Note: the fiddle-online blog has moved here to Substack. Older articles will be revisited and new ones offered. Explore and enjoy these posts about learning fiddle as well as a new cache of writings about teaching music, Scotland’s music and travel, and essays and fiction.
Once upon a time in a workshop in Ohio, I played recordings of a number of great fiddlers and asked people which ones sound like they had classical training. They picked every fiddler who had a clear, professional sound.
But only a few of those had been trained classically. People who love to play and want to learn will find a way to do it well. The idea that folk musicians or dancers nccessarily have rough edges and use simple techniques is a canard. And yet, those with some training have advantages. They learn how to play efficiently. They don’t get tired or hurt as easily, and have more technique in their toolbox to make music as they hear it in their head.
People who really want to play will use whatever resources they can find. I know of great fiddlers from Cape Breton who grew up immersed in their musical traditions but also learned technique as kids in school classes with teachers such as Stan Chapman.
I’ve focused on fiddle music since the 1970s. Before that I learned and played classical music, and learned good technique from many teachers. The articles in this section seek to make efficient technique and fiddle skills accessible to all. They are drawn from my decades of both teaching and having been taught. Many of my thoughts on learning fiddle have grown out of working hard to find just the right path for students, in countless private lessons and workshops at summer camps, fiddle clubs, and festivals.
Each of my own teachers had a different style. I’ve adapted ideas from the teachers I liked, and found alternatives or even ideas in opposition to the teachers I didn’t care for. Many of us have experienced teachers who don’t know any better than to impose rigid requirements on their students. But the best teachers have the experience and empathy to sense the next step each student needs in order to move forward.
My first private teacher was a Russian violinist who focused on technique and wouldn’t let me learn a new piece of music until I mastered the one he’d given me. I used to get nauseous before having to go to his lessons! My next teacher, Perry Crafton of the Chicago Symphony, was kinder, and worked with me on a variety of music and techniques, allowing me to learn and progress until I got back to the piece the Russian had tried to teach me — and I was able to pass through it to the other side.
I learned from many players I never really studied with. For example, I never got to really study with Broadus Erle or Syoko Aki at Yale but did play for them; I still think about how they did things like scientifically analyze vibrato, and determine which pieces of music you could play well based on a test of how fast you could play offbeats to a metronome!
A number of my ideas about efficient playing were picked up or adapted from, or inspired by, violinist Dan Stepner, now well known in modern and baroque music, but back then he was in grad school working on a thesis about the ergonomics of violin playing.
Another teacher, Roger Shermont, was a great Boston Symphony player (half my lessons were in French!). He recognized that one day you might be doing great and the next day, he told me as he blew his fingertips into the wind, it can all seem to disappear. He also taught me that those who are fearless have no need of courage.
In the past 40 years, my teachers have been the many fiddlers that I’ve learned from by listening carefully, arranging and participating in their workshops and lessons, by rehearsing and playing with them, and picking up on what’s most important to them. They’re too numerous to list, but include Alasdair Fraser, Buddy MacMaster, Aly Bain, Seumas Connolly, Joe Cormier, Csaba Okros, Ruthie Dornfeld, Cookie Segelstein, my sister and brother-in-law’s old-time and bluegrass friends in Pennsylvania, and more.
Since 2014, I’ve experienced a new way of teaching after creating fiddle-online.com. The ideas was to explore how the internet could help fiddlers of all levels learn both on their own and in live workshops with me or great guest instructors (many of whom I could add to the list above of fiddlers I’ve learned from!). Teaching online always requires a more pointed use of words than teaching in person. It’s kept me on my toes trying to learn better ways to verbally articulate ideas for learners.
I hope you find many useful ideas in the articles that follow. If you’re a teacher, some ideas here could help you, as well as the other section of this publication specifically intended for teachers.
Remember, you never get good at this, you just get better!
Thanks for being here, and happy fiddling!