just curious to know if anyone else playing mandolin has a problem with pattern bowing - nashville shuffles and the like - on the fiddle ... or is this where i start looking for an on-line dyspraxia support group?
mandolin/fiddle players
just curious to know if anyone else playing mandolin has a problem with pattern bowing - nashville shuffles and the like - on the fiddle ... or is this where i start looking for an on-line dyspraxia support group?
Re: mandolin/fiddle players
Well .... yeah ... I've been playing with a pick since .. ummm.. 64' ish... the bow required/s a different mind set... I am still working on " not thinking " about my bowing ... try practicing scales and double stop changes together by key using bowing patterns so you don't have to think about your left hand so much.... think of backing up .... luck.. R/
I love hanging out with mandolin nerds . . . . . Thanks peeps ...
Re: mandolin/fiddle players
What kind of exercises are you employing Bill? It's natural to expect some unsatisfactory results when one takes up the bow. I think it took me about ten years or more before I really started feeling comfortable. I remember early on in my studies with classical guitar--a lot of time is devoted to right-hand training. Well, this is also the case with bowing, but moreso; bowing is a highly refined technique--unlike plucking a string and letting the vibrating string do the rest, the bow is responsible for so much more in sound production. It's a thoroughly different game than mandolin, so maybe it's good to not compare your progress as you learn.
I would think that with practice, it will come. Keep a loose wrist.
Re: mandolin/fiddle players
10 years!? ...
Re: mandolin/fiddle players
Well, I was scratching out tunes within a few weeks (I would recommend Brad Leftwich's Homespun material for an easy, comprehensive entry), but more like 10 years to feel natural with a bow -- almost as natural as picking, which I've been doing since age 11 -- feeling I have command, able to vary strokes and timing by feel rather than thought. I think it takes (took me, anyway) a long time to develop a certain facility with the bow--at least for someone who begins using their right hand on the strings rather than a bow. I think this is one rationale for starting kids early on violin: although they saw away like little lumberjacks with little apparent consideration for musicality, it instills the feeling of using the bow from early on--which I think is a big part of it. The bow is a fine and highly technical piece of equipment--in that it is the vehicle for transmitting highly nuanced expression.
I grew up throwing balls and swinging bats. Anything to do with sports movements (and fingerpicking) is very natural motion for me. I did not grow up using a bow, and it was extremely awkward initially when I first began bowing as a young adult. I'd been bowing fiddle for years before I ever took a bow to my bass, and it was so weird at first! It only took a couple of weeks to begin to get comfortable--since I had the fiddle foundation--but the movement was very foreign initially.
Re: mandolin/fiddle players
Yes, bowing is hard. Fiddle is hard. I've heard it compared to learning to drive a standard transmission car (for those that know what that is), it's just about that awkward but takes a heck of a lot longer.
Megan Lynch said in one of her classes it's a year for a good musician to learn fiddle. The 10 year guess is probably about right for the average bear.
Re: mandolin/fiddle players
Well, I'm really only addressing the bowing aspect. Of course "learning to play fiddle" is subject to many criteria. And I hesitate to frame it in any applicable timetable terms--only that it took me about that long before I came upon enough discoveries in technique to really feel it. I'm sure others will do it in less time.
Learning to drive a standard is a comparison I often make with playing pedal steel guitar. I think learning fiddle playing is more like giving a cat a bath, or maybe stuffing my large farm cat into a carrier--the variables are less easliy contained and apt to vary more widely, and wildly!
Last edited by catmandu2; Oct-08-2011 at 9:19pm.
Re: mandolin/fiddle players
i've got gordon strobbe's dvd: "12 things your right hand should know" - which shows me how it's done but seeing and doing are very far apart ... feeling is waaay out there.
Re: mandolin/fiddle players
Yea I am having trouble with that. And everything else about the bowing. Bowing is hard!Originally Posted by billkilpatrick
Re: mandolin/fiddle players
Bowing is the tough part. My advice is get to a good FIDDLE teacher.
