Fiddlekids Sessions

This music resource page contains a collection of recordings and study guides for the fiddle tunes taught at the monthly Fiddlekids Sessions workshops. The lessons and materials available here are free to Fiddlekids participants to use for personal study. Please email questions to: singingwood.com

Recordings from fiddle instructor John Blasquez

Recommended Listening for Fiddlers

Singingwood Music

Download Instructions

To get a recording from this page, or to get one of the Transcribe study guides:

• right-click the link
• choose an option from the contextual menu such as: Save File, Save Link As, or Download File ...

To play the recording without saving it to your computer:

• click the sound file link to open and play the recording in a new window.

There's a companion Transcribe file for each recording. The Transcribe files should download with a .xsc extension. If not, simply add that extension to the downloaded file—if the downloaded file has a .txt extension, remove that and replace it with .xsc 

Using Transcribe study guides

To use the Transcribe study guides you'll need to purchase the very reasonably priced Transcribe software.

Each Transcribe study guide is a collection of pre-marked sections of the recording. The marks allow you to easily select and practice along with large or small sections of the tune. You can loop selected areas to study them carefully, and you can set the speed you want.

You can add your own measure marks and section marks to any recording, so its a great tool for independent study. In other words you can create, save and share your own study guides.

Again, you'll want to get Transcribe if you intend to use these study guides available here.

Getting Transcribe

Transcribe is an incredible learning tool for musicians. It runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux, and it's available for $39.Read more about Transcribe software ... orclick here to download the Free 30-Day Trial from the author's site.

Playing along with Mandolin

When I create my fiddle practice materials I sometimes record the material on mandolin, rather than overdubbing fiddle, guitar and mandolin. I record solo mandolin primarily so students can clearly distinguish the sound of their fiddle when practicing along—the sound of two fiddles easily merges and blurs, so it can be hard to distinguish the sound you make from the sound on the recording. Another reason for the mandolin recordings is to provide an opportunity to practice leading and following.

Following (back-timing) when sharing
the melody with other instruments

The distinction between leading and following is one of the most important lessons I teach fiddlers; depending on the position you choose you can sound like the soloist, or you can take a backup position and highlight another instrument

In a group setting you can focus other melody instruments for your audience by back-timing your fiddle. I use various terms to describe this position: following, shadowing, trailing, drafting, taking the rear, back-timing, backing up.

Back-timing to a mandolin

Practice back-timing your notes when fiddling along with the mandolin recordings, letting the mandolin lead slightly. When you can hear the mandolin loud and clear this indicates that you've succeeded.

Back-timing naturally highlights delicate instruments, so it's a good general approach when playing fiddle with instruments that have short sustain, such as mandolin, banjo, harp. (When sounds occur within about 4 hundredths of a second they blend into a perception of single sound, and you'll primarily perceive the sound that happened first. (See the Hass Effect.) This is due to the "frame-rate" of the human nervous system. This is why you want a tiny amount of leading or following among instruments. This allows the audience and musicians to hear all notes clearly. And it's why we want to position delicate instruments first, to hear them clearly (lowering your volumes helps, but not nearly as much as "following".)

Fiddle on fiddle back-timing

When fiddling in unison with another fiddler I always try to pick a position ahead or behind, leading or following.

I partularly enjoy playing behind, because there's a lot of freedom back there, and you can goof around, throw in some crazy stuff, or simplify and reduce the tune. In other words, back-timing is an option even with similar instruments.

Other fiddlers tend to like it when I draft on them because they can hear themselves clearly, and they feel (and are) well heard by the audience. Some fiddlers have a preferred position, and will always take it. If they keep moving behind you, take the lead by holding steady. If you both aim for the back, the tune will quickly decelerate to a lackluster speed.

When a fiddler will let be get behind, I hold that position one or more times through the tune. Sounds great if you can switch positions eventually, and it helps keep the tune alive by creating a remarkably different sound. You can signal the switch with a simple nod.

Leading (playing in front)

After you're comfortable playing behind the mandolin try the opposite. Lead out in front of the mandolin, pacing yourself just ahead. When you do this successfully you'll hear mandolin's presence and clarity diminish—sometimes the remaining sound is just the blunt click of the pick, with the clear tone barely discernable. (Ordinarily this is what we want to avoid, but here we want to experiment to observe the effect.)

You'll hear the tone of the mandolin more if you play behind, because you won't diminish its presence. When sharing the melody in unison melody with a fiddle, there's no better way to fully include the mandolin.

NOTE: When fiddle and banjo share the melody in unison, I may lead or follow the banjo, depending on the desired effect. The banjo sounds more percussive when the fiddle leads; when the banjo leads it sounds much richer, softer and more toneful. Both are nice effects. By consciously switching positions at the head of the melody you can breath new life into the performance.)