How To Play A Fiddle

How To Learn The Fiddle
There are a couple of areas you can use to help you start the process of figuring out how to learn the fiddle. One is looking at good fiddle tutorials online to use for fiddle practice (there’s one embedded in the “Fiddle Practice” section below). The second, which we’ll also cover, is to try online fiddle lessons.

Fiddle tutorials are helpful, but there’s really no substitute for the student-teacher interaction that a live fiddle lesson brings with it. One of the reasons fiddle tutorials are so popular is their availability online - it’s much easier to study the fiddle in your home than it is to schedule a traditional lesson. Following that line of reasoning, fiddle lessons online are becoming increasingly popular, especially considering that learning to play a fiddle isn’t as easy as learning the piano or guitar due to a lower number of qualified fiddle teachers. Also, online music lessons definitely save you time, and probably money as well.

If learning how to play the fiddle is your dream then let nothing keep you from it, especially not geography; there are too many great online fiddle teachers to stop you. LessonFace fiddle teacher Pauline Lerner, who wrote recently about her experiences teaching violin and fiddle lessons online, works with fiddle students who have beaten geography via online fiddle lessons.

“I asked one of my students in Australia how far she lived from a violin store, and she said, ‘An eight-hour drive,’” Pauline wrote.
Fiddle Practice
The key to fiddle practice is to keep things fun. There are plenty of drills out there, but the truth of the matter is repetitive motion is rarely going to stimulate your brain in a way that will make you want to keep playing. Instead, after you’ve gotten past the initial phase of awkward squeaking thanks to the help of a good fiddle tutor, you’ll want to shift your fiddle practice to the practical. That means playing music with others (your fiddle teacher or a friend), writing your own songs, or even multitasking by practicing as you watch TV or a movie.

There are a huge number of styles of fiddling, so one good fiddle practice tactic is to pick a few styles that especially move you. Maybe that’s Scottish fiddling, like Shetland or Highland fiddling.

Above is an example of West Highland fiddling from Alasdair White. Other interesting styles include French, Hungarian, Mexican, or Italian fiddling.

You could focus on Klezmer fiddling, like Alicia Svigals demonstrates in the above video.

Forró (Brazilian style) fiddling is another interesting option, as shown by Ted Falcon.
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There are so many styles of fiddling that you could get bogged down in just learning about the fiddle while trying to learn how to play a fiddle, so just pick one to start with and try to master it.

Anyway, here’s a great video from Pauline demonstrating how to play a turn to get you going with your fiddle practice.

Online Fiddle Lessons
Pauline, featured in the video above, is an experienced online teacher, who just happens to be an excellent fiddler. Pauline is an expert violinist as well, and her ability to connect with students is what makes fiddle lessons online worthwhile.

“I teach interactive, live lessons, and I've found that LessonFace is a good platform for doing this,” she wrote in The Violin Teacher View of Online Music Lessons. “I teach one-on-one and in real time. I watch and listen to a student and give him or her feedback just as I would to a student in my home. My online lessons are up close and personal.”

Laura Burgess is also a fiddler, including the violin and viola, specializing in working with beginners of all ages.

“I welcome adults and children with or without any background in music,” she explained. “I tailor my teaching to each individual, understanding his/her skills, needs, and goals. I do my best to make the learning process enriching and fun, and I love to bring out the best in each student.”

Another great online fiddle teacher is Kelsey Zachary, who has played with the Okanagan Symphony, the Kamloops World of Music Academy Orchestra, and UBC Symphony, among others. Kelsey teaches all ages and levels in her fiddle lessons online, and can help with audition prep as well: “If you want to prepare for an exam, if you want to learn how to fiddle like the Irish, or if you just want to explore the world of music hands on, I would love to welcome you into my studio!”

We’ll leave the last word when it comes to learning how to play a fiddle to Pauline: “I often read beginning fiddlers say that the sound they make is like squeaking and squawking and that the people who live with them can scarcely bear listening to them for the first year or so. I always tell my beginning students that after just one lesson, they will be able to make a pretty sound with their violin. I have never been proven wrong. I regard the squeaks and squawks of beginning fiddlers as cries for help.”

Questions or comments about how to learn the fiddle or fiddle practice? Tweet us @lessonface.

​Click here to book an online fiddle lesson or here to learn more about how LessonFace works. You can also check out our blog here to read more about LessonFace and our teachers.