Fiddle For Dummies
Overview
Learn to play the fiddle? Easy.
Tackling a new instrument can be intimidating, but with this easy-to-use guide, you'll have no trouble at all! From selecting, tuning, and caring for your fiddle to mastering various music styles, Fiddle For Dummies walks you step-by-step through everything you need to start playing the fiddle like a pro. You'll discover how to hold a fiddle, master fundamental techniques, and take your skills to the next level. This title also features companion audio tracks and instructional video clips hosted online at Dummies.com to help further enhance your skills.
The fiddle is a popular instrument across many continents, and is a favorite for many because it is small and portable.
Playing the fiddle can expose you to a range of musical styles from all over the world, such as Irish, Scottish, Celtic/Cape Breton, country, folk, bluegrass, and more. Plus, if you're already a violin player, you'll impress yourself and fellow musicians as you unlock your instrument to open up a whole new world of sounds.
- Learn fiddle techniques and fundamentals
- Select, tune, and care for your fiddle
- Join the folk instrument movement and master the fiddle
- Play fiddle music from all over the world
Whether you're a complete beginner or a violin player looking to branch out and try something new, Fiddle For Dummies will have you fit as a fiddle in no time.
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About The Author
Michael Sanchez has played fiddle in many country music bands, as well as playing fiddle for the Medora Musical, a well-known and popular show held each year in North Dakota. He is CEO and creator of Violin Tutor Pro (www.violintutorpro.com) and is CEO of Superior Violins (www.superiorviolins.com).
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fiddle for dummies
CHEAT SHEET
They say that practice makes perfect, and playing the fiddle is no different from other disciplines. Your fiddle playing will improve if you work on various drills and techniques during your practice sessions, including setting up your instrument and preparing to play, maintaining proper posture, positioning your fingers correctly, practicing left- and right-hand techniques, and establishing good bow movement.
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Violin & Fiddle
Everyone who first decides to learn fiddle is highly motivated in the beginning. But how do you keep that spark alive to progress and build skill? It's easy to fall into certain traps and find yourself stuck in a common practice slump. The following list gives you some tips on practicing most effectively and will help you maximize your potential:
Keep your fiddle in plain sight.
Many famous fiddlers have influenced the history of fiddle playing throughout many generations. All these fiddlers have mastered their skills in music and in playing the fiddle. They’re known not only for their musical abilities but also for their love of playing fiddle and sharing their passion with the world.
Violin & Fiddle
Finding a good teacher is very important to your development as a fiddle player. Some of the best fiddlers in the world trace their roots back to great instructors who inspired them and taught them how to play.
See the value of a private lesson
Having a professional point out your mistakes can give you confidence in what you need to practice to get better, and professionals may pick up on certain things that you otherwise wouldn’t have figured out.
Practicing isn't always easy, especially if you don't have the right mind-set in place. If you follow the steps outlined here, you'll improve both your technical ability and your musical ability.
What to do to prepare for your practice session
Make sure your fiddle is in tune.
Find a place that's quiet, with no distractions.
They say that practice makes perfect, and playing the fiddle is no different from other disciplines. Your fiddle playing will improve if you work on various drills and techniques during your practice sessions, including setting up your instrument and preparing to play, maintaining proper posture, positioning your fingers correctly, practicing left- and right-hand techniques, and establishing good bow movement.
There are a few fundamentals you should start with to build a good foundation for fiddle playing. “Garbage in, garbage out.” This phrase applies to many things in life. What you hear, what you see, and everything you learn affect what you do. Starting off with bad fiddle habits affects how you play going forward.
Violin & Fiddle
Understanding chord structure is very helpful for improvisation. The following list shows a range of chords with the three letters that make up each chord. All these notes are safe notes and work well if you play them while the specific chord is being played.
The beginning of a chord (typically played by a guitar) is the best time to play any of the notes that make up the chord change.
Violin & Fiddle
You have many different ways to ornament, or embellish, Scottish fiddle tunes. It’s very important to build these sorts of ornaments into your repertoire so that if you ever play in a jam session, you can create variations on the tunes you’re playing.
