Fiddling Demystified

Donna Hébert

Fiddleblog

Lesson #2: Jiggety-jig to the dance

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Dance your way to lightness!

If you want to learn to play jigs, it helps to learn to dance first. Fiddle music is dance music, and even if you don’t dance often, knowing how makes you a better musician. [Find a contra-dance in your area.] Contra-dancers love jigs and these tunes energize the crowd! And once you’ve danced to a well-played jig, you know what that groove sounds and FEELS like.

It all comes down to one common denominator, regardless of the regional style – LIGHTNESS. Even a heavily accented pipe march in 6/8 gets ‘under your feet’ and makes you walk lighter.

Focus on the bowing

Just WHERE and for how long the downbeat and offbeat stresses fall are the essence of jig timing. ANY left hand ornaments have to fit over that timing, so get the timing just right before tackling the ornaments. The first of each group of three eighth notes usually gets played a little longer and stronger than the two that follow it. But this is a subtle difference. Again, dancing to the music yourself helps to put these rhythms INSIDE your body, so coaxing them out of your arm is much easier!

Don’t overplay the accents or they’ll sound heavy and ponderous instead of light and bouncy. The most common mistake of string players is to give the three eighth notes in a beat equal time and volume. Unfortunately, that kills the timing, which needs room to breathe. Danceability is the bottom line, and here’s where you find it (no kidding!):

The – space – between – the – notes

Fiddlers don’t FINISH everything and we are constantly listening for the places where we can leave things out (and you thought all we did was add notes to tunes!) We leave space to anticipate or delay a downbeat, to syncopate a phrase, to perform a left-hand ornament. Space is a beautiful thing. But to leave space successfully, a player needs a pretty solid sense of the ‘one’ beat or downbeat for every bar. Fortunately, DANCING is a great way to ‘naturalize’ rhythm into your body! Do you see a theme here?

Finding the groove

Listen closely for the beats – it’s our job to mark them. I like to find a spot just a bit behind the downbeat. I can stay there in the groove for a long time, nudging the tune forward from behind. If I get in front of it too far, the beat is chasing me and I’m running away, getting faster as I play. Settle on one spot that makes it EASY to play. That’s your cue that you’re doing it right.

Less really is more here. Use the bounce/balance point of the bow (the weighted center, where you can hold the stick parallel to the floor) as ‘home’ position. You’ll get more bounce out of your jigs. When you play there, it takes almost no weight to get a good sound and a light bounce. From there, you can use bow speed instead of weight to produce micro-dynamic changes in volume.

Advice from a fiddler who used to: AVOID playing at the tip of the bow. There is no real ‘bounce’ or power at the bow’s tip. It’s inefficient, offering poor control of dynamics and nuance. Yeah, I know, it LOOKS easier. But trust me, it’s not, and if you play hard at the tip, you can easily hurt yourself (like I did).

The only formula I can offer is to listen to the best fiddlers you can find and play along with them on recordings.* And if they’ll let you sit in the back and play along with the band at contradances, do it! You’ll also get to dance! There’s no better way to hone your timing on fiddle tunes than by playing for dancers!

    *I strongly recommend using slow-down software as a practice aid to prep you for jamming with friends. You can slow jam with mp3s and boost the speed as your skills increase. I use The Amazing Slow Downer from ronimusic.com. It’s cross-platform, plug and play, foolproof, and you can loop, tune and slow down phrases.

 

OK – what’s a jig?

In the 1700s, a ‘jig’ was a dance and ‘to jig’ meant to dance, a meaning it still retains. For fiddlers, a jig is usually a dance tune in 6/8 meter, but it originally meant an Irish dance tune in 12/8 meter. Many of those original 12/8s survive today as ‘slides’ in Ireland, while many morphed into 6/8 time.

A double jig has a near-constant pattern of 8th notes, grouped into two beats of three notes each in a bar, with a ‘RAT-a-tat, RAT-a-tat’ rhythm. A ‘single jig’ is actually more of a march in 6/8, with a ‘HUMP-ty DUMP-ty” rhythm. Most tunes combine both single and double patterns in their melodies.

Of course, if you put three of those beats together instead of two, you have a slip jig in 9/8 time. With four beats, it becomes a slide in 12/8. There are other names for jigs, but these three – jig, slip jig and slide – are the most often heard. Jigs can also have more than two phrases. Most reels are played AABB, but you’ll find a significant number of jigs with four to eight phrases instead of two. See Michael Gorman’s “Strayaway Child,” with six phrases, “The Foxhunter’s Jig” with four repeated phrases of four bars each, and probably the most famous slip jig, “The Butterfly,” with three phrases of four bars each.

Where do you find most jigs?

Outside of Scottish and Irish music enclaves, jigs are a northern phenomenon. Originally English, Irish or Scots in their source, they burst out of their islands, sailed to the new world and danced across the continent. While they remain a strong part of Canadian, Irish, Scottish, Midwestern and New England fiddling traditions, in other North American regional styles, jigs were heavily eclipsed by reels and breakdowns in 2/4 time.

Are they major or minor?

The short answer is both, and more! I estimate that of the major jigs, about 80% are in a diatonic major key. [The link is to my first Wholistic lesson blog about diatonic major tunes and chords.] The other roughly 20% are in the Mixolydian mode (one of those Greek inventions), using a major scale with a flatted seventh). I note that with these three scales and harmonic patterns: Diatonic major, Mixolydian major and Dorian minor, you have homes for nearly all the old Irish and Scots fiddle tunes and about 80% of the new ones. In terms of applied music theory, fiddlers use these three scale/harmony patterns on a daily basis.

