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 April 21, 2007 | Fiddling with Mando
A fiddler weighs in on JazzMando material; New York friend, Alex Marcus swing/bluegrass fiddler weighed in on our website with some interesing thoughts for violinists:
"It occurs to me that part of what got in my way with improv in the past is the classical approach to learning scales and arpeggios that I learned when I was a child. These are presented in total isolation from one another (I'm thinking of my dreaded Carl Flesch scale book), and with no sympathy for the developing musician. Is their any point to practicing 10ths and false harmonics in the key of C before moving on to C#? Maybe all I needed is better guidance... and I did eventually begin to understand the connections between the keys on my own. But I really think that method book did more to stifle my creativity than anything else.
"I think all violinists/fiddle players should own a mandolin in order to work out theory and think more "vertically." I remember learning complicated arpeggiated cadenza passages (such as in the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, where you start off with B-G-B-E, rolling the bow back and forth over the strings) without ever realizing that I was playing a chord at all. Maybe I'm just dimmer than the average bulb, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that other classical violinists have had similar experiences.
Anyway... are there any significant modifications to your method for a bowed instrument? I can't think of any... except maybe adding a note here and there in the exercises to keep the bowing consistent."
Thanks for the thoughts, Alex. His observations are relevant to viola and cello, or any 5ths tuned string instrument (although we haven't seen a lot of cello TAB lately). Site author, Ted Eschliman touts his years as a trombone major to understand phrasing (plectrist could learn a lot from their wind and bow brethren about this), and guitar studies for understanding the vertical nature of the instrument. Violinists certainly don't often have the chord opportunity to think vertically, so they are denied the opportunity to see harmonic patterns in their playing except in very advanced studies.
We'd like to hear more from you fiddlers on this issue. If you or a violinist friend have found similar treasure in the site, please weigh in. This might be a whole new market for us to serve.
Contact: JazzMando Feedback
Posted by Ted at April 21, 2007 10:59 AM
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