Bluegrass diversion

I decided to play with the fiddle group this weekend at the Bluegrass on the Bogs festival. I went last year too, but this year I haven't been playing much fiddle music (we play old-time, not bluegrass), and there is very little time left to solidify my tentative grasp on the numerous tunes we will play. Fortunately, I do know some of them, but there will also be tunes I have never even heard before.

I'll think of something. It will be good to be surrounded by music and musicians for a few hours in the summer sun. (Well, rain is predicted, but I am hopeful.)

Christmas Carols

I love Christmas music, and, over the weekend, I discovered that Christmas carols sans sheet music can be a great learning tool for those who want to improve their ability to play by ear. I'm usually working on memorizing fiddle tunes, but playing fiddle tunes by ear is different. When you are playing by ear, you know where the next note is and your fingers know how to play that note. When you are memorizing a tune, I am more apt to think of a series of fingerings and patterns than the actual melody. The two processes are related, but playing by ear has some advantages over relying on memory.

The Fiddlers played at one of the downtown historic homes yesterday, after the annual Christmas Parade. To prepare for that, we rehearsed some Christmas carols by playing them by ear. (We don't use sheet music in our performances and we didn't have any Christmas music on hand.) It was surprising easy. We picked easy keys, of course: G or D, an occasional A. No four flats for us! It was great fun, and you could concentrate on playing the notes, rather than on remembering the tune.

I heard that Sunday's fiddle performance was very well-received by an enthusiastic and dancing audience. I was not able to go, as my daughter had a Christmas choral concert the same afternoon (which was also wonderful), but I think I will add "playing Christmas carols by ear" to my practice schedule this month.

NaBloPoMo thoughts

I'm not sure what the Pillsbury dough boy has to do with it, but today is the last day of National Blog Posting Month. I have thoroughly enjoyed the month and found many wonderful new blogs and blogging friends through it. I have found it is not so easy to post something worth reading every day. On the other hand, participating in the event has allowed me to experiment with posting in ways that I might not have otherwise and not to worry about whether anyone is reading.

I am happy to report that Katie (see yesterday's post) did indeed finish her NaNoWriMo novel and said my NanoRhino helped. She really helped me enormously, too, and I thank her for that.

Today is also the last day of my most recent crazy-round-the-clock work schedule, and I look forward to having a little more time for practicing next week, and for art and reading. And perhaps twiddling my thumbs for a bit. Christmas is upon us, but we've decided to keep it very simple this year.

Unfortunately my flute/cello group will not be playing our regular holiday party this year. The sponsoring organization has decided they need the space we would ordinarily take up for more party-goers. They did invite us to attend as guests, but that is not the same! We will probably play at a nursing home instead, but we have a two-hour program of music and will have to cut a lot to play our usual 45 to 60 minute program for a nursing home. I love playing Christmas music and hate to cut any of these pieces! One year we had five performances during the holiday season, including New Year's Eve performances in two different towns, but perhaps that was excessive. :-)

There are two fiddler events this weekend, the women's practice session, and a performance of the whole group on Sunday as part of the weekend's Christmas parade and activities (we start early). However, it will be just fiddle tunes, no Christmas fiddling tunes, unless we learn some really quick!

Have a good weekend!

Cello lesson

I brought my four-flat version of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and my treble clef version of "Gesu Bambino" to my lesson this week. My teacher gave my a few fingering improvements on them both, but all in all she was very happy with my playing of both pieces. I am feeling good about them, and still haven't transposed the Bambino to bass clef. Hmm, maybe I can actually read from treble clef now. It's probably better to play from the score anyway, so I know where the vocalist is.

The organist has said that the vocalist likes to sing freely not according to any strict tempo. Fine by me. A fiddler once told me, at a fiddle session, that I was holding out some notes too long. He said he could understand why, because they sounded so beautiful on the cello. :-) I took that as a compliment, though I could tell he was frustrated because I wasn't playing the tune (Star of the County Down) the same way he was.

He was playing 3 quarter notes per measure. I was playing dotted-quarter, eighth, quarter in certain measures, so yes, my first note was more drawn out than his, though not because I was mesmerized by the music, but because I was playing the standard version of the tune. In a typical fiddle session, the person introducing the tune gets to play it the way she or he wants to, so I eventually won that discussion. I will apply the same logic to Gesu Bambino. However the singer wants to sing it is fine with me (so long as all three of us can all stay together).