I also find that more of the Mixolydian tunes tend to be Scots in origin, perhaps related to the bagpipe scale. By comparison, the Dorian (minor) below tends to favor the Irish repertoire. A smart musician would learn these two scales together. Both have a flatted seventh and their only scale difference is in the third, raised in Mixolydian and lowered in Dorian mode. The real link is in their harmonies. Both harmonies move from tonic to flatted seventh and back again. In Dorian, that tonic is minor rather than the Mixolydian major.

Here’s a PDF example of an A Mixolydian 6/8 pipe march with four phrases, scored for fiddle. It’s called Marching Down 5th Avenue, and I wrote it in 2007 when my daughter went off to NYU.

If the tunes are in a minor key, they are almost universally** Dorian. What’s that mean? D Dorian would be a C scale that started on D,  spelled D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D.  Harmonically, it moves between the minor (in the example, Dm) and it’s flatted seventh (C major) So you are moving from i to VII to i.

    **How do I know these minor jigs are almost universally Dorian? Music nerd alert: I’ve played through every jig and reel in Ryan’s Mammoth Collection, O’Neill’s and every other book I could get my hand on. I had to go all the way back to the 1650s and Playford’s English Country Dance manuscripts to find minors that weren’t Dorian. There are a few melodies identified with songs that are in natural minors and that’s about it. Go try it yourself. If you find more than five fiddle tunes in the whole collection of either Ryan’s or O’Neill’s that are minor but not Dorian, I’ll send you a free CD!

 
Many guitarists who back up Scots and Irish tunes play in DADGAD tuning. This easily allows them to play drones of the 1 and 5 notes in a chord. They often leave out the third altogether, giving their accompaniment that characteristic open sound.

Here’s an example, a jig of mine in Dm and C called Kangaroo Jig. The PDF is scored for fiddle, viola and cello. Violists and cellists can drop the octave or not in the B part – your choice! The mp3 track [Kangaroo Jig/Geese in the Cloverleaf/Paddy Kelly’s Jig] is from the 1996 “Soirée chez nous” recording with my band, Chanterelle. André Marchand plays guitar on the track, Pete Sutherland is on piano and I wrote the first two tunes. The last tune is attributed to, if not composed by Paddy Fahy. Have fun!

    Mp3 performances and PDFS of Marching Down Fifth Avenue, Kangaroo Jig and Geese in the Cloverleaf are © ℗ Donna Hébert, fiddlingdemystified.com. All rights are reserved.

Holistic fiddle lesson #1: Diatonic chords & music

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OK, what’s ‘wholistic’ fiddling?

Wholistic fiddling teaches the whole tune – the melody PLUS the rhythms, the chord progression, what two-note chords you find on adjacent strings, and especially, how to dance them around in rhythm under the melody!

Music is much more than sound – it’s color and movement and history. There are many layers, some musical – one-two-three or more harmonies, countermelodies, even more rhythms, while others are more cerebral and emotional. Your skills and your inspiration (and of course, your taste!) are the limit. Create your own palette – of stories, chord possibilities, harmonies and multiple rhythms for each tune. Then you OWN it!

Regardless of regional fiddling style, inspiration is the point. Going deep primes the pump, starts the creative process. Finding the musical layers, bringing up new ideas, you create your own unique and tasty setting for the tune. Don’t just add melodies to your tune list. Learn as much as possible about each new tune’s origins and what it offers musically. Listen closely for the emotional content offered by each piece of music. Your job is to unlock that so others can feel it, too!

Here’s the lesson in two parts. The first lays out how to find the diatonic chords in any major key, using D as a template, with a copy of the Chord Wheel from my Fiddling Demystified Vol I. The second offers a pretty Cajun-style waltz of mine to try them out on! I encourage you to use the written music as a jumping-off point for your own interpretations!

I. Theory is your friend

Music theory is much simpler than you think. It’s just a template for understanding musical structures. You can learn most of the theory you’ll need in one key and then move the template around from key to key. For fiddle, I choose D major as my ‘template key’, because I think it’s the easiest key to play on the instrument. Violists and cellists might choose G major, with the same fingering pattern as D for the violin.

Why is theory important? Well, it’s language. Do you want to have a conversation and make sense? I try to speak French with musical partners so I know how frustrating it is to try to communicate clearly when the language just isn’t there. So here’s my answer:

Learn theory one fiddle tune at a time

For each and every tune you add to your playlist, learn the chord progression and write it down (even if you don’t notate the tunes). Take a few minutes and outline the chords on two-string pairs (usually just the bottom two pairs for fiddles – violas and cellos can use all three string pairs). Of course, if you already play a rhythm instrument, I’m preaching to the choir, but make sure to transfer your knowledge of those harmonic patterns to the fiddle if you want to use them!

[Even for a classical string player who doesn’t fiddle, this method would be useful in learning to recognize harmonic changes. It’s much easier to follow chord movement over 32 bars than through a symphony. Yet a symphony is built in large part of 4 and 8 bar fragments, just like a fiddle tune!]

Pay attention to movement, up or down. Learn each chord’s NAME and learn it’s universal key number (I, iim, etc). After chording ten different tunes in D major, I guarantee you’ll know D major. You’ll also know that the IV chord in D is a G major and that the relative minor of that IV chord is a iim and it’s named Em. It’s also a whole step up from the D major chord, so that’s where you look for it on the fingerboard. It shares two notes with the G major/IV chord, which is why it can sub for it in the progression and you use it because it changes the emotional content. Oh, and you can do all that with just one note (if it’s the right one)! Isn’t THAT language string players can use?

Diatonic? What does that mean?

‘Diatonic’ refers to a melody in the common major Western scale. The Ionian Mode is another way to name it – modes describe the unique scale patterns originally defined in classical Greek music. But today, if you want to add a rhythm to a melody, knowing where a tune is likely to travel harmonically is far more useful.