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Pete Martin
www.PeteMartin.info
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Re: mandolin/fiddle players
thin on the ground here in italy - violin teachers by the score. there are some regional fiddle players but ... mamma mia:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD3aT6Y1nmo
Re: mandolin/fiddle players
My violin teacher is great. I would recommend her to anyone living anywhere near by. (Southern Tier of NY, Northern Tier of PA) Actually we have two great violin teachers in the area, one slightly more violinistic, and the other a bit more fiddlistic. Both great, both get results in all genres. I am going with the violinistic for now. Get the fundamentals of bowing down.
Re: mandolin/fiddle players
I play mandolin, and would love to learn how to play the fiddle. I have access to a nice fiddle, but every time I take it up, it lasts for about a week and then I'm just disgusted with how I sound, so I quit. I don't know if I'm applying to much mando technique or what. Also the shorter scale throws me for a loop. Our group doesn't have a fiddler so I wouldn't mind learning how to play. It sounds like it doesn't get any easier with age so I guess time is still on my side. Any suggestions for changing technique? Sorry for stealing the thread.......... J
Re: mandolin/fiddle players
To me an apt analogy is to turn the mandolin around and play it left handed. My brain knows how to do all this stuff but I am physically unable to pull it off. With the added insult that I know good and well how its supposed to sound.
Re: mandolin/fiddle players
I have come to believe, and some folks are going to disagree and I don't care I still think I am right, I have come to believe that the violin, or fiddle, is an instrument you need a teacher to learn. Learning to play even at a mediocre level requires so much coaching I could not and cannot learn it on my own. Those that disagree with me on this are either prodigies or haven't tried, or are satisfied at a very scritchy scratchy level. Someone who says "it looks easy, I'll take it up on my own, I've been playing mandolin for umpty ump years, I don't need a teacher", - I don't argue, I don't try to convince, I respond with "have at it, bucko" and I sit back with a bourbon and watch the train wreck.
Re: mandolin/fiddle players
Total agreement here. I had to learn to play on my own because nobody played where I started. I KNOW I would have made much faster progress if I had a good teacher to show the difficult parts, especially of the bow hand, and give feedback.
If you can't find a fiddle teacher, there are a LOT that give online Skype lessons, maybe even your favorite player! Often for a good player of another instrument, even just a couple of lessons can get one straightened out and then you can go on your own.
-----------
Pete Martin
www.PeteMartin.info
Jazz and Bluegrass instruction books, videos, articles, transcriptions, improvisation, ergonomics, free recordings, private lessons
www.WoodAndStringsBand.com
Jazz trio
www.AppleValleyWranglers.net
Western Swing music
Re: mandolin/fiddle players
When Pete Martin gives advice, players/students listen! I wish I lived closer to Seattle!
Re: mandolin/fiddle players
Well, congruent with my view of learning in general, I don't think that formal instruction is absolutely necessary anywhere (unless one aspires to attain a competency of form and technique requisite for formal playing, such as in symphony orchestras for example, or where standards of form and technique are given--academia, for example); in folk forms, whatever it takes to make music is more the norm--with regards to fiddling, this is exemplified by all manner of bow holds and trechniques.
However, I certainly agree that with personal instruction one may hasten the learning process. Even so, however, in my own case I don't know that instruction would have hastened my comfort with the bow--I think it's more a matter of reps, practice. The physicality involved with technique--this is somehting that nothing substitutes for practice.
With specific regards to bowing--there are some fundamental concepts, but everything really needs to be worked out on an individual level; a bow hold is a very personal and individual technique. What happens when you put bow to strings. Ergonomic movements--the fundamentals--wide movements at the elbow, supple wrist, etc. Beyond this, largely, it's a matter of becoming rhythmic with the right arm, and with the caveat that every little movement is amplified--including that which does not sound good! I don't know that a teacher can really help much more than your ears can, here. In Irish fiddling, for example, everyone is going to approach bowing differently.
Violin--different story.