Here’s a list of the different types of embellishments:
Accents: Emphasizing certain beats to give drive to a piece
Grace notes: Adding little notes before base notes, played very fast
Rolls: Going up from a note, back to the note, down from the note, and back again, to add a different flavor to a note
Slurs: Grouping notes together in unique ways to create a different sort of sound
Snaps: Changing rhythm slightly to be in snap format instead of a basic rhythm
Triplet runs: Attaching three notes at the beginning of a phrase that equal one beat of time
With all these possibilities, the sky is the limit!
Violin & Fiddle
You can improv with rhythms on the fiddle, which adds a lot to playing a melody line. Check out this chord progression, D-D-G-G. All the notes are from the notes of each chord.
Credit: Figure by Michael Sanchez
Instead of filling in the rest with quarter notes, try to use eighth notes.
Credit: Figure by Michael Sanchez
In this progression, some notes have been switched around and some half notes are plugged in to show you another variation.
Violin & Fiddle
When playing the fiddle, a musical piece can sound really nice if it’s played softer in some spots and louder in other spots. These changes in volume are called the dynamics of the music. This is another element in music that’s like the icing on a cake when it comes to hearing a great sounding piece.
Figuring out how to play more softly
If you’re just starting out on the fiddle, everything you’ve played has probably been considered loud.
Violin & Fiddle
Because you need to be able to read music quickly to play fiddle tunes at the speed they’re supposed to be played, understanding how notes relate to one another is helpful. Understanding musical intervals, the distance notes are from one another, is a quick way to work up speed without necessarily relying on the letter or notation of the note.
One very important part of playing the fiddle is knowing how to rosin the bow — the process of applying rosin to create a sticky film on the bow hair. Rosin comes in many different sizes and shapes and is universally used to help the bow hair grab the strings better. Without putting rosin on the bow, your fiddle will have a wispy, airy sound when you play.
Violin & Fiddle
Proper finger angles are an important part of playing the fiddle. As you know, bowling is a sport in which you throw a ball down a lane to try to knock ten pins down. You start a little bit behind a certain line and then run up (forward) as close as you can to the line and throw the ball. But what if you had to bowl differently from this?
Violin & Fiddle
When you think of changing directions with the fiddle’s bow (sometimes referred to as transitioning), think about playing with a yo-yo. A big part of getting the yo-yo to come back into your hand is anticipation — preparing for the ball to come back up. If you just throw the ball down and don’t anticipate it coming back, you won’t have much luck getting the ball to roll nicely back up the string.
Violin & Fiddle
Many songs you will learn as a beginner on the fiddle are in what’s called the first position. This refers to the standard position of your left hand on the neck of the instrument.
The range in first position is from the open G string (the lowest note you can play) all the way up to B on the E string (the highest note you can play in that position).
Violin & Fiddle
Placing fingers properly on the fiddle’s fingerboard is all about proper contact. It doesn’t take pressing down hard, which is a bad habit to get into. You also don’t want to press down so lightly that you don’t get the proper sound. Pressing perfectly requires that you understand exactly how you should place your finger on the string.
Violin & Fiddle
Playing the fiddle requires you to be able to count music. If rhythms were all quarter notes, half notes, and whole notes, there wouldn’t be a reason to count any differently from the obvious way: If you see a quarter note you count to 1, if you see a half note you count to 2, and if you see a whole note you count to 4.
Violin & Fiddle
The most popular type of Irish fiddle style (by far) is the reel. This style is played often in Irish sessions and is called a reel because the time signature is played in “real” time, which is 2/4 or 4/4. This is different from jigs, which are typically written in 6/8 or 9/8 time.
Putting in grace notes
To create a great sounding reel, you must first understand where the accents lie.
Because the fiddle has multiple strings, you need to understand how to get the bow from one string to the next properly (and smoothly). What most people do when crossing strings (moving the bow to a different string) is use their big muscles (again!) instead of keeping the arm muscles relaxed.