This is all vocabulary:

The vast majority of fiddle tunes in major keys use the diatonic scale/Ionian mode. Using the notes from just one scale (in this example, D major) defines the ‘key signature’ or ‘home/tonic key,’ which all mean the same thing – that the tonal center of the tune is D.

A chord ‘triad’ is the same as the three arpeggio notes – DO-MI-SO. The triad is played simultaneously, unlike the arpeggio, which is played sequentially.

Minor and major chord triads in every key are built from these ascending thirds using the notes of that key’s major scale.

Download Chord Wheel with spellings, relative minors, and the Universal Key, excerpted from my “Fiddling Demystified for Strings” Vol. I.

Chords are written with note names or Roman numerals, as shown below:

D E F# G A B C# – D major scale

I ii iii IV V vi – UNIVERSAL KEY notation is written in Roman numerals, with major chords in upper case and minor chords in lower case. This is another way to think of the key of D chords that follow, but since this can be used to talk about any key, it allows ease of transposition.

D Em F#m G A Bm – Chords built out of D major chord (arpeggio) notes. This is the D major family of DIATONIC chords, spelled out here:

CHORD |    SPELLING | FUNCTION
D major –   D-F#-A –     I chord (tonic, home key, starts or ends most tunes)
E minor –   E-G-B –        iim chord (relative minor of IV chord, substituted for IV, most often used substitution)
F# minor – F#-A-C# –   iiim chord (relative minor of V chord, substituted for V, least often used substitution)
G major –   G-B-D –       IV chord (sub-dominant)
A major –   A-C#-E –     V chord (dominant)
B minor –   B-D-F# –     vim chord (relative minor of I chord, substituted for I, less often used substitution)

Before you ask what happened to that poor little 7th note in the scale and where it’s triad disappeared to, a triad/arpeggio built on C# using only D-scale notes gives you a C#-E-F# diminished chord, two minor thirds stacked on top of each other. That chord is the orphan – it’s never used. [Even in the jazziest Québecois piano accompaniment, the diminished chord you hear is a I# or IV# diminished, never a vii diminished.]

Once we play with these ascending and descending triads, it’s obvious that, as string players, we have choices. We can pizz the whole triad on three strings, but we only need to bow two of those three notes on adjacent strings (usually A/D, D/G or G/C) to imply a chord. And you’ll find that those two notes are often doing double duty as part of another chord, so it gets interesting quickly. You start looking at notes and asking yourself, “how many chords can I make with these two notes?” [I’ll go deeper into ‘broken chords’ and how to use them in a future lesson!]

While this relationship among the diatonic triads made from the notes of ANY one scale – I, iim, iiim, IV, V, vi – is the same in every key, the note and chord names change in each key. This reality is why we learn the chord name, for instance, “D major,” and learn to call it “I” in the Universal Key. If I’m playing with a singer or another fiddler who plays the tune in a different key, using numbers instead of chord names makes quick and easy chord transposition possible.

II. Hommage à Johnny – waltz in D major

My tune example gives you TWO keys to fool around in, since the second half of the tune moves into G major. I wanted to keep the entire melody within an octave to make it easier to play and also to find harmonies. Setting the ‘B’ part in G major gave me the drama and change I like in a second half, while still staying tidily within that octave in D major.

Suitable for strings or any ensemble, I wrote it this in 2012 in memory of John McGann, a great musician and pal and a beloved Berklee prof. And yes, this tune jumps off the D scale for one C chord in the B part, but that C chord is John, jumping in to surprise us! Good art can trump the rules!

It’s a Cajun waltz, so be sure to crank the two beat, not the one! You can hear Stuart Kenney’s bass with me on that two-beat, with Max Cohen on guitar, at the Greenfield MA contradance. Stu played with fiddler Dewey Balfa back in the day, so he knows Cajun waltzes! The tune is also viola/cello friendly with no E-string action, octave jumps or third-position workouts.

With a one-bar intro, the chords start on a walk down from the D on the downbeat. No worries if you can’t play the chords with the bass note written under the chord name D – D/c# – D/b – D/a. That’s how we write a bass run into a chord progression for backup players. It’s simply a walking line down, D-C#-B-A, played over a long D chord. We’re string players, so we get to play the sustained line!

Hommage à Johnny has been road-tested at the Old Songs and Philadelphia Folk Festivals in 2012, where young musicians from age 6-17 learned one of these three parts by ear (no music) or played a backup instrument, and performed with the Great Groove Band on the main stage at both festivals!

Downloads

Download practice and performance mp3s and 3 separate parts each for fiddle, viola, and cello. The easy melody part, with a strong two-beat accent in 3/4 time, is especially useful for teaching syncopation.

• Hommage à Johnny Tophill Contradance, Guiding Star Grange, March 2012, with Max Cohen (guitar), Stuart Kenney (bass), Matt Kenney (percussion) – use this one to jam with and try harmonies.

• Hommage à Johnny melody PDF (treble clef)

• Hommage à Johnny easy melody PDF (treble clef)

• Hommage à Johnny moving bass line PDF (treble clef)

• Hommage à Johnny melody PDF (alto clef)

• Hommage à Johnny easy melody PDF (alto clef)

• Hommage à Johnny moving bass line PDF (alto clef)

• Hommage à Johnny melody PDF (bass clef)

• Hommage à Johnny easy melody PDF (bass clef)

• Hommage à Johnny moving bass line PDF (bass clef)

• D major diatonic triads mp3 – going up and down the scale in thirds. THIS is how you practice scales in each key – build the diatonic triad recognition right into the scale practice

• G-major diatonic triads mp3 – same thing for G major

How to use the materials

Listen first – in class if possible. Post a link to the materials online for students to listen to as well.

