I have my music organized in a binder, separated by categories. I also have my practice lists. I try to start with the practice lists and see if I can remember the songs I learned earlier merely by name. If not, I can turn to my iPod and one of several practice playlists I’ve set up. Usually hearing the song is enough to trigger the memory and I start playing. In the worst case, I turn back to the binder (or to a book like The Fiddle Music of Scotland, which I love.

If I have to turn back to written music, I try to just look at the notes, then turn away and play. Sort of read ahead in my mind.

If that doesn’t work, I start playing while reading and THEN turn away.

I know I’ve lost it if I have to sit there and read the whole damn thing while I play it.

First, I tried cuting down to every other week but that was less than satisfying somehow. I think weekly lessons are far better at keeping your attention up and your focus on. I will definitely keep playing. I’m sure I’ll learn at a somewhat slower pace but I plan to keep learning!  I am disciplined enough to keep practicing (or I could never be self employed!).

I hope to start lessons up again someday. In the meantime, my fiddle teacher, in Walnut Creek, has said he’d be happy to work in the odd lesson now and then if I get stuck on something. Plus, he sometimes joins the group of students who come play at my house every other week, so I’ll still have some access to his excellent knowledge and encouragement.

So right now I’m working my way through older songs, to cement their imprint in my mind. I have my iPod playlists of various tunings and am going through them and refreshing myself on various older tunes. (And I’m pleased about how many come back pretty quickly. I totally credit the backwards building method of learning songs!)

Joe, a mandolin/guitar/fiddle player, was the only guy that could play tonight but we decided to still play, even if it was just the two of us. He brought his mandolin and we set about getting reacquainted, seeing what the other had been working on the past few months.  We played a few familiar pieces then branched into one he was learning that I used to know. Of course, it wasn’t fresh in my mind so we both stumbled a bit.

But we did the backwards building bit and started with the third part of Billy Wilson, just playing it over and over until we were comfortable. Then we played the 2nd part a few times, then played the 2nd part and moved into the third. Finally we started on the first part, where he was the roughest because it was the newest to him. But we just played it over and over and I could hear him relaxing into it and I fixed a few errors in my playing as we kept going.

On the one hand, it’s nice to play with folks who are much better than you are. You learn a lot. Yet… playing with someone who’s comfortable playing the same thing over and over until you’re both comfortable is quite valuable!  I think we both benefited from just trying to play fewer songs for longer periods and relaxing into learning together.

Next week I’m hoping we have a larger turnout but it will be nice to play “in real life” no matter who shows up.

I mentioned it to my teacher at the next lesson and he instantly pointed out the problem. I had broken an E string (or begun to break one) so had changed it. And hadn’t paid any attention to this little slip of plastic around the string. I guess some folks put this “insulation” for lack of a better word up at the bridge to mute the high strings just a bit. That was what was rattling!  We slipped it down over the wound end and voila!  No more bothersome vibration.

It’s the little things like this that can plague a new player and some folks might be too embarrassed to ask. Or maybe you’re learning all on your own like I was when I started. So if you hear a buzzing… check out your strings!  Oh and one other time I’d heard some buzzing and it turned out the chin rest was just a little loose. Easily tightened up a bit with a bent paper clip, although I’m sure there’s also some special tool to adjust these!

I started playing fiddle on my grandmother’s old violin. And I love it! I will never get rid of it just because of that connection. I never heard her play but gather she and her sister learned violin and mandolin in the early 1900′s. I wish I had my great aunt’s mandolin as well but that has gone somehow.

Anyway, I started playing on this fiddle and it’s nothing special physically but has the emotional connection. After I’d been playing a bit I picked up a Gotz, which is about as old as I am. It is sweet. Has a different feel and a very different tone than my Grandma’s violin. I then designated my grandmother’s violin as the GDGD fiddle, since I was getting into cross-tuning. And it sounds much better in GDGD than it did in standard.

