Fiddle Lessons

Well, I have a couple of fiddle practices under my belt. I hope these were the first few steps on the road to an enjoyable hobby. I have no illusions of becoming a concert violinist, but maybe I'll actually make it into the ranks of passable fiddlers.

Besides your usual squaredance type of fiddling, I also love celtic/Irish fiddle and I look forward to playing that type of music as well.

Right now I'm basically learning to hold the fiddle, play an eight note scale, and then how to play my first song, "Shortnin' Bread". No "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" here. That's for violinists. Us fiddlers, we play "Shortnin' Bread".

I'm having a little difficulty with the scale, but then I've only played it a few times. When you get into your 50's you kind of forget how long it takes to learn a new skill. It's been a LONG time since I learned to read, write, count, etc. This is much the same thing. As my son Jordan says, "You have to be willing to really suck at something for a while if you want to learn something new." (paraphrased)

My teacher, via DVD, is Elan Chalford. He seems to be a pretty talented musician. And, of course, DVD's are very patient, so I can mess up all I want and keep on trying and he doesn't even get mad. His address is http://www.fiddleguru.com/ if you're interested in checking him out. I found a really cool place for tuning my fiddle at http://www.violinonline.com/tuning.htm . Very simple.

Here's to old dogs learning new tricks. Wish me luck! =0)