Listen at least twice, allowing students to finger notes as they HEAR them with their left hand, but not read or play yet. After listening, let them turn over the music and read along while listening simultaneously. Listening first gives them a much better sense of rhythm and beat placement. This an effective way to teach authentic roots music in a classroom setting.

Now they are ready to play. Play in class, repeating the tune for long enough that students can try out harmonies, bass lines and other ideas. The waltz is a 64-bar tune and those repeats are helpful in memorization.

Encourage students to memorize the tune and get off the page. Then they are free to look each other in the eye. To stand next to someone else and play a nice harmony to their melody. To have the freedom to choose what to play based on where they think their voice can add the most to the overall sound. This invariably brings parents and other audience members to their feet when they see students and teachers playing freely together, having a true musical conversation on stage. It’s electrifying!

Please record your group playing this tune and send it to me!

Other fiddilng resources

Please share this lesson (including copyright and use) with other string or fiddle teachers you might know. You might also consider joining the Facebook Fiddlers’ Association, which I founded and help run. We have more than 7500 members from all around the world. It’s an amazing network, offering some pretty deep fiddle lore – and a great way to get fiddling questions answered!

My blog posts here are almost all lessons, so be sure to check out the older posts at right.

Happy fiddling!

Donna Hébert

Jamming successfully

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© 2011 Donna Hébert,fiddlingdemystified.com. All rights reserved.
developed for Tri City Trad’s “Jam/Sing/Thing” 1/14-16/11 in Troy, NY

Let’s start with some guidelines and then move on the questions at the heart of this discussion.

Bottom-line non-negotiable basics: TUNING and KEEPING THE BEAT.
My motto is “Tune it or die!” No excuses, buy a tuner and learn how to use it.

And if you can’t keep a beat, play softly so you don’t throw off other people’s rhythm. If you’re guilty of this, you’ll know because usually someone at the jam will look at you with a panicked gaze or someone else will start slamming their foot into the floor to keep a stronger beat to counteract yours. Less skilled players should always play softly. Sing along with a tune to pattern it in your brain. Pay attention, play softly and you’ll learn.

DON’T

  • Play louder than everyone else
  • Grab the limelight repeatedly
  • Shut people out with tunes no one else knows
  • Play tunes outside the jam theme (i.e., Bluegrass at an Irish session or the reverse)
  • Start a tune and then fizzle out. If you’re going to start a tune, know it well enough to finish it.
  • Talk while people are jamming. Leave the circle with your conversation.

 
DO

  • Keep your instrument in tune
  • Your practicing at home
  • LISTEN! LISTEN! LISTEN!
  • Ask how the jam works
  • Follow the group rhythm
  • Come prepared with a set of tunes to share
  • ALWAYS ask before recording
  • Play more softly if you’re a less skilled player
  • Keep an open mind and heart

 
Remember that a jam is just a group of people, and people organize themselves differently. Most jams have a core group that helps to organize the session. See how you fit in with them. Some questions to consider about yourself and the jam . . .

Who are you musically? – What’s your style, skill level, repertoire, harmonic tastes, personal, political and social comfort levels, competitiveness or lack of same? Know your own skills and style before jumping in.

When are you practicing on your own? Is the jam the only time you play? If you want to improve, spend more time with the instrument alone and practicing in smaller groups with others. Come prepared with repertoire under your hands. Do your homework and you’ll have more fun at the jam. Andy Kuntz, (jam leader and webmaster: The Fiddlers’ Companion www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/) suggests new jam members come with a set of tunes they can introduce if called upon. Be ready to start each tune and play them at a grooving tempo.

Where are you jamming? – Before jumping in, observe the group. What kind of music is the jam about? Is there a leader?  What are their social boundaries around the music? Are they really a ‘house band’ and you’re jamming with them, or is the jam more circular and open, with input from others? Jammers talk about the “jam hog” who gets going and plays tune after tune from their own repertoire, shutting out the rest of the players. The rules for getting along in kindergarten pretty much apply here. Share. It’s nice. ASK before you record someone. Professionals at the jam might prefer you not record their jamming (especially if it suddenly shows up on Facebook or YouTube without their knowledge – a definite NO-NO!). So ask first! You’re much more likely to get a ‘yes’ answer. I request that I see any video recorded of me before anyone posts it online. No exceptions.

How are jam decisions made? – How do tune choices seem to happen? How long do they play a tune? Do they play medleys? Do they arrange or improvise on the tune? How open to new people are they? Every group has a structure and jams are no different. Take the time to figure out what’s going on before you jump in. Ask questions. And remember, unless it’s your jam, you’re visiting, so act accordingly  .  .  .

What are your goals in joining the jam? Are you here to learn? To have fun? To get a chance to practice in a larger group setting? To showcase yourself? To teach and inspire others? To have fun grooving with some of your friends? Hey, it could be the free BEER! You can choose to come for different reasons each time, but be aware of why you are there. The jam is not there just to serve your needs.  At least part of your reason should be social, to enjoy the group, as well as the music.

Why are you there? Why are other people there? – When the answer to both questions is roughly the same, you can have a great jam. What expectations did you walk in the door with? You might want to lose some of them and let things flow and enjoy the good fellowship that jamming provides. Remember – a good time can’t always be scripted!

