Playing a fiddle in tune

If you’re learning to play as an adult, one of the big challenges is learning how to play the fiddle in tune. If you’ve never played an instrument that needs to be tuned before, there are some things you ca do that will help to make this easier. The first thing to do is to make sure that your fiddle is in tune each time you play it. Get into the habit of tuning before you start to practice. It’s also important to be aware that a fiddle can go out of tune very quickly in some situations. Here’s some situations that might mean you need to re-tune your fiddle more often than usual:

• when it’s very warm (fiddle strings tend to go flat)
• when it’s very cold (fiddle strings tend to go sharp)
• if you’ve replaced any of the strings in the last couple of weeks (fiddle strings tend to go flat)
• if you’re fiddle has been knocked or dropped
• if any of your pegs are ill-fitting and prone to slipping

Part of the challenge is being able to hear what ‘in tune’ sounds like. With modern electronic tuners it’s very easy to check if your fiddle is in tune. It can be easy to rely on your electronic tuner when you’re tuning your fiddle, but learning to tune by ear is a method to train your ear to hear when notes are in tune.  Check back to this post if you want a reminder about learning how to tune your fiddle by ear.

It can be really helpful to have more than just your own note to listen to – if you have another ‘point of reference’ it can make it easier to hear if what you’re playing on your fiddle is in tune or not. Try playing along with an instrument with a fixed pitch (accordion, concertina, melodeon, etc), or a fretted instrument. If you’re playing with other fiddles, it can be helpful if someone is playing a drone on an open (tuned!) string, or a harmony.

Tonight we learnt a very short tune – an Arabian childrens’ song called Yalla Awled (the written music is on the music page). Both the tune and the harmony can be played in the upper or lower register of the fiddle. It also works well with A and E drones. Once we’d learnt the tune and harmony, every second person round the room played tune, while the others played the harmony. We did this while paying careful attention to our tuning and timing. Then half of us played our part up the octave, while the others tried playing it on the bottom octave. After this, we tried playing any part, or a drone, and all wandered around the room, so we could hear what others were playing as well.

After the break we spent some time looking at emphasising up bows. We tried this out on Bill Sullivan’s Polka. We looked at one short phrase in the B part of the tune, and worked on emphasising  on up beat within the phrase. Here’s some things we tried out, to increase the emphasis on that one note:

• making the rest of the notes quieter
• playing a chord on the up beat
• using a faster bow stroke
• playing towards the heel of the bow

Half the class played the phrase while the other half listened, and then gave feedback. We found it much easier to hear ourselves in a smaller group!

At the end of the class we played through Her Mantle So Green, The Shetland Molecule, and then the True Lovers Lament.

We’ll be meeting up for a session in the Diggers pub on Monday 18th, from 8pm onwards