Here’s how to cross strings properly:
Set your bow at the contact point of the strings and position your elbow with the height of your instrument.
Violin & Fiddle
One of the most important things associated with crossing strings on the fiddle is being relaxed with your arm as you move up and down (you know, like a chicken!). Having a tense and improper movement of the arm can really cause bad sounds and can really restrict your ability to play fiddle.
You’ll come across lots of fiddle songs that require speedy crossovers, and without doing this technique properly, you’ll be left in the dust.
A great way to find the best bow for you and your fiddle is to try out different ones. Many shops around the world (both local and online) let you try out bows for a period of time and only charge you to ship the bow back to them.
Call around your area to see whether any local shops have bows you can try. It’s a good idea to only deal with shops that specialize in violins/fiddles/strings, and not just general music.
Violin & Fiddle
Proper bow stroke mechanics start with understanding where to place the bow on the fiddle strings (known as the contact point) and what part of the bow to use to start the stroke. With the right contact point, you succeed in creating a beautiful musical sound.
Follow these steps to find the optimal contact point for your bow:
Look at the bow hair and visualize splitting it into four equal parts.
Violin & Fiddle
The drone sound is unique to the old-time fiddle style and happens often in certain places to give the music flavor. A drone sound happens when you play two notes at the same time — an open string and the string adjacent to it, which can also be open or fingered.
Getting the classic drone sound takes some practice.
You’d think that holding a fiddle is as simple as taking your left hand and supporting it, just like you’d hold up anything else in your hand. However, you actually want to hold the fiddle with your chin and shoulder and not rely on your left hand to support it. Why? Supporting the fiddle with your left hand can
Restrict what your fingers can do
Promote an improper wrist
Make progressing into advanced techniques (like shifting or vibrato) harder
Holding the fiddle with the chin and shoulder allows you to build proper fundamentals to do more advanced techniques.
Did you know that most of the bad sounds that come out of the fiddle have something to do with what’s going on in your bow hand? Properly holding the bow is one of the most important parts of playing the fiddle.
Placing your fingers properly
Placing your fingers correctly on the bow is the first step in getting a clean and beautiful bow stroke.
Violin & Fiddle
Before you put your fingers down on the fiddle’s fingerboard, you need to learn a very important fundamental called keeping your knuckles up. This is one of the two most important fundamentals to get right the first time because it can lead to either great fiddle playing or struggles to find the correct notes.
Violin & Fiddle
The most important thing to master in a song when playing the fiddle is the notes, but a close second is the rhythm. If you’re just playing notes randomly and not counting properly, your songs won’t sound as good as they could, and you’ll have a hard time playing with others.
Using a metronome
A metronome is a very useful device that helps to keep meter in a musical piece.
Violin & Fiddle
Many people who take up the fiddle are seeking to achieve that old-time music sound. To do this, you will need to master bowings. Old-time music features two different types of bowings:
Short bowing, which means you play a song with no slurs.
Long bowing, which means you play a song with various slurs.
Short bowing
The song “Angelina the Baker” is a famous song with short bowings and accents
Sometimes, as in the song “Angelina the Baker,” there are dotted quarter notes that carry over the second or fourth beat of each measure.
Violin & Fiddle
The first thing you need to understand with vibrato on the fiddle is that it’s all about consistency. This means that every movement that you make with your hand back and forth should be exactly the same, with no variation in the distance or speed. Listen here to understand consistency versus inconsistency on the fiddle.
Most likely, the very first note you play on the fiddle won’t sound the way you want it to. That’s totally normal, even if you have an intensive musical background. The first day you start moving the bow is one of the hardest (sounding) to get through, but don’t worry, you’ll get better with practice.
Check here in Chapter 5, Video Clip 8 to start moving the bow across the fiddle strings and then follow these steps:
Set the bow at the contact point and make sure you have a proper hold on the bow.
Violin & Fiddle
Fiddles are a great instrument for accenting. In music, an accent is an emphasized note, which, in Irish music, is located in spots that you try to emphasize to create a unique sound. The accent symbol looks like a sideways up-bow symbol: >.