Jamming

© Donna Hébert, 1998

Don’t be afraid

Just let go

Take a deep breath

and look into

each other’s eyes

Friend and peer

Equals

Tuck your fiddles

and raise your bows

ready to share

music:

conversation

without words

Enter the sound

Let its will

guide yours

Swing on

the groove

Hand it

back and forth

Magic carpet ride

Roller coaster tune

A journey round your ears

and every so often,

your eyes – softly shut

to better hear the music

in your head –

open wide, and you catch a

through-the-looking-glass glimpse

of another soul

Twelve questions about fiddling for violinists

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© 2002, Donna Hébert (reprinted from Strings Magazine)

How many times have you heard someone (perhaps yourself) ask, “What’s the difference between playing a violin and fiddling?” Beyond the short answer, “spelling,” this age-old conundrum invites the ponderer to step beyond stereotypes and assumptions, and to explore music’s many meanings. I’ve encountered the question many times myself. I began as a classically trained violinist in a heritage music family, then switched to playing folk music in my 20s. Since then, I’m a fiddle instructor at Smith and Amherst Colleges and have taught fiddling since 1974.

Some fiddlers say that the only way to learn fiddling is to go hang out and jam with fiddlers, preferably primary sources. It’s what the vast majority of fiddlers past and present have done. Others say they’ve learned most of their repertoire from recorded sources, while some even learn by reading exclusively. Still, jamming remains the prevalent way of sharing fiddle music with others, and jam sessions are cultivated carefully in communities to maintain this opportunity. Dances (contra, square, Cajun, step, clogging) are what fiddling is designed to support, while jams are the ideal setting for actual learning.

There are as many styles of fiddling as there are communities with fiddlers in them, and each regional music has a physical and cultural home. The music fits and describes the place it’s played in, the people who play it, the kind of community it is, even the climate!

Be forewarned: After a lifetime of consciously not tapping your feet when you play the violin, it will start to creep back in when you play fiddle tunes. This is perfectly normal and nothing to be alarmed about: It means you’re hitting the groove, the place where the music flows like honey from your fingers. Welcome to fiddling. Here are 12 questions that classical players frequently ask about fiddling, and yes, even some written examples to help you make the connection.

1. How does fiddling differ from classical music?

a) Beat, beat, beat! Most classical music has a stronger accent on the downbeat, while fiddling accents the upbeat for dancers. Regional or ethnic fiddling styles use different left- and right-hand techniques to produce authentic sounds, with beat placements and degrees of swing changing from one style to the next.

b) Fiddle music evolved for dancing, and improvisation and spontaneous composition are the heart of fiddling. Jazz players compose a new melodic line over the chord changes. Fiddlers use the bow and left-hand ornaments to drum a new rhythm over the melody, accenting key parts of the dance with licks, drones, and dynamics, since dancers will use the tune to tell their place in the dance.

c) Fiddling is an oral tradition. Fiddlers learn hundreds, even thousands, of tunes, almost entirely by ear and in a variety of keys and modes. We learn from other musicians at jam sessions, and from recorded and (sometimes) printed sources. Most classical players use printed music to train the ear, which kicks in when sight-reading the music. But you can’t learn fiddle rhythms or styles from written music; you must hear it first. Fiddling pedagogy asks you to hear all the layered parts of a phrase—melody, beat placement, left- and right-hand ornaments, dynamics, chord changes and other moving lines—and then try to reproduce exactly what you hear. Playing for dances is fiddling’s main function, but jam sessions are the important forum for learning style and for transmitting repertoire and fiddling culture. We learn to play with others at the jam, flowing with the group beat or groove. We create medleys, and arrange tunes creatively on the fly. At “slow-jam” sessions, we play tunes at a slower speed to allow everyone to grab the basic tune, then gradually speed up to a dance tempo: 115–130 beats per minute for hoedowns, hornpipes, and reels in 2/4, jigs or marches in 6/8, and marches in 4/4.

2. Why does fiddling sound so scratchy and out of tune?

There is no universal performance standard in fiddling, nor a universal scale, because scales and standards are culturally relative. We bend notes, raise a scale degree by several cents, and generally emphasize groove over a flawless tone. What you’d call “scratchy fiddlers” are likely to be what fiddlers call “primary sources.” We revere these ancestors and tradition-bearers, often trying to model their styles. Tommy Jarrell is a primary source among southern old-time fiddlers, and Franco-American fiddler Louis Beaudoin is always in my head when I play French-Canadian tunes. This modeling is done with the utmost respect, even reverence, for the source, hearing beyond limited technique or the infirmities of age to their rhythms, creative variations, and the soul they put into it.

3. Why aren’t you playing what’s written down for the tune?

Published fiddle music is usually a only a skeleton of what we play, often lacking bowings, dynamics, ornaments, variations, or even chords. Tunes are usually written unswung, with one full repeat of the melody line (usually two eight-bar phrases repeated—once through most square and contra dances). Variations, beat placement, and bowing syncopations are implied and change with style. Most of this “performance practice” couldn’t be read by the majority of fiddlers. Defining techniques are learned as part of a style, and applied to the tunes as a spoken accent is to a language.

4. Why does it feel like I’m bowing everything backwards?

Maybe you are! Some tunes play easier with an up bow on the downbeat, reversing what you may be used to. The bowing pattern may even reverse the next time we play the phrase. We may end up bowing a phrase in both directions, producing the same rhythmic accent both ways. Driven up bows are also common in some styles, while other styles slur across the beat and bar lines for more syncopation. We follow the groove and accent it, regardless of bow direction.

5. Why don’t you use all of your bow?

It’s a misconception that fiddlers don’t use the whole bow. Regional styles change and vary. Some use long fluid bow strokes—Texas, Cajun—and others—Cape Breton, French-Canadian, and some southern old-time styles—use short, repeated bow strokes. Many fiddlers work off the balance point of the bow, using the weighted center for power and mobility. One who favors the tip of the bow might compensate by choking up on the bow hold to shorten the stick length.

