Hidden Tips

Here are some tips for you about Fido (fiddle-online), including some “hidden” bits as well as a few basics worth keeping in mind.

Privacy

As far as your internet privacy goes, there is only one person (myself, Ed Pearlman) who designs, publishes and runs this site, so if you send a message or fill out a form, it doesn’t go anywhere else; there are no employees or third-party companies involved. When you send info about your interests, for example, not much happens with the information — for new people I try to look at their interests and recommend places on the site that can help them.

There is also privacy in the live workshops — when you learn specific things from the teacher, mikes are muted so that you hear the teacher to play along with, but nobody else hears you unless you choose to play a phrase or two for the class in order to get some comments. This allows people of all levels to take class because nobody can compare folk to each other; everyone is focused on improving their own playing.

Two Different Home Pages – Site and Personal

The site home page shows 4 choices – Workshops, Articles, Technique, and Sheet Music. Click on Workshops to view info about upcoming live workshops as well as info about materials available to you from past workshops. Articles takes you to this blog. Techniques takes you to info about 5 video groups of 10 videos each, a treasury of learning options to be used at your own pace for improving ergonomics, bowing, fingering, note patterns, ornamentation. Sheet Music gives you a listing of Tune Groups with 12 tune in each, for you to learn from (many tunes are also available from past workshop materials).

The site home page also has a green button for joining, sort of a registration form. Anonymous lurkers and freeloaders are not appreciated here, it’s more of a small international community of learners. The red button is for logging on, once you’ve joined. This takes you to your own personal home page, which gives you direct links to any resources you are currently subscribed to, shows their expiration date, tells you how many credits you have, offers an online pitchpipe for tuning, and explains the menu items at the top of each page. There’s also a link there to Continue reading Hidden Tips

60 Interactive Tunes in the Tune Groups

When you click on “Sheet Music” on the home page, you are taken to the world of the Tune Groups. Each of these gives you interactive sheet music and audio for a dozen tunes for 3 months. If you learn all 12 tunes, that’s a tune a week!

I’ll describe below how these work, but keep in mind that this interactive sheet music format can be found in all of the Workshop materials as well! A sample of this kind of sheet music is linked prominently in pink on the Tune Groups information page.

What tunes will you find in these tune groups? Tune Group 1 offers a nice mix of Celtic, American, and Canadian tunes, and also is good for beginners because it’s the only group that offers both the sheet music and music by numbers. Tune Group 2 continues with a nice variety of tunes — Scottish, Irish, American, and Quebecois. Tune Group 3 is all about Scottish tunes, and Tune Group 5 contains popular Irish tunes. Tune Group 4, Shetland tunes, is currently only available on my old site and works great but only if you can use flash media; it will eventually be added to fiddle-online so it can be used by all devices.

Here’s how it works. With each Tune Group, you get access to that tune group’s home page, with links to each of the 12 tunes in that group. When you visit one of the tunes,

Continue reading 60 Interactive Tunes in the Tune Groups

What to do this summer!

Our live workshops on fiddle-online will take a break from June through August, but there’s lots to do here! Don’t forget to consult the Quick Guide at the left of the home page to help answer any questions you may have.

Instead of joining us for the live workshops, why not use this summer to catch up on past workshops? Click on the blue “Workshops” bubble on the home page and then click on the blue button that says “Click to see what’s available.”

There are two kinds — the left column shows buttons linking you to information about 23 regular Thursday workshops. Each has materials from at least 3 workshops, arranged by the topic of the month. Many seem self-explanatory but if you click on them you will be able to hear an audio sampling of the tunes and see a description of them.

Some of the titles of the workshops are not so self-explanatory. For example, “Tunes for Ornamentation” offers two slow airs, a jig and a reel as vehicles for learning and making use of different kinds of ornaments. “Tunes of Love” presents Continue reading What to do this summer!

fiddle-online for Advanced and Professional Players

If you are an advanced, even a professional player, there are many uses you can make of the fiddle-online.com site! Below, we’ll take a look at what you can get out of the following offerings —

  • Concert/workshops with world-class guests in various fiddle styles
  • Advanced ideas about bowing, ornaments, and stylistic timing
  • Audio and video about various fiddle styles
  • Articles on the blog, many of which have food for thought for advanced players and teachers
  • Technique videos which can fill in gaps or provide new perspectives
  • Teaching support in the form of techniques, concepts, tunes, and styles

Read on for details!

Continue reading fiddle-online for Advanced and Professional Players

Pointers about Online Classes

Taking an online class is pretty easy on fiddle-online.com  — here are some pointers about making them fit your needs.

Technology
It’s easy — when you sign up for a class, you’ll find yourself on the class page where there’s a link.  No Skype calling or anything — you’ll just click the link at class time and join in.  For details and first time users of Zoom, see this page.  “Signing up” for Zoom can be done in advance or when you go to class, and takes a minute just to enter email address and the name you’d like other people to see when you’re onlinonline class screene.  You’ll need a computer, tablet, or smartphone with a camera and mike, which they all have nowadays.

Content
Before signing up for a class you can hear an audio sample of the tune we’ll work on.  The class is never about just getting the notes; it’s about ways to understand, remember, phrase the tune, and how to think musically about it.  Technical ideas are integrated, and often relate to some of the technique videos available on this site.

Sheet Music
As soon as you sign up and go to the class page, you’ll have access to sheet music and audio of the tune in question, in case you wish to take a look before, during, or after class.  You get the most out of classes, though, if during class you try to learn by ear.

Format
You see the teacher and other students on your screen, can speak or play any time, except at a few times Continue reading Pointers about Online Classes

Welcome! Here’s what to expect —

Here, on a regular basis, you can find new posts featuring:

1.  Current News

Fiddle-online blog posts will bring you news about upcoming classes, newly posted videos, and guest workshops.

2.  Pointers to help you better work with fiddle-online.com videos, classes, and materials.

3.  Ideas abEd (2)out how people learn fiddle

These articles will explore fresh ways for us to think about learning, practicing, and playing the instrument.  I draw upon many years of teaching experience, recent published research, and adaptions of over 150 blog posts I’ve written for a music teacher’s site.

Your comments and questions are always welcome, and may well serve as topics for future articles.

–Ed Pearlman