To create the accent sound, you want to pull the bow farther than you normally do while still maintaining a clean sound.
Violin & Fiddle
Sometimes you’ll see various combinations of double-stops in fiddle tunes. Some are harder than others to play, and the difficulty isn’t just because of the notes but the rhythms and notes you have to play before the double-stop. Jumping around is possible, as well as using different finger positions to satisfy certain double-stops.
Violin & Fiddle
Bowing is very important in bluegrass fiddling, as it flavors the music to sound unique to the style. By combining certain notes in a bow and then separating others, you’ll find certain patterns that you can generally follow in a lot of music.
The two most popular bowing patterns, which are categorized as shuffles, are the Nashville shuffle and the Georgia shuffle.
Double-stops are when you play two notes at once on the fiddle, but you play both of the notes with a finger down. You can also call double-stops chords. As you’ve found with the fiddle, it isn’t always easy to put your finger down in the right spot, but now with double-stops, you have to do two down at the same time.
Violin & Fiddle
Marches are fun tunes to play. They can be played fast or slow, but all have a steady beat. Many fiddle marches are actually pipe marches that have been adapted to play on the fiddle.
One thing that’s unique to Scottish fiddling is the up-bow technique. Getting a harsh and full sound by pressing into the string is key.
Violin & Fiddle
One of the most important aspects of playing Irish fiddle is getting familiar with the slur patterns. This is much different from classical violin playing because Irish slurs happen in unique spots. Take a look at this classical violin slur pattern.
Credit: Figure by Michael Sanchez
Now take a look to see what slurs look like in Irish music.
Today, jigs are associated more with Irish fiddling than with Scottish fiddling, but that wasn’t always the case. Jigs in the early 17th century were an important part of Scottish fiddling. Jigs are lively, energetic tunes typically written in 6/8 time. They can also be written in 9/8 time; these are known as slip jigs.
Reels originated in Scotland and later became part of other styles of fiddling, such as Irish fiddling. Reels are played fairly quickly and crisply. A Scottish reel has an even-structured driving rhythm, and the time signature is written in either 4/4 or 2/4.
Reels accent beat 1 and 3 of each measure. This applies to Scottish reels as well.
Once you’ve mastered some fiddle basics, it’s time to learn how to do the musical slur. This is different from a slide — a slur happens between two or more notes, while a slide involves only one note.
Take a look at some different types of slurs. The slur symbol looks like a smiley face.
Credit: Figure by Michael Sanchez
The first two measures are the easiest regarding slurs.
One type of dance music you can play on the fiddle, which focuses on couples dancing, is the Irish polka. This kind of music is a little bit different from jigs regarding where the accents lie and also the time signature, which is typically 2/4. Check out where these accents should be when you see four consecutive eighth notes.
Violin & Fiddle
One Irish style that works well on the fiddle is called the Irish hornpipe. This style incorporates a swing-type rhythm. The Irish hornpipe is typically in 4/4 time and has a lot of grace notes and triplet runs.
The first line shows a set of eighth notes, which you can assume as a swing rhythm in a hornpipe. Because you’re assuming this is a swing rhythm, you are going to play it differently from what’s written.
Violin & Fiddle
The strathspey is a dance tune in 4/4 meter that usually includes the Scottish snap. Many times it occurs on the fiddle in a major key. The strathspey is a type of reel, but played much slower. However, some styles, including the Cape Breton style, play strathspeys much quicker.
One of the most common rhythms used in Scottish fiddling is the Scottish snap, also called the Lombard rhythm.
Violin & Fiddle
To begin developing this fiddle skill, try patting your head while rubbing your stomach at the same time. Do you notice that your hands want to do similar movements instead of doing separate things? It’s a lot easier to do one thing with both hands than to do two different things with your hands at the same time.
If you play using sheet music, you'll most likely run into "musical road signs," or symbols that make you jump to various parts of the music. The purpose of these road signs is simply to avoid repeating large chunks of the written music and thus allow for much more music to fit on a page.
