Topic: Any Violin/Fiddle players on the forum?

[cb750fbomb]

I took lessons and played for a little while and I'm thinking about picking it back up myself. The bug has seemed to have found me again and it took a bite.

[bucky katt]

i am a huge fan of bluegrass and traditional celtic music and fiddle is one i want to learn fiddle one day.

[Mdub]

Here is my Chinese 5 string.
I love this thing cause you can play 3 strings at a time.
Strung the same as a mandolin with the addition of a low C string, C-G-D-A-E.
That means I can use all the mando chord patterns on the fiddle.
Covers 4+ octaves!
5 strings make double/triple stops a lot easier cause the bridge is a bit flatter.
The trade off is that single strings are harder to hit.
You've only got about 5 degrees of bow rock before you cross strings.

If you get yourself a mandolin and learn to play it, it will make the fiddle a LOT easier.
The hardest part is intonation (fretless) and keeping that long bow lined uup in the groove with the right amount of pressure. (you have to increase pressure as the bow goes down as the string gets to the tip of the bow, and decrease pressure the other way).
Too much pressure you get a squawk, too little you get a squeek!
Very challenging but very satisfying when you find that sweet tone.

[Gordon]

I played violin for ten years, age 8 to 18.  I played with the Texas Tech symphony for one semester, and probably would have kept playing had I stayed there, but I moved to Austin and never picked up the violin again.  I've thought about starting to play again several times, but the violin and bow need a lot of work from lack of use and I've never gotten around to getting it done.     

[Mdub]

Great music scene in Austin!
Get out there and start jammin'!

Find a local old time jam (everyone plays the same thing at once and you can follow along until you get it down).
Then when you've got some confidence check out a bluegrass jam, where people take turns playing leads.
Then, share what you've learned with others!

[cb750fbomb]

Just got new strings!! Going to try to practice everyday. Some friends of mine meet up every Monday night and once I get a little confidence I'll start jamming with them. Sometimes it's only a few people and sometimes it's like 15. There's a guy that shows up occasionally that is supposed to be a real bad ass on the fiddle, but I haven't heard him play. But of course there are about 978664335646846321648 fiddle players here in Nashville.

[Rocking-M]

use to play. Took lessons for a while. Particularity like the old Scottish reels. 
But haven't picked one up in 20 years though I do have one in for repair which
I plan to saw on this summer on the front porch. I thought it would be a good
way to scare off potential neighbors and maybe run some off we already have.

[Don R]

My daughter went to a music store while on vacation in florida, she needed a set of strings for her fiddle so she could jam with a band. She was told they only sell violin strings there. She got some anyway. 

[Mdub]

How do you stop a fiddle player from playing?



























Put sheet music in front of him/her!

[cb750fbomb]

Last night i got a bunch of Suzuki method books and audio, a Maia bang method book and a book of 300 exercises via torrents. I figured I'd start with Suzuki, supplement with other exercises and try out the Maia Bang method after some Suzuki. I researched what may be best for adult students and it all seemed to point to mixing it up. When I can afford it I'm going to start real lessons with a live person.

[Spanner 1]

Greatest living Celtic fiddle players;
Scotland  =  Johnny Cunningham
Ireland   = Kevin Burke  ( now lives in Portland, I think )
Canada = Natalie mcMaster
USA =  ??
IMO.

[Rocking-M]

My daughter went to a music store while on vacation in florida, she needed a set of strings for her fiddle so she could jam with a band. She was told they only sell violin strings there. She got some anyway. 

ha! there use to be and still may be (20 years ago) a preeminent "violin maker" in
Florence SC. Had apprentice from all over the world and actually owned a real Strat.
Made violins for many symphony players and soloist. He still called them fiddles.

[kpier883]

I am not a musician.  But I do have a question for you guys.  Is a violin considered to be in a particular key?  For example, a tenor saxaphone is in B flat I believe.  And the C on the saxaphone is equivalent to a B flat on a piano.  Additionally, the B flat is one octave down from middle C.   

Just wondering what key the violin is in compared to a piano...

[Rocking-M]

Violins are tuned GDAE (standard), violas are one octave lower, and I'm not sure but believe a Cello is one octave below
the viola.

