Fiddle Care Tips

Tighten the bow’s hair only so that pressure on the bow will not put the wood part in contact with the bow’s hair.

Always loosen the bow’s hair when you are finished playing and it is ready to go back into the case. Do not, however, loosen it completely so that the hair may fall out.

When changing strings, always change one at a time. If you loosen or take all of the strings off at the same time, your sound post inside the fiddle could fall down!

Keep an eye on your bridge from either side to make sure it is at the correct angle (nearly straight with a bit of a tilt toward the tailpiece)

If you ever change your fiddle’s bridge, loosen the strings while keeping pressure on the top of the sound post using your thumbs.

Unless you have geared tuners, use the fiddle’s tuning pegs to get each string in the right key (E, A, D, G). Then, use your fine tuners to finish tuning.

Avoid turning your fine tuners so tightly that they touch the wood of the fiddle underneath. If your fine tuners become this tight, loosen them and re-tune first using the tuning pegs.

If your fiddle tuning pegs are too loose and keep slipping, rub rosin, chalk or a bar of soap on the pegs one a time (after loosening the strings) to help them stick.

If your fiddle tuning pegs are too tight and will not turn easily, color the pegs slightly with a graphite lead pencil where they contact the peg box.

If your fingerboard (fret board) comes unglued or loose, consult an instrument repair professional.

Weather/temperature changes can cause problems in wooden instruments if the moisture in the air is highly unregulated. Humidifiers are recommended in the area where your fiddle is kept during cold months when heat is being used. In warmer weather, be sure never to leave your fiddle in the sun or in a hot car (your fiddle could become un-glued!)

If your strings are buzzing when played, investigate the cause by asking these questions: o Are there any open seams or cracks in the seams on the fiddle? o Is the fingerboard loose? o Is there anything in the way of the strings? o Are the strings wound properly around the pegs? o Are there any new cracks on the top of the fiddle? o Is the tailpiece or are the fine tuners touching the top?

Student Fiddle Diagram

Student Fiddle Diagram – Blank

Fiddle Posture & Finger Positions

Have you ever had an adult tell you to “sit up straight”? Sitting up straight is even more important when playing the fiddle or any other instrument. It is important to have good posture to keep your body from hurting and to make you a better fiddle player! When you sit up straight and hold your fiddle and bow correctly, you can hit those hard notes so much easier.

See how this person keeps their wrist straight and away from the fiddle so it doesn’t touch or rest on the neck? Position your hand and wrist so that you could keep a little tomato in your hand while you play if you wanted to!

See how the fingers holding the bow are spread out evenly? Notice how the thumb stays centered on the pad.

GOOD posture

 BAD posture

How to Read Fiddle Tab

Fiddle tab (short for tablature) is an easy way to read music. Tab is always read from left to right, just like we read words and sentences. Because there are not frets on a fiddle, fiddle tab tells you which notes to play by showing which fingers to use and which strings to bow.

1 – first finger/index finger

2 – second finger/middle finger

3 – third finger/ring finger

4 – fourth finger/pinky

0 – no finger/open

The strings are listed starting with E (littlest and highest pitched string) and ending with G (biggest, lowest pitched string). All fiddle tab is usually shown in standard G tuning unless says differently.

Some fiddle tab will also tell you how long to hold each note so that you know how to play the rhythm of the song. The “count” or the beats of the tune will be broken into measures and written along the bottom of the tab. If the song is in 4/4 timing, there will be four beats in each measure. The measures are separated by a line that is called a “bar.” An example may look like this: notes/finger positions E ------A ------0----1----0------D ----0------G ------

1 2 3 4  the count

Often notes fall between the basic 1 2 3 4 count. It is common for smaller valued notes to be grouped together via beams. These grouped notes have the length of one beat. When a note is half of the beat, it is counted with "and", using the symbol "&"

Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss (Key of D) First portion of the A part

E --1----0----0------1------1------

A ------3------3------0----0----0----1----3------

D ------0----0------0----0----2----2----2------

G ------

1 2 & 3 4 & 1 2 & 3 4 & 1 2 & 3 4 1 2 3 4

In the above example, you may have noticed that sometimes there is not a note over the count at the bottom of the stave. This indicates that the note you just played is held for more than one beat. This often happens at the end of a phrase or the end of the tune. (A phrase is a part of the melody line that hangs together well. There are no hard and fast definitions of how many measures are in a phrase, but your ear will tell you. Common phrases sometimes repeat within a tune, and in other tunes! When you are learning, it helps to practice phrase by phrase so that you get the tune in your head.) There are also signs and symbols that tell you when to use pull offs, hammer-ons and slurs by grouping the notes together. Without these extra symbols, it looks like every finger position is a separate bow stroke.

= slur of notes. If this symbol is above numbers, it means that all of those notes go together in one bow stroke without changing direction like this: 1 - 3 If there are lines coming down from the finger positions, without a slur marked above, each line means a separate bow stroke.

Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss (Key of D) Second portion of the A part

E --1---3----1---0------

A ------3----3----3-----3---4---3---0------0----0---0---1----2------3------3------

D ------2----2---2------

G ------

1 & 2 & 3 4 & 1 & 2 & 3 4 & 1 2 & 3 4 1 2 3 4

It makes your fiddling more interesting if you play slightly different notes and bowing patterns on similar phrases.

Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss (Key of D) Entire A part

E --1----0----0------1------1------

A ------3------3------0----0----0----1----3------

D ------0----0------0----0----2----2----2------

G ------

1 2 & 3 4 & 1 2 & 3 4 & 1 2 & 3 4 1 2 3 4

E --1---3----1---0------

A ------3----3----3-----3---4---3---0------0----0---0---1----2------3------3------

D ------2----2---2------

G ------

1 & 2 & 3 4 & 1 & 2 & 3 4 & 1 2 & 3 4 1 2 3 4

Other symbols you may see are S "slide" and P "pull off" above a finger position. Your teacher can help with these. There are many ways to write fiddle tab, so always pay attention to the directions!