Following are the most common road signs you'll see when following along with sheet music.
The first technique that really shows the fiddle style is called the fiddle slide. This technique creates a “droopy” sound that makes any song sound more like a fiddle tune. It’s a simple technique that you can add to any note and play a few different ways.
The first type of slide is the upslide. You can add it to any note that requires you to place a finger down on the fingerboard.
Violin & Fiddle
Using the small muscles in your arm is important when you play the fiddle. Because you use your shoulders and big muscles for a lot of things, your instinct is to use them to extend your arm too. Unfortunately, doing so causes irritating sounds like bow squeaks (a most unpleasant sound!), bow bouncing, and other problems.
Violin & Fiddle
Making use of your bow hand index finger is one of the most useful concepts to master to play the fiddle— and the hardest. When you’re transitioning, or changing directions with the bow, you only use your index finger. The actual transition should have nothing to do with the other fingers or muscles. Using your index finger on your bow hand is what lets you play fast and efficiently.
Violin & Fiddle
In case you didn’t know, you can place the 4th finger, or pinkie, on the fiddle fingerboard too. You can place a sticker in this spot, which would apply to all the 4th fingers on each string. Notice how the space between the 1st and 2nd fingers is similar to the space between the 3rd and 4th fingers.
Credit: Figure by Rashell Smith
Understanding when and why to use your 4th finger
So why haven’t you used the 4th finger up to this point?
Violin & Fiddle
Think about how many keys/notes a piano has — 88 total. Do you think the fiddle has more or fewer notes? Most people would say a piano is able to play more notes, but actually, the fiddle can play more — each string has over 30 notes! This fact should tell you that putting your fingers in the right spot is pretty important.
Violin & Fiddle
With so many things to think about when playing the fiddle, how do you know whether you're practicing everything the right way? The following checklist will put you on the right path. It's split into six sections and includes the purpose of each technique.
There are 30 techniques here, so it's important for you to focus on only one section at a time.
Violin & Fiddle
When you play the fiddle, it’s important to understand left-thumb position and the position of your wrist. Proper thumb and wrist position sets you up to put your fingers in the proper spots and avoids restricting you down the road, especially when you learn how to do vibrato and shifting.
Having a relaxed right hand is very important to avoid bow tension.
How do you know exactly what you should look for when you start your search for a fiddle? What makes a fiddle sound good? How much should you spend for a decent fiddle?
Here are some reasons why selecting the right instrument and accessories is important:
A high-quality fiddle will sound better to you and others.
Violin & Fiddle
Playing fiddle involves all kinds of cool techniques, such as slides, grace notes, turns, and drones. Understanding how to do these techniques is one thing, but making them sound good is another. Check out these tips to help you improve your sound.
Slides
To improve your slides, it's important to have a relaxed left hand.
Violin & Fiddle
Sometimes when you read fiddle music you encounter one or more flats in the key signature. This means that some of the notes you’d normally play a certain way are lowered in pitch. This opens up your range to some unique keys you can play in, including F major (one flat in the key), B♭ major (two flats in the key), and E♭ major (three flats in the key).
Violin & Fiddle
Understanding key signature is essential when playing the fiddle. In music, a note can be sharp, which means it sounds a half pitch (half step) above the original note. The sharped note is represented by a simple ♯ symbol placed to the right of the note.
The key signature indicates which notes in a tune are either higher (sharp) or lower (flat) than they normally are.
Violin & Fiddle
You will need to understand time signature to play the fiddle. Each measure in music is separated by barlines and is organized in such a way that you have a specific number of notes in each measure. But how do you know exactly how many notes can go into each of the measures?
The answer is by looking at the time signature, which is an indication of rhythm that’s in the form of a fraction.
Violin & Fiddle
You will need to be familiar with the notes on the D and A strings to play the fiddle. If you remember from the notation, notes are identified by the string and the finger number.Now it’s time to put a few progressions into action! Here’s how to set up to pluck a progression:
Hold the instrument properly with your chin and shoulder.
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