I'm learning to play the fiddle

I've been trying to learn to play the fiddle. It's been a long, slow, sporadic adventure.

I bought a fiddle and starting attending the adult education fiddle class about 12-15 years ago, but I didn't keep up with it because I had to sneak out from work to attend the classes and then leave early from the class. Eventually, I didn't go back to the classes.

Not long ago, I was playing my flute in the Irish session when someone suggested I come to the old-time jam in the park. So I started attending that with a dulcimer. The dulcimer was too quiet. I could not hear if I was playing anything right, so I started bringing a mandolin. I remembered the fingering from trying to learn fiddle long ago and the mandolin has such a sweet sound even the wrong notes don't sound bad.

I wasn't particularly drawn to the music, but I liked it because it seemed easy to learn by ear. It turned out to be great ear training that has helped me be able to learn to play Irish flute by ear. Being freed from sheet music, whatever tenuous hold I ever had on it, is great. It makes music so much easier to learn and more fun.

In addition to finding the jam to be a great way to help me learn Irish music, it was simply a good time spent with really nice people. They have the jam every week, so I kept coming back. They also get hired to play paid and unpaid gigs once in a while, so I attend those when I can and sometimes earn my dinner or a little cash.

Attending the jam each week, I muddled along with the mandolin, learning the tunes on the fly by ear. I never could remember any of them when I got home, so I started taking the adult education fiddle class again so maybe I could learn the tunes. I had given up on the fiddle all those years ago. It's not easy to play, but I had to bring it to the class or look like a wuss even though all I really wanted was to hear the tunes slowed down enough to get all the notes.

Through the class, I learned a few of the tunes but the class was canceled this year. I have been bringing the fiddle to the old-time jam and trying not to play too loudly that I cause others pain. The teacher from the adult education fiddle class attends the jam and she tries to help me a little here and there, but it's hard to learn the tunes on the fly on such a relatively difficult instrument. I keep bringing the fiddle because the teacher is there at the jam and I don't want to disappoint her. But I also keep bringing the fiddle because it's starting to grow on me. I am starting to enjoy it more and dare I say it, sometimes I even think it's starting to sound a little like music.

One of my friends at the old-time jam pointed me to a great web site with lots of tunes called Mossy Roof. It's like having brought a recording device to the jam and bringing it home to practice and learn. I can play the tunes back as slow as I want with Quicktime and learn them. Today I learned Grasshopper Sitting on a Sweetpotato Vine.

My arm is killing me now. I have to put the fiddle down for a while.

Swinging on a Gate

I started a tune last night: Swinging on a Gate.

I had been practicing it all week. And then, like a miracle, I heard someone mention that tune during the evening. I knew they were wanting to play it. It was going to be my lucky night.

So, at some point there was a lull. There were a lot of lulls during the night, but during this particular one it occurred to me that now was the time to start the tune.

And they played along. One fellow even rushed to get his guitar out but was too slow so we played another round. It was hard to start the tune with a guitar backer already going, but I managed.

Overall it was a fun night. I seem to be getting better at picking up tunes I don't even know. Or maybe they just had some that were easy to pick up. And as usual, many of the ones I've been working on were impossible to play. But at least I did relatively OK with my dumbed-down version of Dinky's reel.

Anyway, back to another 2 or 3 weeks of practicing until the next session.

Fluting in the park

Today was a lovely day so I walked to the park for lunch like I always do. I sat under a tree and practiced my flute. There were a lot more people out than usual. I try to ignore them otherwise I get flummoxed and make too many mistakes. I forgot my sunglasses so I closed my eyes.

I could hear people going by on the bike path a few times. Once I detected someone going very slowly. When I opened my eyes it was an old man and a younger man walking. Fortunately they weren't staring at me.

On my way back to the office I saw the old man on his return trip on the bike path and he mentioned hearing me play my flute. I was embarrassed, but at least he liked it. It's nice that people hear so little live music and even less live flute music that they think I'm any good. Of course he could have just been polite.

The session is tomorrow. I always look forward to it, but I end up not playing as much during the session as I would at home. I will bring my big boxwood flute, but lately I feel that my Folk Flute is playing better. It's got such a lovely bottom end.

Every new tune is like a new trail to explore

I'm learning to play the Irish flute. Unlike my reputation as a hiker, I'm not very good at it. The Irish flute is not easy to play. I'm not very fast or skilled at it. I don't have a very good tone yet. I can barely play most tunes.

But I love it anyway. It makes me happy. I could play all day long and sometimes I do when I can't think of something else to do.

There are so many tunes to learn in the Irish Traditional Music genre. And each one is like finding a new trail to explore.

I can explore a new tune and then share it with others, just like I do with new trails I find. I love the way people's excitement stirs when they learn a new trail. It's the same when they learn a new tune, even when someone as inexperienced and unskilled as I am is the one to show it to them.

Why the flute? I think the flute is the prettiest-sounding instrument. An Irish flute is not the silver kind you play in an orchestra. It is made of wood and sometimes has silver keys on some of the holes, but the main holes never have keys, and some flutes, like mine, have no keys at all. It plays only a major D or G scale if you cross-finger the C-natural. If you need other notes outside these two scales, you have to half-hole or cross-finger. They are not built in.

It would seem this is a limitation, making the instrument frustrating, but it is not. Irish music is usually written in these two key signatures, employing what are called modes, which means that there are minor scales and other hauntingly beautiful scales that fit inside the D and G key signatures. There's more than enough variety and complexity and excitement in these tunes to fit into a lifetime. Having only six holes to open and close is not limiting at all.

People on online Irish music forums sometimes get mad at me because I have the gall to attend Irish sessions as a beginner to the music and to the instrument. But I have been welcomed and told to keep coming back so I do.

Sometimes people get mad at me on online forums because I read sheet music instead of doing all my learning by ear. The people at my session also read sheet music. Only the ones who have been playing forever are capable of picking up new tunes by ear after hearing them only one or two times. Some of the others at the session can pick up a new tune after maybe 10 times. The rest of us use a combination of sheet music and ear-learning. There are even a few tunes I've found myself playing at the session that I don't know, having picked it up by ear.

The whole experience, from hearing the music, to selecting and purchasing the flute, to learning to play, to learning the tunes, to struggling with my embouchure, to meeting new people is another experience that adds to my personal wealth. Studies have shown that the pursuit of money and posessions do not bring happiness. It is the memory of experiences had and the mastery of skills that bring happiness.

Are you following a trail to happiness?