6. What’s that rocking thing you do with your bow?

Usually it’s a shuffle. Shuffles accent the offbeat for natural syncopation. The basic shuffle forces an offbeat accent in 2/4. We can create different rhythms by tying notes together over a two-bar phrase, often across the bar lines and beats. There’s a “split bowing” shuffle with two notes slurred, two separate over a pattern of four notes. The Georgia Shuffle is a three-slurred, one-separate bowing rhythm that can pop the offbeat out like an elbow in the ribs.

7. What about dynamics?

Usually the focal point of the tune is played louder, while some notes are played softer or even ghosted. Dynamics within a bar punch the offbeat like a heartbeat or breathing—soft, loud, soft, loud. One approach is to play a double-stop drone from the harmony on the offbeat.

8. Don’t you get sick of playing the same 32 bars over and over again?

We don’t play them the same way over and over. Learn the ornaments in any style and you’ll be able to vary the melody authentically in that style. We also medley tunes for fun and to avoid repetitive use injuries. Variations begin on the second or third repetition, and then we might vary the rhythm under the tune a little. It’s always moving somewhere, never static.

9. What about vibrato?

You won’t hear it much. Most reels are full of 16th notes played at 120 bpm, with no time for vibrato. You might use it in waltz, but all ornaments in any style are subordinate to the rhythm. If there isn’t room for the ornament “in the groove” we lose the ornament rather than lose the beat.

10. How do you set up, tune, and hold your instrument?

Most modern fiddlers have their instruments set up much like a violinist’s. Some fiddlers let the bridge do the work of playing adjacent-string drones, filing the top of the bridge’s curve down a bit. We may also keep a second instrument tuned to an open chord, say AEAE from bottom to top. In AEAE you can play either in A minor or A major—or both in the same tune. Many traditions—American old time, Cajun, Scandinavian, French-Canadian—have tunes that require retuning to (bottom to top) AEAE for tunes in A, ADAE for tunes in D, and AEAC# for A major tuning. Our fiddling postures are personal, based on physique and inclination (and yes, sometimes, ignorance), and often dictated by the rigors of the style we’re playing. You’ll see many variations on bow and instrument holds.

11. I can already play the violin. How long will it take to learn to fiddle?

First, it’s important to recognize the fiddling stereotypes lurking in your subconscious. A common one is the assumption that because “it’s almost all in first position, it should be easy, and besides, I can play already.” You probably have more left-hand position chops than most fiddlers, and are able to read almost anything with facility and speed. But don’t underestimate what fiddlers do. How many ways could you rearrange the notes in four or eight or 16 bars of music at 120 bpm, playing the tune authentically, with good timing and ornaments, creating tiny rhythmic variations with each repetition, yet never losing the outline of the melody, never playing it exactly the same way twice, keeping a rocking offbeat going all the while, changing tunes and keys in medleys and arranging all of them intuitively, without using sheet music? I put that all in once sentence because we are doing all of that simultaneously!

Fiddling is another language and immersion is the best way to learn. Really loving a sound and style are key. Find a style you love and learn everything you can—tunes, harmonies, rhythms. Listen repeatedly so your fingers can catch minute changes in rhythm and melody. When you learn any tune the first time, you imprint it, so aim high and learn from the best. If possible, find a mentor you can play regularly with, and learn enough tunes to be able to play in a jam session. Keep a music notebook and write down every tune you learn, noting bowings, suggested harmonies, licks. At the very least, keep a recorded journal and a tune list.

12. Why should I learn fiddling at all?

There are two compelling reasons to learn and teach fiddling in schools and private studios. First, it satisfies all ten of the MENC National Standards for Music Educators: a) Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music; b) Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music; c) Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments; d) Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines; e) Reading and notating music; f) Listening to, analyzing, and describing music; g) Evaluating music and music performances; h) Understanding relationships between music and other arts, and disciplines outside the arts; i) Understanding music in relation to history and culture; and j) Integrating dance with music.

Second, how many of your string students will make it to an orchestra, teaching, or solo career as an adult, or even grow up to play in an amateur chamber group? Don’t you want them to have as many opportunities as they can to become lifelong musicians? Besides, you never know where the next Brittany Haas, Mark O’Connor or Natalie MacMaster is going to come from. Maybe one of your students?

You and your fiddle

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10 most important things about your time alone with the violin

1. Breathe! And keep breathing. Don’t hold your breath when you learn or play – it starves your brain and your sound along with it. Breath awareness will keep you in the present and focused.

2. Play in front of a mirror! A picture is worth a thousand words. Look for where your movement is awkward. See if you can correct yourself by watching what you do and redirecting your movements.

3. Change your stance! If you play seated, stand up if possible. Walk around a bit while you’re playing to help your body relax and open up. If you sit, keep your spine erect and perch your hip-bones on the edge of the chair. Don’t sit back or slouch.

4. Easy does it! Approach playing fiddle lightly.  A relaxed bow hold keeps you flexible and able to move in any direction. The same is true for the left arm. If you need a shoulder rest, find and use one that works for you. Don’t add tension to your hold in either hand. Instead, monitor yourself to see where you’re holding and then wait for the release. Remember to wait!

5. Listen before you play! Fiddle style is all in the ephemeral ornaments that curl around notes and in the rhythm that drives the tune, neither of which you’ll find notated in most tune collections. So listen-listen-listen!

6. Sing the tune! Doesn’t matter if you sing in tune – you are patterning the tune’s unique rhythms into your brain so you can retreive it later. Singing makes it physical, makes it real, makes it YOURS! If you can sing it, you can play it!

7. Learn something new every time you play! Find something new in every playing experience and you’ll find you are never bored with music. It can be as complex as a whole tune or as simple as a new way to finger an ornament, play a new chord or bow a lick.

