Forum for Questions about Violin Playing

MARSHA YOUMAN:
I am struggling with learning how to jam with fiddlers. My classical quartet "jam" is with all of us reading music.  If I were to bring sheet music to a fiddle jam session, I am afraid I would look like a total geek. Any clues would be appreciated.

JAMIE:
There's a reason why fiddle players don't use sheet music at a jam session or onstage. The process of gleaning information from a printed page inhibits a person's natural rhythmic pulse and sense of groove. And although sheet music is definitely an invalueable learning and remembering tool, it indicates very little of how the music should actually sound. (Even less with tab.) It's like a map to the national park: you don't want to spend your vacation just staring at a map, you want to GO there to enjoy the experience!

"Going there" in music means knowing the tunes inside & out, upside down & backwards, dreaming the tune, fingers twitching the tune, whistling the tune in the shower, being able to play the tune 100 times over without the slightest concern. Thus, when you know and feel the music completely, sheet music becomes irrelevant.

Keep at it. Learning to play with others is a lifetime and very enjoyable process (and I'm still working on it--like everyone else I know!). It's like tending to your roses day after day (smelling them every once in awhile!): there aren't any short cuts!

Learn new tunes and ask people to play them with you. Enjoy the fact that it's a long journey that one can never get tired of!

SARAH PERLMAN:
Could you describe to me how you practice violin? Do you stay in shape just from playing concerts every day?

JAMIE:
I should be practicing right now, as a matter of fact! But it's so lovely to hear from anybody who attended one of our concerts that I can't resist making a personal contact.

I still practice in much the same way I did when I was a classical player. I start out with lots, and lots, and lots of: 1) drones -- that is, notes played as double stops against open strings; 2) very slow double stops in 3rds, 6ths, and Octaves played as scales or other patterns; and 3) broken intervals starting from each finger, ie: up a second, up a third, up a forth, up a fifth, etc., played on each string. All of these I do in all the major fiddle keys of D, G, A, and their associated minors bm, em, f#m; if time allows, I also try to do other keys as well, especially Bb, B, and C plus their minors.

Then I go on to do scale-like passages in all the major keys, using varied bowing patterns, especially those bowings relvant to jigs and reels. The same with arpeggios.

After about 30 to 60 minutes of all that, I begin working on tunes themselves. I start by playing straight through several tunes I already know, just to get things "oiled up." I work a lot with the metronome. And I often pick apart tunes and rework certain passages to improve certain areas.

Then I go on to tunes which are new to me. This is where the hard work begins! I begin with a small segment of a tune, say 4 or 8 notes, and loop these around and around until they are on "auto pilot." Then I move onto the next few notes, etc. until all the patterns in the whole tune are ingrained. Then I start stringing patterns together until I can play whole phrases with ease. During this long process, I increase the tempo from very slow to very fast.

When I can play the whole tune at full tempo, I then start considering the bowing patterns which I think would enhance the style of the tune. In more straight forward tunes, the bowings work themselves out quickly. But for certain other tunes in which I'm trying to develop a new technique or sound that is uncommon, it may take several months for me to finally decide on a system of bowing patterns that accomplishes what I'm after.

I consider adding ornaments only when I can play the tune with aplomb. Otherwise, the rhythm can suffer if ornaments are added before the tune is rock solid.

Practicing by myself is done quite apart from any rehearsing I do with my band mates. Ashley and I rehearse very earnestly. But that's another topic!

DENISE LEVY:
I'm asking everyone what they use for a shoulder rest; my collar bone is killing me. If you say you don't use one, I'll sink into the depths of despair.

JAMIE:
Practically everyone needs some kind of cushion under the violin, but the industry standard "Kun" style shoulder rest isn't necessarily the best way to go.

The thickness of the of the violin plus the height of the chin rest should collectively be more or less equal to the distance between a person's collar bone and the side of his/her jawbone. One should never have to scrunch up the shoulder and neck in order to contact the chinrest and support the violin. In the case of someone with a long neck (almost everyone I know!), a cushion and/or a higher chinrest is necessary.

In my case, shoulder rests are useless because they bear no relationship to the contour of my shoulder/chest area; it just becomes a hard hunk of matter that I have to wrap my body around. Ridiculous! So, I make my own pad using a dense piece of neoprine foam cut out on a band saw. But a thick kitchen sponge works just as well. I also had my local luthier beef up the height of my chin rest with an extra shim of wood to help fill up the gap further.

There is a common misconception in the violin playing world that the violin must be held up exclusively with the pressure of the jaw and shoulder without any support support offered from the left hand. NOT TRUE! Let the neck of the violin freely sit upon your left hand and only snug up your jaw to the chin rest enough to keep the violin lightly stable. No need to press down hard on the chinrest or collarbone.