Fiddle Progress Report – January 2022
Posted on February 1, 2022
It’s been a while since I’ve written up a progress report, hasn’t it? Sometimes, I move so slowly with what I’m practicing for fiddle that it doesn’t feel like a monthly progress report will reveal that much, I suppose.
I’m back to trying to consistently practice once again after really taking a dive late last year. My record isn’t perfect – I allowed myself a lot of wiggle room and missed 9 days in January. My goal is to get this number down, even if it does mean I take breaks on weekends, like it tends to happen.
I did try the Fiddlehed website in January and have enjoyed the few lessons I’ve worked on there. I especially like the teaching method and the backing tracks are very fun to play to. I like that I can download the content I need, since I play everything from my tablet, too.
I’ve been practicing the rendition of Oh Susannah for the past few weeks, and I’m slowly improving with it. However, it is a pricey system if I’m only going to work on one song for several weeks – which is always my trouble with paying for something like this monthly. I may have to start and stop my subscription here so that I’m getting my money’s worth out of it – I just haven’t engaged with the site in a daily sense beyond practicing the track that I’m on.
This has renewed already for February, so I’m going to look into the site itself to see if there’s stuff there that makes me feel like the cost of the sub is worth holding on to. If not, I’ll reassess the situation for March and maybe put it on pause until I feel I can start making progress again.
I have moved along a little bit in the EEI book and have begun to practice staccato. This has been good for me to work on my bow stopping and my stability when it comes to bow technique. I get some squeakies in there from moving the bow slightly even when it should be stopped.
The next song looks like it’s going to be challenging, mostly because of the tempo and the eighth notes. But I’m going to give it a try because I still want to push further into the EEI book and get it finished up this year if possible!
Other than that, I’m still really liking my new bow – I keep meaning to write a post about it! – and I’m a bit unsure about the Fiddlerman strings. They’re not bad, but I’m also not seeing anything amazing about them. The E is a bit more shrill from the Hill string that I like. But I’m going to play them out and decide what to try next when the time comes.
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