Wendy,
I heard you CB fiddle a bit last night. Playing last night pretty much
sucked. It was as bad as Greg's session. There was a bunch of people there
who frequent the City Steam session, and screw up the timing there also.
It is not the hard. 1,2,3,4. As a rhythm player, I should have brought the
guitar banjo, so I could be louder than them at least. I got into a
discussion with Fred and Linda (or Laura-from Marlborough you sold the
fiddle to) about timing and triplets and Greg, and they said that Greg's
timing had improved immensely. I said basically crap, he was out of time
with his own tapping foot, last time. Boy, I tell you, as soon as Mickey
starts to play loud, she goes out of time too.
Well, I'm off to the gym, and to my least favorite store these days. Lowe's.
When I'm there it means that I have a home project going on. The insurance
company says we must install a handrail on the front steps. We really do
need to paint the upstairs hallway, stairway and downstairs hall. Probably
the kitchen too. I hate painting.
Regards to Bill.
Jeff
----- Original Message -----
From: "Wendy Galovich" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2001 1:27 AM
Subject: Re: [scots-l] Birlin'
> At 07:25 PM 1/13/2001 -0500, Jeri Corlew wrote:
> >
> >I was mostly joking about the "every now and then" bit, but I'm a long
way
> >from having mastered the technique. I figure if it feels right, I simply
> >need more practice. This may sound weird, but I found it helped me to
turn
> >my hand so the movement was more up and down than sideways. (I noticed
> >Harvey Tolman plays like that, and decided to try it.)
>
> It's not weird - he uses the old traditional Cape Breton way of
> holding the fiddle with the top nearly vertical and the instrument much
> more out in front of him than the standard classical hold, and that en-
> ables him to bow up and down rather than horizontally across the strings.
> It also neatly facilitates the way he uses his wrist. Many Cape Breton
> fiddlers play that way - John Campbell, Alex Francis MacKay, David Green-
> berg, to mention just a few.
> David and Harvey have got the most fluid wrists I've ever seen,
> and in spite of his huge hands, John Campbell is almost delicate in the
> way he handles the bow. I haven't seen Alex Francis play (maybe Toby
> can tell us about that), but judging from the broad variations in sound
> that he is able to draw from the instrument, I'd have to guess that it's
> similar to the others.
>
> I don't play with
> >my hand that way most of the time, but it did help to learn the movement
> >needed.
>
> Ah, we differ a bit there - for me adopting that bow hold was an
> end in itself. I made a point of learning it after getting some good
> advice, and seeing it used so effectively by many CB fiddlers. What I've
> found is that it really does make it easier to do the type of bowing
> called for in CB fiddling, with good deal less wear and tear on a number
> of joints that remind me in no uncertain terms when I batter them too
> much.
> BTW Jeri, are you in the New England area? (I'm in CT.)
>
> Wendy
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