Making music expressive

Tonight we played around with the idea of making music expressive.

We started off by revisiting our bow hold, aiming to work on keeping our bowing arm as relaxed as possible while playing. The fingers of the right hand can be laid onto the stick of the bow, and slightly spread apart. While the bow is being used on the strings, the fiddle will hold the main weight of the bow, allowing our bow hold to be kept relaxed. If we lift the bow off the strings, the pinkie is used to take the bow’s weight briefly, until the bow returns to the strings.

We played long slow notes an open string, keeping a relaxed bow hold, and using our wrist action to make the bow strokes flow. We were also thinking about the tone we were making, particularly in relation to where abouts on the string we were using the bow. We then tried lifting our bows off the string at the end of each up bow.  After this, we tried messing around with playing the notes in all sorts of different styles (Rice Crispies was an interesting suggestion – thanks Dave!).

We started learning the tune ‘The Eagles Whistle’, learning the A part this evening. We’ll cover the rest of the tune next week. While we were learning the tune, we tried playing it with different styles, thinking about what we were trying to express through the music. Making music expressive is easier once we’ve learnt a tune thoroughly, and can play if from our subconscious, rather than having to think about where we’re placing our fingers as we play, or which direction we’re moving the bow. We’re aiming to get into a ‘flow’ state while we’re playing, which involves being absorbed in the music, and losing awareness of day to day distractions.

We also explored possibilities for playing chords. The open D string can be played along with the tune, at any  point during the A part.

Once we’d learnt the A part of the tune, we split into two groups. Each group had a go at playing the tune with expression, while the other group worked out what was being expressed. We finished off the evening by playing single long bows on an open string again, following a style that was started by one person within the group.