Fiddle Fake Book by Brody

[chuck.naill]

I am a life long "play by ear" although I can read music. A teacher suggested that I learn to play my fiddle by reading music so I bought the Fiddlers Fake Book. Obviously it works for mandolin to so I often play the peice on mandolin first to get the tune in my head better than trying to play it off the page with the fiddle. I have noticed on the two songs that I am working on that they are played with more notes than I have noticed on the recorded versions, which is nice.

Fiddlers Fake books come in standard notation or tab. Since I am interested in reading the standard notations I optied for the that version.

Is there anyone else using this book. Do you have suggestions, likes or dislikes?

chuck

[swampstomper]

I have had this book for about six months and like it very much. The mando. version is shorter and less comprehensive. If you hear the fiddler in your head (like the many Kenny Baker tunes) you can easily mando-ize it. Yes, there are a lot of notes, Brody has a really good ear even on quite difficult tunes to hear like BG in the Back Woods. The standard notation is good to get used to, and there are no really exotic keys like F# or Db. The articulation marks for the bowing can give you some mando. ideas. There are fingering indications when it's not obvious. It has a good index and also a list of alternate titles for those old-time jam sessions.

[swampstomper]

Sorry, I forgot to add that each tune has a long list of recorded sources, so it's easy to find the "original" in various versions. Also there are alternate versions for well-known tunes that vary across the country, like Dusty Miller, AK Traveller, Bunch of Keys. Plenty of ideas to keep you busy.

[Ted Eschliman]

Like mine.

[harwilli55]

Love Fiddlers Fakebook. That is my constant companion. Through making myself work through tunes I have not heard, my sight reading is slowly but surely improving as well as my finger work. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif

Many is the time, when thumbing through its pages, all of a sudden I stumble into a gem of a tune that delights me to no end http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Harlan

[swampstomper]

Ted, I practise with your stuff religiously!! It has made all the difference to my dexterity, strength, and knowledge of the fingerboard. But.... they're not "tunes" in the same way the American/Irish/Canadian etc. "fiddle tunes" of the Fakebook are. I get my ideas from multiple sources, no need for you to feel I am neglecting you just because I occasionally like to play an open string :-) !!

[CharlieKnuth]

This is a great resource for tunes and have been using it off and on since the 80's. My only dislike of this book is that many times the chords need a little work, sometimes they are just plain wrong.

[AlanN]

If anybody wants to trade their Fiddle Fake book, PM me, I have some cooleo stuff.

[Taube Marks]

When I started playing a while back, I bought the Mandolin version first, but to be honest I hardly used it. I find reading tab extremely labourious, while reading notes is relatively easy. #I still use the Fiddler's Fake Book, and like it to work out the general drift of a tune, though some of the folks I play with say that the tunes therein are simplified...go figure.

What I would like to add is, that if you go to weekend or week long mandolin schools, many teachers use tab only (or write notation with a chicken scratch hand which is nearly illegible). #I am talking about the big, household names in mandolin...after five years of feeling disadvantaged by not reading tab as well as I read music, I am going to have to concede and learn tab or forever feel like the slowest kid (at 59) in the class.

Last week, I attended a week long school, and we worked on Bill Cheetham. #It took me ten minutes to get through three for four bars of tab, but I nailed the notes in about three and a half minutes.

I guess different strokes for different folks.

Taube

[PaulD]

I'm a slow sight reader with standard notation but slower still with tab... mostly an ear learner. Until I got more comfortable with bowing I was doing the same thing as Chuck... using the standard notation version in FF or other fiddle music I've got to learn on the mando, then transferring the melody to the fiddle and working on the bowing. One observation I made WRT tab vs. standard is that standard notation gives me a visual "roadmap" of the melody line in a way that tab does not. Maybe someone proficient at tab would see the same "roadmap".

pd

[Mike Crocker]

I love my FFB, and even take it out to gigs where there might be odd requests. You might like to create your own sets out of tunes of complimentary character (style, time, feel, key, subject, etc, not that you couldn't string together dissimilar tunes that is). One thing I do is enlarge tunes to work on them if I feel the need to add embellishments or ornaments (that way there's more space between the notes), and it helps my failing eyes. I bet I've sold many copies for the writer/publisher by recommending it to students and friends.

I agree about the chords, but most of the time they're not a bad starting point, and quite satisfactory for novices.

If there was a volume two (there isn't is there?) I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

Peace, Mooh.

[Ted Eschliman]

Ted, I practise with your stuff religiously!! It has made all the difference to my dexterity, strength, and knowledge of the fingerboard. #But.... they're not "tunes" in the same way the American/Irish/Canadian etc. "fiddle tunes" #of the Fakebook are. #I get my ideas from multiple sources, no need for you to feel I am neglecting you just because I occasionally like to play an open string :-) !!
I've been known to play an occasional open string, too! (Shhhh...)
Nothing wrong with equiping yourself with the inherent natural acoustics of open strings, and these tunes are where I go to exploit that side of the instrument's potential. It's all about "balance" if you want to be a versatile musician.

[Tom Smart]

I still use the Fiddler's Fake Book, and like it to work out the general drift of a tune, though some of the folks I play with say that the tunes therein are simplified...go figure.
The Fiddler's Fake Book is a great resource; I've had my copy for more than 20 years and use it frequently to catch the outlines of a tune I've heard that has caught my interest, or to recall one I've forgotten.

But I would agree that the settings are often over-simplified or unsatisfying compared to the version that originally caught my ear. I have very mixed feelings about books like this, because they tend to "standardize" versions of tunes that historically have exhibited far more regional variation and personal inventiveness in the hands of the true masters who, for generations, learned and taught tunes the old-fashioned way.

I have the same concern about the "festivalization" or "jam-session-ization" of tunes. It seems that so many players learn tunes in a highly simplified setting, believing they've got it "right" when it sounds just like everyone else's bare-bones, Fakebook-derived version.

My advice would be: use the Fakebook as a tool. But for every hour you spend reading in the Fakebook, spend 10 hours listening to and copying the great musicians who can really bring these tunes to life.

[chuck.naill]

quote:
"My advice would be: use the Fakebook as a tool. But for every hour you spend reading in the Fakebook, spend 10 hours listening to and copying the great musicians who can really bring these tunes to life."

I am learning Loch Lavan Castle from the book and then used Norman Blakes recorded version to get it into my head better. I am actually playing it on the fiddle and mandolin, so killing two birds with one stone

Chuck

[SHORTY]

Does anyone know where i can get tablature for the song "Unchained Melody"?
shorty