January practice time
Once again it's January, and slowly, I've come back to Gardenia Waltz, Blue Violet Waltz, and Faded Love, and last and certainly not least, Golden Fiddle Waltz. These things are so beautiful I keep coming back to them...but so hard I never get them down that great...anyhow, I've been coming back to them every New Year Resolution time...lol...and I figure one of these years I'm gonna play the daylights out of each one of those tunes! I think I see improvement...hope I can get the time each night to go through them with the jam tracks, resort to the lessons when and where necessary to try to iron out the parts that just won't stick with me...lol...and maybe by springtime I'll have them down...I've gone through this for a few years now...and as I said...I'm seeing improvement. After just starting the fiddle at age 55, I think these are some pretty cool tunes to get under my belt. What are y'all workin' on? It's a New Year for fiddlin', guys! Maybe the ol' covid will get outta here this year ... so practice up...you might end up in some big crowd somewhere with your fiddle! Get ready!!!
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Right now I'm working on The 8th of January & Faded Love.
Doing more just playing on things I know lately than pushing to learn more. Trying to gain some speed and clean things up here and there.
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That's a great way to get through the winter time...lol.
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So many tunes....so little time.... :)
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yeah that's the truth, for sure. Well I've spent two nights going over Gardenia Waltz and Blue Violet Waltz. I think I need to break them up into small segments and really get into what makes them sound so terrible when I play them...lol...I guess that's next...one week on segment one, or however many weeks...then on to the next, the next, etc. Gonna try it that way and see if I can conquer these tunes...make them beautiful as they were meant to be, instead of pitchy and fumbly, as they were not meant to be...lol. I'll let you know how that goes.
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Can't wait, Cricket!
The Punch Brothers dropped an album recently and today I was working on their version of Cattle in the Cane. Very cool!
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That's gotta be hard...lol. Are you gonna make a lesson? That banjo guy is doing what we used to call melodic style...very tough way to play. Those guys are from another universe...lol...great musicians! You'll have to play that one for us one of these days, John!
I practiced Gardenia Waltz again tonight until I found myself falling over from sleepiness....one of these days I'm gonna get that one down and then I'll be so happy!
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I am going to teach that one! But probably just the standard fiddle break.
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Lookin' forward to that.
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Well I think I sounded pretty decent on Gardenia Waltz last night, practicing it. I've been breaking it up into the horrifying parts and trying to force them into tune....aahhhhhhgggjjjj...you play it nice and then get to that one sour thing that just turns it all back into badness...lol. Well I think I was sounding better and hoping the time I've spent on that is finally paying off for me...yay...can't stop now...after that...more of the waltzes that are so beautiful, and so easy to mangle....lol.
What's everybody workin' on? I go through this every January, not just GW, but lots of tunes I learned here...the ones that were beyond my skill back when I started them...and figuring I might gradually be creeping up to the skill needed to play these tough tunes and make them sound as beautiful as they should. After I get worn out with GW, I'll move on to a few of the others. So many tunes, SLT.
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I'm having fun with Aubrey Haynie's version of "Foolin' Around". I also have a list of about 30 tunes that I go through regularly to keep them up to shape or more accurately, get them into shape.
I've been working on a piano piece with woodwinds lately and it's just about consuming all my time.
I did get to play hard-core traditional Bluegrass last night for two solid hours and wow was that good for me! :)
Keep going with Gardenia Waltz, there Peggy. You're doing fine, I'll bet. :)
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Thanks, Fred. Sounds like you're staying right with it too. Last January I went through each and every lesson on here with John's videos...whew...some of them I could sorta do...some I mangled up bad. But it took me a few weeks and I always pick up a lot doing something like that, even if I don't actually pick up the tunes. There's so much to learn from any tune.
Anyway, this year I think I just wanna work on the ones I sorta learned but not well enough to really play in front of anybody...lol...closet tunes. Trying to get them out of the closet. It might take a while, but...well what else is there to do...clean the bathroom???? Naaah...let that wait...practice the fiddle!
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I agree. The heck with the bathroom........ lol :)
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Life is too short, the bathroom just gets dirty again...clean it all up later...lol.
Well I didn't do too bad going through Gardenia Waltz...I actually believe that one of these days I'm gonna sound...sort of ok...not sure it'll all ever be in tune...but it's really improving. So I went to Blue Violet Waltz...had to run through the lessons...I forgot all that other fancy stuff in there...somehow I'm gonna have to come up with a system of constant rotaation of these types of tunes so I'm not always stuck spinning my wheels in the learning mode.
Yes, I'm old and have no place to play...lol...and the house screams to be cleaned...but my priorities are to brush up and fine tune really hard fiddle tunes...lol. I think y'all will understand. Now all I need is some system to organize and "shuffle" around those tunes so I'm not always forgetting.
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I just keep a list and try to fiddle thru it every day. :)
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Great advice, Fred
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Hmmm....not sure I have enough time to play through a whole list everyday...I also try to keep up with guitar...I've forgotten so many things I used to play on guitar and banjo too. I've only played fiddle for 13 years, but already have forgotten tons of tunes in various tunings, etc.
I need to come up with some way of rotating an inclusive list, then go through them in some regular systematic way. But the really hard stuff needs to appear in the rotation a lot more frequently than the easier stuff...the easier stuff I just have to remember how it goes or that I do play it...the harder stuff goes away really fast if I don't play it often enough, which I don't. ''
If I come up with such a list, i might include it on here and see if others can either help me improve on it or possibly be inspired to come up with something similar.
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Howdy, Stranger!