[bucky katt]

a question. i have the desire to learn to play bluegrass fiddle and of course i'm not going to go out and buy something high buck, german and old. what is the quality like on the cheaper (100-150 dollars) fiddles. i know that cheap guitars have gotten to be quite good over the past several years (most expensive guitar i own is a Danelectro Hodad and thats because it's on the rare side)

[Rocking-M]

my 2c on that is, find a violin produced in mass over in europe back around 1920s-30s.
They are well made, sound great, and pretty cheap. Might need a bit of minor repair.
Most of them will have a sticker in the sound hole you can see with something like
Stradivarius (and may or may not even state they are a copy, they are.) The tone is what
your after and though some of the new student grade violins are nicely made they don't seem
to have that warm tone. Or, you can by a nice fiddle from a good fiddle maker.

Comon up and I'll take you over to Arthur's.

 http://www.newvisionfilm.com/project.html

[Don R]

My daughter was given her grandmothers aunts violin. Just by the year she was in school it has to be 100 years old. We had it repaired and set-up. She plays bluegrass and has done well with it. She took it to a jam session / campfire party and played a while. I asked her to put it in the case because the heat from the fire was on one side and the cold air was on the other.
 Yep you guessed right, the next day when she opened the case the back had de-laminated and the inside of the bridge is loose in the inside. It will be repaired, we are fortunate to have a great shop nearby who has repaired far more valuable ones way worse than this. The wood isn't split only the glue joint came apart, still a heart breaker.

[cb750fbomb]

a question. i have the desire to learn to play bluegrass fiddle and of course i'm not going to go out and buy something high buck, german and old. what is the quality like on the cheaper (100-150 dollars) fiddles. i know that cheap guitars have gotten to be quite good over the past several years (most expensive guitar i own is a Danelectro Hodad and thats because it's on the rare side)

I would think that starting out with an inexpensive students set would be OK to start out with so that you don't blow money. You could also search the web for reviews of starter violins.

[Rocking-M]

Hey Jeff, there are several old violins for sale on ebay that you could get cheap.
Just do a search on vintage violins and look for one made in eastern europe.

Believe me the  tone is so much better than any new student violin that you probably
will always be satisfied with it, and for no more money than the student violins.

[bucky katt]

i'll be looking sometime in the coming spring hopefully. i have to curtail acquiring more musical instruments for now

[cb750fbomb]

Rocking-M, you are right! I'm looking right now and the first one I saw had a video, to hear the sound quality, for a 20's Czech violin currently at $143.00 that sounds f*%king amazing!!

[Mdub]

I am not a musician.  But I do have a question for you guys.  Is a violin considered to be in a particular key?  For example, a tenor saxaphone is in B flat I believe.  And the C on the saxaphone is equivalent to a B flat on a piano.  Additionally, the B flat is one octave down from middle C.   

Just wondering what key the violin is in compared to a piano...

The violin is just like the piano in that you can play the notes of the white and the black keys on it. That means you can play it in any key. For instance, the key of C is all the white keys on a piano.
The key of G has one sharp note (black key) F#.
The key of D has two sharps, F# and C# .
The key a A has three sharps, F#, C#, and G# and so on.
What this means is that it helps to learn scales in different keys. It is very handy to have a keyboard so you can play the scale and then repeat the sound on the fiddle.
Hope that helps!
Mike

[Mdub]

Violins are tuned GDAE (standard), violas are one octave lower, and I'm not sure but believe a Cello is one octave below
the viola.

The viola strings are CGDA. Notice that it is tuned in fifths, CdefGabcDefgA.
Counting the C, there are five notes to the next string.
Cello, viola, and violin are all tuned in fifths.
The bass is tuned in fourths. E-A-D-G.

Wierd, I just noticed that's a fiddle tuned backwards!
Fifths in one direction and fourths in the other! 

[Mdub]

a question. i have the desire to learn to play bluegrass fiddle and of course i'm not going to go out and buy something high buck, german and old. what is the quality like on the cheaper (100-150 dollars) fiddles. i know that cheap guitars have gotten to be quite good over the past several years (most expensive guitar i own is a Danelectro Hodad and thats because it's on the rare side)

Hi Bucky,
Here is a list of jams in SC. They usually welcome guitar, banjo, mando and dobro.
You could probably get a head start learning tunes on your guitar:

http://www.sebga.org/Webpages/Offical%20Frames%20Page%20(main%20page).htm

You also may find a fiddle for sale that you can listen to first.
That's really the only way to know what you're getting.
Mike

[Rocking-M]

The viola strings are CGDA. Notice that it is tuned in fifths, CdefGabcDefgA.
Counting the C, there are five notes to the next string.
The bass, cello, viola, and violin are all tuned in fifths.

so is a cello GDAC and then the base at DACG?