New for the New Year!
Resolutions and changes
Here’s to a great and musical 2023!
If you’re also a reader of ”Ed’s Writings,” you’ll have seen my recent article about New Year’s resolutions that actually work. It cites studies showing that forced willpower doesn’t really do us much good, and that the best kind of resolution is the kind that removes obstacles to success.
One example I cited was from learning fiddle. Not infrequently, people have a skewed impression of how their fingers, hand and arm actually function — in other words, their “body mapping” can be a bit off the mark. As a result, vowing to work harder on some things may do no good, or even can make things worse. To remove their obstacles to success, they may need to better understand their own body mapping. For example, if they imagine that our fingers separate or squeeze together to play different notes, they may be making things harder for themselves. Our fingers actually straighten and bend to get higher and lower notes, because of the position of our hand.
Next week, I’ll delve into two body mapping issues — this question about the position of the fingering hand, and the movement of our bow arm, in order to correct some common misconceptions that hold us back.
After that, I’ll be alternating the articles about learning fiddle with other more general commentary, about such things as the impact of music on our brains, healing, school achievement, communications, or ideas about scales, harmony, the physics of music, and more.
In the past couple of months, I hope you have had a chance to see the previous fiddling posts about the roles of each joint of the bow arm, the game relieving the tension of the too-often-take-for-granted thumb, and the game I call the Windshield Wiper, to help engage the pointer and pinky in better bow control. Remember, you never get good at the fiddle; you just get better! Here’s to getting better!
To teachers
The official teaching section of this publication is being put to bed, due to a technical blunder of mine that prevented those posts from being emailed (you can still read those posts online). If you’re a teacher, I hope you’ll enjoy the approach you’ll find here, even if you’re not teaching fiddle — maybe you’ll get some ideas that you didn’t expect. My approach to teaching, I’ve discovered, is not something you’ll find in schools and books, but was developed through decades of independent experience as a performer, teacher, writer, organizer who has had the chance to see the processes of learning and teaching from many angles — learning from and working with great musicians, performing at a broad range of venues from house concert to outdoor megastages, radio and TV, and administrative roles, such as helping a music school with organizational and program ideas, running an instruments camp for kids, managing the music and musicians for dance and music camps, and running a small business distributing artists’ CDs throughout the USA. I’m grateful for the chances to see things from so many angles and I hope you find some of these posts interesting and even refreshing.
New — a Chat
Substack is providing a chance for us to chat via the Substack app — if you download the app (ios or android), you can tap “Chat” at the bottom and you’ll see my thread (if you’re a free or paid subscriber). Feel free to say hello, introduce yourself if you like, and let me know if there are fiddle questions or other musical issues you’d like to discuss, whether right in the chat or in future posts that can be emailed to you or read online.