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Fiddling Demystified

Donna Hébert

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    • The Infinite Dark CD with Jane Yolen
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    • In Full Bloom CD – with Pascal Gemme
      • In Full Bloom tunebook – Québecois fiddle
      • En pleine floraison CD / en français
    • Big Boned Beauty CD – Donna Hébert
    • Soirée chez nous CD – Chanterelle
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Free fiddling resources

Included here are nuts-and-bolts fiddle lessons from my blog with assorted sheet music, audio and video resources as well as essays about being a musician and a teacher.

FIDDLE TUNES & TECHNIQUES

  • Christmas Seal – “A Fisherman’s Song for Calling the Seals,” trad. Orkney jig (sheet music)
  • Diatonic chords and music –  Chord Wheel and more from “Fiddling Demystified for Strings” Vol. I.
  • Festival of American Fiddle Tunes – 2019 class repertoire (audio, sheet music)
  • Festival Mémoires et Racines 2014  – two Louis Beaudoin reels (audio, sheet music)
  • Jiggety-jig to the dance! – fiddle music is dance music (audio, sheet music)
  • “La marche des femmes” – a 1984 composition recorded in 2013 with Panache Quartet
  • Millworkers – My People – Franco-American history in my original song “The Shuttle” (audio)
  • Music on the deck and online – Québecois fiddling video from my weekly Fiddling Demystified class
  • “Raven’s Wing” – a tune for my father co-written with Max Cohen, who was there that day (audio, video)
  • Rhythm bowing patterns for jigs and reels – lesson in subdividing rhythm with your bow (sheet music)
  • The art of the groove – Smith College syllabus/handouts for rhythm workshop for faculty and students
  • Facebook Fiddlers’ Association – A forum friends and I founded where 7000+ fiddlers share tunes, videos and fiddle lore

ON BEING A MUSICIAN 

  • How to learn a tune by ear – what does it take?
  • Jamming Successfully – some guidelines and questions
  • Music as a birthright – music in families on Cape Breton, from “Notes from Cape Breton”
  • Music is our birthright – how do we nurture it in young people?
  • Play vs. Practice – how do you approach your fiddle time?
  • The Stage As a Living Room – reframing stage fright
  • Twelve questions about fiddling for violinists – published in a 2002 Strings Magazine article
  • Why I play Franco-American music – published in 1998 in Le Forum/UMaine Orono
  • You and your fiddle – hints about making your music more fun

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Contact:
Donna Hébert
• [email protected]
• 413-658-4276

contact

413-658-4276
[email protected] |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Donna performs with five bands, teaches fiddle at Smith and Amherst Colleges and leads Fiddling Demystified workshops for schools, universities, conferences and ASTA chapters. She also directs the Great Groove Band of school-age folk musicians at the Old Songs and Philadelphia Folk Festivals.

What’s here . . .

FIDDLING . . .
• Lore, blog, poetry
• CD/Book downloads
LESSONS . . .
• For credit @ Smith, Amherst, Mt. Holyoke
• Private, Online lessons, Workshops

BANDS/PROJECTS . . .
• Away with the Faeries with Jane Yolen
• Max Cohen / Donna Hébert duo
• Mist Covered Mountains Celtic group
• The Great Groove Band™ at Old Songs & Philly Folk Fests

Lesson blog

  • Donna’s Jig by Tony Parkes
  • 10-18-21 – Fall on the Cabot Trail
  • 9-21-2021 – Summer’s End
  • 9-12-21 – West Mabou Road

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