BTW, FWIW, my own revelational discoveries with fiddle bowing coincided with intensive study of Kevin Burke's 2-disc Homespun materials, in which he breaks down much discussion of bowing technique. Highly recommended. After I spent some time with that, I started playing all of my repertoire with different strokes.
My own general recommendatiopn for getting bowing together is: experiment; play everything in as many ways as you can think of -- fours, twos, ones, threes, combinations, varying rhythm, weighting different notes, etc.
Last edited by catmandu2; Oct-10-2011 at 11:44am.
Re: mandolin/fiddle players
I sorta have a distant memory of Vassar Clements saying he was self-taught and just wanted to make it "sound like water flowing" and that he had his first audition for Bill Monroe at around 14, only knew a couple of tunes, but Orange Blossom Special was one of them...
Re: mandolin/fiddle players
You can learn violin or fiddle on your own, but it's much more painful in my humble opinion. Some people like Vassar may have had natural tendencies to play things correctly the first time, but many others will save years of suffering by learning a few best practices!
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Re: mandolin/fiddle players
Yes, certainly. But, bowing is like picking technique (only harder, because there are so many more variables...it's more like a golf swing, compared to a croquet stroke, say)--it varies greatly. You can convey what works here and what works there, for you, but this is really something that needs to be discovered (by trial and error).
In taking formal instruction for classical guitar for years, I think one of the ways in which my teacher really helped was stopping me every time I executed improper form (about every other measure) and having me correct it. This is the classical method. Eew. but it's necessary to learn proper form with something. but fiddle bowing isn't really something that complies with a standard form. Use your elbow, make the wrist supple. Watch others--watch yourself. Compare, and observe the differences. The biggest issue with learners is usually stiffness. Become supple, like the water analogy above. Listen carefully.
Re: mandolin/fiddle players
I have taken up fiddling for that last month or so. So far, so good. Bowing is tough, there is no way around that. I made a quantum leap with bowing by buying a mute for the fiddle and practicing with that. It lowered the volume enough to be able to play around with bow pressure, to get a good sound.
Also I would endorse the artist works academy school of bluegrass fiddle. Darol Anger is a great teacher, he has a ton of short video lessons that will get you on your way. I am doing it, and find it very helpful.
keep in mind however, there is no sustitute for spending time in the woodshed and practicing.
Re: mandolin/fiddle players
A year later, The Art of Violin Playing by Carl Flesch. The bible for instruction and self diagnostics. I am now searching for something comparable for the mandolin. No luck yet.
Re: mandolin/fiddle players
Gee Bill, i don't know how this one got by me. I know you've been playing fiddle for awhile, and of course you know i have. I think the balliwicker on the shortrun is the bowing muscle set is different from the picking muscles. I've hung my hat on fiddling and let my picking go the hogs.
But it's funny you mentioned "shuffle." I was cruising youtube and there's a collection of fiddlers reflecting on Kenny Baker's passing. Telling Kenny Baker stories. The one that sticks is, one fellow approached Kenny about his shuffle. He may have even asked if he used a shuffle. Kenny said (approximately)" if you're still thinking in terms of shuffle patterns, you have a long way to go." Now, that really stuck to me. And other than when somebody wants to hear Diggy-diggy Lo, i no longer think in terms of shuffle patterns. And y'know when you listen to Vasser it's the same way, they're doing something: they're "speaking in fiddle." I think this approach can go for anything: Dawg speaks mando, Hornsby speaks piano, Rice speaks guitar. Yes, it's a matter of getting there, but knowing what to aim for is better thing to me. Best of Luck
Re: mandolin/fiddle players
It's the hours, not the years that count. I started violin at the (late) age of 10. Even back then (1970's) the serious students started before 5. Anyway, it did not take near 10 years to figure out bowing for any of us "kid" players; and it shouldn't take adults that long either. We all got an hour a day in orchestra class, an hour or more practice a night and private lessons weekly. There are decent violin/fiddle instructors practically everywhere. Get lessons and find a place where you can play with others at least once a week.
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