8. Use all your senses! If you know you always hear a note a little sharp or flat, use your sight to help you find the right spot. After a while your ears will hear it right, too! If you primarily read music, try listening and singing along with your eyes closed to help wake up your ears.

9. Find shortcuts! Big improvements in playing technique can happen when we adjust our breathing, stance, bow and instrument holds. Also look for places where left-hand fingers can be left down to improve efficiency.

10. No shame – no blame! A wise man once said, “If you do not know a thing, you simply do not know it.” Take fear and blame out of the learning eperience and the result is a lifetime of creative and joyful self-education!

Turning a tune inside out!

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Annie Cameron’s Jig

What happens when you’re not paying attention? When it’s a piece of music, a simple slip like misreading the key signature can uncover a whole new interpretation of the melody and the harmony underpinning it. A little key change and suddenly it’s a whole new tune! 

Reading through the William Marshall Collection, I found this little slip jig and in error, I started playing it in B minor instead of it’s original Bb major. When I realized my mistake and corrected it, I thought, “Hmmmm . . . I might like the minor version better!”

So here is my minor update of a major slip jig (9/8) called Miss Ann Cameron of Balvenie. Try it out and then go back to your tunebooks and play some of those major tunes as minors instead. Who knows what you’ll find?

PDF Download of tune

Annie_Cameron

Why I Play Franco-American Fiddle Music

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reprinted from Le forum, Franco American Centre, UMaine/Orono: June 1998, © Donna Hébert

As I ponder what the music I play means to me, I know that, having heard my mother’s music and seen her family’s musical house parties as a child, I would not feel settled or satisfied until I had made it a large part of my adult life

Peggy and Her Range Riders - 1938
Peggy and Her Range Riders – 1938

My mother’s French immigrant family is very musical. While they gave up their language in an effort to assimilate and avoid discrimination, the music remained as a viable outlet for culture. Five of my her seven siblings played, as did both my maternal grandparents – fiddle, piano, tenor banjo, accordion, guitar, mandolin. My mother sang and played the tenor banjo in bands in the thirties and forties, with her sister, Theresa.  Their strict father fetched them home from Boston because, “nice girls didn’t go live in the city and become musicians.” They were good pickers too, and did a lot of harmony yodeling in their act. I recall my mom trying to teach me to yodel before my voice ever broke! She played tunes on the banjo, as well as backing up songs.

So, as a child, while I didn’t play “Franco-American music,” I listened and learned technique and other musical skills. At 22, I was re-introduced to fiddle music through Dudley Laufman’s Canterbury Country Dance Orchestra, and what should I find but a re-creation (on a larger scale – not the kitchen but a town hall) of my grandmother’s kitchen soirées. I was hooked. About a third of the tunes had French names, but it wasn’t quite what I remembered.

Louis Beaudoin, 1976 (Ann Meuer photo)
Louis Beaudoin, 1976 (Ann Meuer photo)

Then, after a year or so of sitting in at Dudley’s dances, I travelled to Barre, Vermont to see a fiddle contest at the invitation of my mother’s cousin, Clem Myers, who founded the Northeast Fiddlers’ Association. When I walked in, they were setting up for a band to play. Then Louis Beaudoin of Burlington, VT sat down on the stage, started clogging with his feet and began to play with members of his family. I was transported back to my grandmother’s kitchen junkets. I knew what I wanted. And I was beginning to know who I was.

Later that year, at the French Club in Waltham, MA, I met Gerry Robichaud, an Acadian fiddler from Waltham MA, who’d come to the “Boston States” from Moncton, New Brunswick in the sixties. I heard some of my uncle’s fiddling in Gerry’s playing, which had a smoother, more rolling sound than Louis’ Québécois swing. I wanted all of it! The Acadian and the Québécois sounds made me happy, made me feel “at home” in the music. They excited me. I loved Irish and Scottish music, and New England dance tunes, but the French music made me grin like a fool, and I wanted to play it with the swing, the rhythms that came so naturally to Louis Beaudoin. With the French tunes, I was home.

I loved Louis and Gerry as people and as musicians. Both the Beaudoin and Robichaud families welcomed me into their homes. In fact, it was like going as a child to visit on Sunday, which we’d always done. We’d go take a ride and drop in on a relative. Sometimes there would be music, always someone would be playing whist or gin rummy. Everyone brought food and news and shared both. So, woven in with the food and the visits with members of the Beaudoin family each time I was there (Louis had five daughters!) was the most incredible music. “Hey Donna, you know this one?” he’d say, and be off on another great tune. I’d scramble to put down my food and drink, grab my fiddle and try to follow him.

Chanterelle & The Beaudoin Legacy at the Blackstone River Theatre, RI
Chanterelle & The Beaudoin Legacy at the Blackstone River Theatre – 2008, RI
Sometimes all I got was the rhythm of the tune as I tried to follow him through a crooked patch with extra beats. Other times I was able to play along with him in his incredibly danceable groove. What a gift that was, to be carried along by Louis’ rhythms, with his brother, Willie Beaudoin on guitar and daughter Lisa on feet and piano. Like a tidal wave, it carried me farther into the heart of the music than I ever could have come by myself. And suddenly, instead of looking at the music from the outside, I was playing from inside where all the music really was. It was as though, in an instant, I had gone from looking at a tree to being the tree. My world was forever changed.

I came back to Louis Beaudoin’s soirées whenever I could until his death. And by then, I had also recorded an album for Alcazar with Gerry Robichaud, his brother Bobby Robichaud, and Tony Parkes. Working with Gerry to prepare for this album gave me a lot of time to watch and listen to him play. His groove was different, smoother, a little faster. And his tunes were terrific! So, after a year and a half of playing with Gerry every week, his style had begun to creep into mine, which was fine by me. It’s still there in my playing, as is “le swing” that I got from Louis Beaudoin, and that old fiddling sound that I first heard in my grandmother’s kitchen.

