Slow & Quick Grace Notes, Together at Last!
A new way to impress your friends & neighbors!
We’ve been chatting about how natural grace notes are, not only in all fiddle styles (all instruments, really) but also in singing and even daily speech. Most of these ornaments are not there to fill empty spaces, but to add strength to the pulse of the music. In that sense, they’re not really just decorations, though you can’t really make a melody out of them; they do depend on and support the main melody notes.
In regular talking or singing, these “ornaments” are the consonants. I compare them to grace notes because when we speak or sing, our beat always lands on a vowel, often with consonants pronounced in front of the vowel. Just like grace notes, some consonants are quick, and some are slow.
I hope you’ve had a chance to get comfortable with using the slow grace notes detailed earlier, and have worked with them both on their own and in the context of some tunes that you know. Slow graces are really bowing ornaments. The quick grace notes, on the other hand, are done by the left hand, with a flick of the finger interrupting the vibration of a string. These too benefit a lot from being practiced on their own, as in the exercises and examples given last time. It would be a mistake to imagine you can throw in quick grace notes effectively just by reading them, without your ears and fingers getting used to how they fit in and enhance the beats of a tune within a style of playing. Once you get physically comfortable using the grace notes, they begin to be second nature, depending on how familiar you are with the type of music you’re playing.
Slow Meets Quick <3
Today, we’ll combine the slow and the quick grace notes (here’s where you really get to impress your friends and neighbors!). As you’ll see, there are several written examples below, followed at the end by audio for all of them, and a video to guide you through working with these types of ornaments.
I’m not going repeat many of the details that we covered in the earlier discussion about slow grace notes, but below is one thing we did. This example represents four bows. Where there’s a grace note, it means we just change the bow a little early, and emphasize the beat note with bit of a shove on the bow.
This idea could almost be written like this:
By contrast, the quick grace notes that we discussed last time are like a flick of a finger that doesn’t even need to reach the fingerboard; it just serves the purpose of interrupting the vibration of the string. So, in example #3 below, we’re basically playing a half note E but on beat two we tap the string, separating the half note into two quarter note Es without changing bow.
If you get used to the feel of doing that, you can also do it when the main note changes, as in this example:
Again, we’re playing half-note bows and using the grace note to emphasize the change of beat, though in this case we are also actually changing the main note. Remember, we don’t care what “note” that grace note is; it is just a flick of the string, almost like a left-hand pizzicato.
If do the same thing but instead of playing two half note bows, we play four quarter-note bows, we magically add a grace note without even trying!. We can play examples #3 or #4, but if we change bows with each quarter note, our bow creates the sound of an extra grace note. As always, the written notation is not quite what it sounds or feels like — in example #5 below, the first grace note is just a change of bow, and the second grace note is the actual flick of a finger.
Now, to combine the slow and quick grace notes, we’re simply going to add #1 to #5. The slow grace note is merely an early bow change, and can start quite early before the beat, as when we form the hiss of an “s” when we say a word like “streak.” This slow grace note bow change is the first of the three grace notes written in example #6 below. The second grace note is simply the start of the new quarter note, and the third grace note is the flick of a finger.
On paper, it looks like three grace notes, but each one is there for a different reason. What will be so impressive at your next cocktail party (!) is that you’re getting a complex sound with very little effort. All you’re doing is playing what’s in example #1, where you change the bow a touch early to create a slow grace note. But after you’ve put the new finger down you are immediately tapping a finger above to get the quick grace note. With just one flick, you’ve created an amazing 3 grace notes and sounded like a pro.
As always, these grace notes end on the beat, just as the word “streak” has a slow grace note “s” plus two quick ones “tr” before we land on the vowel for emphasis. We do this daily without a thought, and you can learn to play grace notes naturally, without a thought, too.
Audio for all examples above
Below is audio of each of the examples played twice each, starting with #1 & 2, then #3 at 0:15, #4 at 0:30, #5 at 0:45, #6 at 1:02.
The earlier posts about slow and quick graces include a lot more discussion and examples, so feel free to refer back to them. This article, combining slow and quick, could use lots more detail, but I hope this gives you some food for thought.
This is really best learned in a lesson or workshop, so you can actually do it physically and can get feedback.
If you’re interested in an online series of classes about ornamentation, I’ll be offering 8 weekly classes in April/May, devoted to learning and using various ornaments, using both bow and left hand. You’ll get details, hands-on practice, tunes to apply the ornaments to, and personal feedback. The class will provide access to ten technique videos, including the one below. If you’re interested in those classes, please check the fiddle-online info page details.
By the way, Substack just started — today! — the ability for writers and readers to DM through Substack. You can give that a try if you like!
In any case, I look forward to hearing from you if you have questions or comments, requests or suggestions, observations, epiphanies, or other feedback.
Video below guides you on slow and quick grace notes
This is part of a paid service on fiddle-online, so it is only available here to paid subscribers.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Learning Fiddle & Other Musical Musings to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.