Marian Thede's "Fiddle Book" does as well. For those who want to learn to read, I use the first part of Miles Krassen's "Appalachian Fiddle" which has a good explanation of the relationship of fiddling to standard notation. I have taught several people to play fiddle over the last forty or so years, some who have even gone "pro", and mostly I do it through listening, and replication, along with scales in A, C, D, and G (to start). Or maybe figure out bowing patterns to use for a song. I was trained classical, but only use sheet music on the occasion that I want to understand something technically. But to hear a song played first makes a significant contribution to how you learn to understand how to play a song vs. I agree mostly with you on this, but there is something you learn about the structure of music by learning to read music, that you don't learn by ear. Transcriptions can be a useful supplemental tool at times, but my teaching philosophy is that extensive listening and learning by ear need to be at the very center of the learning process. There is so much to be learned that can't be conveyed by sheet music, and I also find that it's much easier to commit music to memory when one learns it directly by ear, rather than using a transcription. I think that, for fiddling, teaching by ear is by far the best method. There are so many ways people take in information, so it's best to take the time to figure out how your student soaks it up before you go figuring out how you're gonna teach 'em. I'm not the only one who learns this way. I work from the open string notes and then work on either side of them, also in phrases such as three note runs up or down, or bowrocks, or bits I recognize from other tunes. Make sure that the student understands that what's on the written page is one moment in time, and may differ from the tune at the jam being played at another moment in time.Īlso, as I've mentioned in some of the ear training threads, be aware that there are some people who can learn a tune in a linear manner, and others who can't. Luckily there are a LOT of resources and games on the web that teach the reading of the dots. My only student I started out by ear, but found she needed visual cues as well, so I ended up teaching her to read music even though I do it badly. A picture says a thousand words, playing it says 10 thousand in my opinion. Especially when the music gets a little harder and you need to add, cross out or rewrite parts of it for their level.īest advice as a new teacher myself I can give you: When you teach, do it with your fiddle in hand, don't tell your students what to do, SHOW them. Personally for Irish fiddling I prefer my students to play more by ear like myself, but doing a little work with the sheet music is good to. That is pretty much what I was going to say, I am also Suzuki trained. I have Suzuki training, and use the Suzuki sort of rote teaching/playing, so I'm not separating use or no use of notation based on classical or fiddle lessons. Somewhere along the line, I encourage all my by-note players to work on some by-ear playing, and my by-ear students to learn the basics of rhythm counting & how pitch is notated, even if they don't become/want to become great sight-readers. It's legal to ship through the mail.įiddle and banjo player - Posted - : 16:43:25 It's a great way to store tunes that you're not currently playing, and it's easily transported, sorted, and alphabetized if that sort of thing is important to you. If your student wants to, he can learn to read from another source, and I'd recommend it eventually. Playing a fiddle is less unnatural to me, less contrived, more like humming or whistling. Not only did I learn some tunes, but I developed the ability to hear a tune in a different way. What I can comment on is that I went to Augusta for Old Time week this past summer and spent the week playing and learning by ear. I admire your willingness to do so.Īs a kid I learned to read music, so that's already in place, although there was a really long period there when I didn't play at all, and relearning to read took some serious effort.
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