Slurring notes over bar lines

Playing slurred notes over the bar lines

Play slurred notes over bar lines to add swing
Photo ©Ros Gasson

Tonight we learnt an unusual jig written by the fiddler Sarah Northcott. Sarah wrote the tune for a couple of friends from Brittany, for their wedding day. It’s called ‘Anne et Ludo’. It’s a quirky tune, with notes slurred over the bar lines in both the A and B parts. We worked on speeding the bow up on the second of the slurred notes, which falls at the start of the bar, to emphasise it. This helps to keep a steady rhythm throughout the tune.

We also played through The Shetland Molecule a few times, and reminded ourselves of some of the bowing patterns we tried out last week.

At the end of the night we played through several tunes we’ve learnt in the last two terms:  the Aird Ranters, The road to Banff, Vals, Leaving Brittany, Break your Bass Drone, and the Eagle’s Whistle.

This was the last class of the summer term. We’ve covered a lot of topics, with a focus on using bowing to play around with rhythms in a tune.

The autumn term starts back on Tuesday 10th September. Details are on the website home page.