Fiddle Progress Report – February 2021
Posted on March 2, 2021
Just a short progress report from last month – a few things have changed!
It was the first full month of logging my practice into a Google Calendar system, and I think this is working just fine. It’s also the first month of hosting my fiddle content here on this blog. I haven’t been posting a lot about fiddling, I know, but at the same time, I don’t feel a big loss in not having it broken off into its own blog.
Another change is in the tools I’m using for practice. I picked up a new Samsung tablet with the intentions to replace the 7-year-old laptop that I’d been using as a dedicated practice machine. I moved all the practice files, music and sheet music to this tablet, along with the apps and programs I’ve been using. This has gone off seamlessly, and the tablet has 100% picked up doing everything the old laptop had done.
As for actual materials, I have moved on from a couple of songs during February. I felt like I’d put more than enough time into Liza Jane, and decided to work on a new tune from the Fiddle Primer: Blind Mary. I had no idea until I looked into it that it’s actually a song written by Turlough O’Carolan – one of my favorite traditional harpists. I eventually wanted to try to play some O’Carolan tunes, and didn’t expect to find one this early on!
I also finally moved on from EEI: Bingo after having played it for several weeks. It was simple enough that I felt I had a good grasp on it at this point. I’ve replaced it with a song called Variations on a Familiar Song which is actually just a couple of variations on Skip to my Lou.
I’ve been a lot more flexible with my practice this past month, especially on weekends. It seems like Saturdays are difficult days for me to swing a practice in particular. Despite not being as consistent as before, I don’t feel like it hurts my focus on practice on the days that I do. I also don’t feel like I am moving towards missing practice more consistently – I generally practice far more than I do not.