6:22 pm

Emmline, since you now have a fiddle teacher (congratulations) and you like to write, why now share with us what you are learning in weekly installments?

I am trying to work on my left hand vibrato. Oscillating the left hand fingers for the vibrato while at the same time bowing smoothly with the right hand is challenging for me. I seem to be able to do it much better on the cello than I can with the violin, where you also have to support the neck of the violin with your left hand. And how can I possibly do a good vibrato with a stubby little finger?

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 7:18 pm

I would be glad to check in with updates.

Cynth · Post by **Cynth** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 10:33 pm

It seems like you took care of that New Year's resolution in pretty quick order! (I think you said it was a resolution.) Congratulations! I know what you mean about being high strung about it. I will start lessons in the spring on UP if all goes well and I am already giving myself little talks about it

.

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 7:22 am

Half an hour is a heckuva short time for a lesson. Whooosh.
And it's going to take a little messing around to zero in on what I want to accomplish in the short bits of time I have with a talented consultant.
What I need is obviously quite different from how you'd approach lessons with a 10 year old just starting violin.
Good things: She was impressed by my in-tuneness.
Bad things: To hear this 24 year old coax dulcet tones out of her fiddle as I saw along--on pitch, but hardly dulcet--makes me want to kick my inner child for having been such a lazy kid. I think that every time I listen to someone be fluent in French or Spanish too, though.

Regrets don't accomplish anything.

I think I'll set a personal goal of memorizing a pair of tunes we're working on and plan to use my brief weekly half hour with the teacher to solicit exercises for improving triplet dexterity and tone, and--at Doug's suggestion--get some advice on techniques such as vibrato, which I've never learned.

dubhlinn · Post by **dubhlinn** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 7:50 am

emmline wrote:.

Regrets don't accomplish anything.

I think I'll set a personal goal of memorizing a pair of tunes we're working on and plan to use my brief weekly half hour with the teacher to solicit exercises for improving triplet dexterity and tone, and--at Doug's suggestion--get some advice on techniques such as vibrato, which I've never learned.

Being too hard on yourself will accomplish even less than regrets.

It takes some time to get a fiddle under control so be patient.
Learning how to play an instrument has always been like learning to ride a bike. You get on, you fall off, you get on again and fall off again.After a while you can go a few yards before falling off. With patience and practice you one day, in the not too distant, you are riding along quite merrily wondering what all the fuss was about.
At this point you are not thinking - dreaming is O.K.

- about entering the Tour De France but you are out and about on your bike with the wind in your hair and the sun on your back.
Use your time at home to practice your choosen pieces and make a note of where you are having problems. Discuss the problem in your half hour class and then go home and apply the lesson to your practice.

Remember that once upon a time,<insert name of favourite musician> sat cursing and muttering as he/she struggled to get their fingers in the right place at the right time. A diamond is just a piece of coal that stuck to it's job.

Once your heart is in it, the fingers will follow...eventually.

Be patient fair Emm, it'll all come good in the end.

Slan,
D.

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 8:04 am

dubhlinn wrote: Use your time at home to practice your choosen pieces and make a note of where you are having problems. Discuss the problem in your half hour class and then go home and apply the lesson to your practice.

Yep. Thanks D.

fel bautista · Post by **fel bautista** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 8:29 am

dubhlinn wrote: At this point you are not thinking - dreaming is O.K. - about entering the Tour De France but you are out and about on your bike with the wind in your hair and the sun on your back.
:

Hey- I want to ride the Tour de France!!! Teachers are a good thing;in my case was timing and consistency in each bow stroke. She had classical training but played old time music as well so she mixed in some gawd-awful exercises that, at the time, were really pain; but now, truly are pain full...

Sunnybear · Post by **Sunnybear** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 11:43 am

way to go emmline...just take it slow, and practice, and it will all come together...

piperdoc · Post by **piperdoc** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 11:02 am

emm, i am not half your age- right in the ballpark, probably, so i will share my experience as an adult taking lessons.

1. make each one an hour if possible. you want to have time to ask questions and ask for demonstrations, as well as time to talk about tuning, settup and other things.

2. compensate for the hour lesson by taking a lesson only once in a while, certainly not every week. kids take weekly lessons because they need management of their practice time. furthermore, kids are sometimes not as good at adults at hearing themselves as feedback. both of us should know this well. as adults, we "get" what the teacher is teaching us on an intellectual level fast, but it takes us a while to incorporate the muscle memory. seen in this light, i would guess that if you have a weekly lesson you will not have time to master the new secrets you have learned.

3. focus your lessons by using self teaching materials to "go ahead". for example, use DVD lessons to learn "whats next"and then ask your teacher about it. there are lots of secrets to any type of trad playing that are not in books. it is these you need to coax from your teacher.

disclaimer: on this end, whistle, a little flute, guitar banjo and uillean pipes, but not fiddle.

meir

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 8:48 pm

All good thoughts Piperdoc...the arrangement, however, is that the instructors are independent contractors working within a format that is pretty much set, and really more aimed at young learners.
Though I'd contacted some folks who would have had more flexibility in their scheduling, none were available, and I was pleased to find that one of the teachers at the local branch of the chain music store had knowledge and experience in Irish & Scot fiddling styles.

Sunnybear · Post by **Sunnybear** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 6:53 am

emm...I know a Scottish Fiddler in Williamsburg that gives lessons...very well respecteed (10 x national champion)...I know several people who drive a couple hours once a month to have a lesson with him...don't know how far it is for you, but may be worth a look...

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 2:23 pm

3.25 hours! That'd be tough.

LeeMarsh · Post by **LeeMarsh** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 6:07 pm

Emm,

There's a Scottish session at the Royal Mile in Wheaton on the first sunday of each month starts around 8. Royal Mile has pretty good food too. I haven't been to the scottish session but I've been to a number of their monthly Irish sessions (4th sunday) and met some of the folks that play at both.

BTW. The session at Castle Bay has been cancelled. The owner couldn't make the finances work.

Congrats on finding a teacher.

Karina · Post by **Karina** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 1:32 am

Doug_Tipple wrote:I am trying to work on my left hand vibrato. Oscillating the left hand fingers for the vibrato while at the same time bowing smoothly with the right hand is challenging for me. I seem to be able to do it much better on the cello than I can with the violin, where you also have to support the neck of the violin with your left hand. And how can I possibly do a good vibrato with a stubby little finger?

I don't usually check this forum much, so I just ran across this now, a bit late. If you're supporting your violin with your left hand/wrist/arm, whatever, that will seriously hinder your vibrato. You should be supporting the violin with your chin alone--a good chin rest and a nice shoulder rest should help with that. If you pinch it nice and tight with your chin and shoulder, there's no weight on the wrist and it allows you to move more freely. I don't know if you're shifting, but weight on that hand will also hinder shifting, and by the time you are into oh, say fifth or seventh position, you simply can't support the violin because you're on top of the thing. An easy fix, but something to fix that might really help you.

If you're interested in more info on helping with vibrato sort of stuff, I could email you a sound clip of an exercise that is extremly helpful in this. It would be a little hard to explain just in type, though. And just in case you're terribly suspicious of whether or not I have a clue about what I'm talking about, I was very active in classical music for a while (NV all state orchestra, two contracted orchestras, and various other odds and ends) and took classical lessons for a while, and this is the stuff they taught me... It seemed to work for me.