My next purchase was a brand-new Chinese violin, a “beach fiddle” as they say. It was not expensive, but is decent. It’s a bit harsh to my ear, yet the more I play it the better it sounds. I think it needs breaking in. It’s now my “odd tuned” violin. Currently that means Calico (AEAC# see this minor list of tunings) but it changes periodically as I play with GDAD and others. I break more strings on that fiddle….

My favorite… hmmm and suddenly I hesitate to say fiddle… What is that emotional discordance between the words fiddle and violin? Anyway, my prize instrument, my favorite to play, was my recent Christmas present to myself, a 1926 (I think) Roth. It’s sweet. And the sweet spot of bowing, where it sounds good, is much broader than any of my other fiddles. I can play way up next to the bridge or go softer as I move down.

So now they hang on my wall, all tuned differently. (The Gotz has become my AEAE.)

When I pick one up, I feel the narrowness or thickness of the neck, the chin rest variations, the tuning pegs smoothness or stickiness, the spot where I should be bowing. They are all unique yet similar. My left hand adjusts somehow, despite the neck variations. I’m just now learning to play in 2nd and 3rd positions and there is a similarity somehow between shifting positions and playing on different violins. My left hand slides into nearly its place, then finds its place, and the fingers adjust and land where they ought. (Or nearly!) My right hand has a harder time adjusting where to bow on each but I’m working on that.

They’re all the same… yet uniquely different. Like having a conversation with different old friends. You talk/play, listen, adjust, feel, reach out, adjust, talk some more, adapting as you go. And the reward is a sweet conversation between your ear (or printed music) and your fingers and your bowing hand.

I can sight read songs and memorize them. But the bowing is the key. Well, that and memorizing I think. You can’t get the speed up if you’re thinking at all about the notes rather than just hearing the melody in your head and playing it.

That, among other things, led me to update my practice lists. I keep the new stuff in the front of a binder and the old stuff separated into rough categories, somewhat alphabetically. But somehow the front of my binder was way overloaded with stuff I had definitely already memorized. So I added to my practice lists and shuffled papers tonight. Now, I feel like I can practice with a clean mind somehow.

I’m going to go figure out how to make a page of downloads first though, in case anyone is interested in making their own practice sheets. I find them invaluable for reminding myself of songs that have slipped below the mental radar.

Last night I tried to play through most of the Celtic tunes I’d memorized at some point or another. Many needed some refreshing but I was pleased with how quickly they came back with a quick glance at the music or playing of a recording. I’m still trying to memorize an adapted version of Sharon Shannon’s Jean’s Reel though. Some songs just seem to get stuck partway done.

These songs were pretty solid:

• 99 March
• Lucy Farr
• Bobby Casey’s Hornpipe
• Banshee’s Wail
• Blind Mary
• Caisleean na n’Or
• Calum Squire
• Girl That Broke My Heart
• Jenny Dang the Weaver
• Love Won’t You Marry Me
• Miss Susan Cooper
• Pretty Peggy
• Stool of Repentance
• Whistler from Rosslea

So now I should go practice some of those songs that were less than fresh!

The notes can be adjusted and fine tuned much easier than the rhythm it seems.

When John first introduced the backwards building concept I absolutely hated it. But, being me, if I’m paying someone for advice I do try to listen! So I kept trying it out–and lo and behold it works!

It’s now normal, and oddly enjoyable, for me to learn a song by playing it through a few times and then starting to memorize it by learning the final phrase. Then the penultimate phrase and then adding in the final phrase. Then the 3rd from the end phrase, then working in the last big, which I already know.

The result is that I relax as I get to the end since I know it the best.

That’s such a different feeling from when I used to memorize stuff from the front end. I’d get more and more nervous the more I played, since I was getting into less familiar territory. Now I might tense up a bit in the beginning (the newest stuff) but then I’m past that pretty quickly and can relax and just play.