So what does all this say about the music that I play and what it means to me? Well, I have chosen to make fiddle music, and particularly Franco-American fiddle music – its performance, documentation and transmission through teaching – my life’s work. And if this music is so essential to the lives of so many – myself, Josée Vachon, Gerry Robichaud, Joe Cormier, Louis Beaudoin, and so many others, then it is indeed vibrantly alive. The fact that young people are learning about their Franco-American cultural heritage through music, and that they are as excited about the songs, tunes and dances as I was then and still am now, reassures me that our culture lives.

Printed June 1998 in Le Forum, The Franco American Center, University of Maine at Orono

A New Year’s Resolution . . . play or practice?

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Interesting postscript to this blog about how to practice – published in 2013

Play more music – every day!

As someone who teaches and facilitates music for others on a daily basis, it’s important to look at my own music with the same critical ear and eye. A friend once asked me, “you teach a lot, but how much do you practice?” A thought-provoking question, this changed my musical landscape and brought true practice back into it.

What is practicing?

Practicing is just focused playing – you’re jamming alone with an agenda.

Choose one piece or medley to work on for each session; don’t spread yourself too thin. You might like to keep a music diary, noting the date, what you worked on, any insights and further goals for that piece. Please remember to be nice to yourself. No shame, no blame! Keep it fun and you’ll learn a lot more.

When working on something for performance or recording, I deconstruct the tune, listening to myself play the component parts, the transitions, the pitches, the tricky passages, the underlying rhythms as well as the shifts or ornaments, listening for where to put dynamics and variations. Sometimes they are all in need of help and it’s hard to know where to start first.

Rhythm is usually a good place to begin, making sure I’m locking into a groove as I play, nailing the beat each time in the same place to create a repetitive rhythm. Once that seems stable, I can listen to phrasing and pitches, flipping back and forth, listening to how a note sounds, then to how a whole phrase of notes sound. When I’m satisfied with that part, I can refocus, now on the transitions between phrases that make the tune flow smoothly into the next section.

Next I work on is the ornamentation and dynamics. Both are style-specific, like rhythm and the placement of the beat (in front of, in the middle of or behind the downbeat). Ornaments are often a combination of right and left hand movements, but some are played with only one hand or the other. It helps to identify and learn these style markers and ornaments in a particular style you might be drawn to – it makes you sound much more authentic and “in the groove” in that style.

The last part of the puzzle is finding variations. When you are able to tweak the rhythm, melody and ornaments into variations, that’s when you really KNOW the tune. Usually it comes faster when you learn the tune by ear or are OFF the page. It doesn’t have to be big variations to do the trick. Swapping out one ornament for another will often work, as will replacing an even “One-and-two-and One-and-two-and” rhythm with a syncopated 3-3-2 rhythm like “One-two-three, One-two-three, One-two”.  These syncopated rhythmic variations are my favorite!

Usually the learning chronology is:

1. Rhythm – Learn bowings FIRST – they create rhythm and underpin the tune and style. Play a downbeat or offbeat accent. Place beat directly on, in front of, or after the beat, creating swing (or not) this way. Accent off-beats in 2/4 dance tunes. Jigs accent the downbeat (ONE-two-three TWO-two-three. Marches accent the one as well (ONE-two-three-four). Most waltzes accent the one and three (ONE-two-THREE, ONE-two-THREE), while Cajun waltzes accent the two (one-TWO-three, one-TWO-three).

2. Melody/Pitch – Play slowly to hear individual notes. Take none for granted. Listen to each one singly and as part of a phrase – it needs to fit both ways. Play scales and arpeggios in the tune’s key to refresh your pitch memory.

3. Phrasing & voicing – Phrasing is how rhythm is created with bowing and slurs. Change voicings by using fourth finger instead of open strings or single-string shifts instead of string changes, especially in slow tunes. Slur across the beat to create a forward-moving dance groove and a subtle form of syncopation.

4. Transitions – How phrases begin and end defines the flow of a tune. First and second endings often vary in the transition back into the phrase or forward into the next one. These subtle transition variations can cue experienced contradancers to what’s coming next.

5. Ornamentation – This adds the patina of style. Make sure your rhythm is solid in the style before adding this layer. Each style has a characteristic set of ornaments that help to define it. Irish and Scottish share some ornaments, but how they are used rhythmically ends up as the style boundary. There are also universal ornaments like 3+1 bowing that sound a little different in each style because of underlying groove or rhythm changes.

6. Dynamics & tone– Use upbows to create dynamics; starting on an upbow creates an automatic volume increase for a phrase. Irish jigs use this technique a lot. You’ll notice that tone is down the list from where it would be in a classical practice routine. Rhythm trumps tone in fast dance tunes. Slow tunes are another thing altogether – tone really counts there. To play well at any speed, practice the whole thing slowly: ornaments, dynamics, variations and all, to make sure you really have it before jumping to performance speed.

7. Variations – This starts to happen when you really know the tune and get just slightly BORED with it! We’re playing new rhythms over the melody instead of rewriting a melody as in jazz. It’s a tweak, not a whole new composition. Start by moving the ornaments around through the melody and see where they can enhance a new part of the tune. Then try syncopating rhythms under a phrase over the chords, dividing the bar in thirds instead of in half: use a 3-3-2 rhythm instead of 1-2-1-2. I find these are the two easiest ways to create variations – and they’re FUN!

Which reminds me – gotta go practice play some music now . . .