Music & Arts in the Real World

music-brainLearning how to play music, and making music, have benefits that are well recognized by science and society.   We know how important music is to us all, but it’s nice to see this sense backed up by research.  Science has shown that learning to play music improves brain functions, and creates additional neural pathways that may prevent or slow down the effects of conditions such as dementia, Alzheimers, — or even “senior moments!”  For more details, take a look at our article called “Shoring Up Your Brain with Music” — just select “Feb 2016” from the archives at the bottom of the column at the left of this page.

Learning music from a teacher or at a music camp can yield tremendous benefits mentally, physically and socially.  Learning online, as with www.fiddle-online.com, when you don’t have a teacher who can help you with the information or style of music or teaching you are looking for, can yield the same benefits as live lessons because it requires mindfulness and gives you an opportunity to work at your own pace.  On fiddle-online.com, the live workshops, as well as subscription to tune or video groups with reasonable but limited timelines, give you a push to stay engaged and make progress.  I have two mottos that are relevant here — One is “you don’t get good at this, you just get better!”  The other:  “The more you play, the better you get; but the more mindfully you play, the faster you get better.”

What’s strange, when we musicmakers look around us, is the disconnect in society about music and the arts, when it comes to support for arts education, careers, and organizations.  Sometimes we have to fend off this disconnect and keep in mind how much it means to us all to learn and listen to music.  Why do educators and policymakers so often take music and the arts for granted, when all evidence shows them to be indispensable?

musicworldMost people can hardly last five minutes without listening to music; music pervades advertising, television, radio, internet, performance, and ritual whether secular or religious.  By contrast, people can go years without personal interaction with lawyers, corporate leaders, soldiers, even doctors.  Artists design packaging and presentation for every product manufactured; writers are responsible for screenplays, monologues, content of newspapers or news shows, speeches, ad copy, and books, both fiction and nonfiction.  In the U.S., leaving aside hobbyists and part-time workers, there are 2 million full-time jobs in the arts, more than there are doctors, lawyers, and about the same numbers as in the military — and they earn higher than the median income.

Yet the average presumption in schools and the media is that students majoring in English or the arts are impractical dreamers!  The governor of Florida, for example, pulled money away from liberal arts to fund subjects that “create jobs.”

Here is a smattering of information that may help us connect the dots: Continue reading Music & Arts in the Real World

What’s in a fiddle style?

The magic of a fiddle tune is not in the notes, but in the feeling, the cultural need, the “style” that produced the tune and uses the tune for listening, dancing, marching, or other community functions.  Even in classical music, where many musicians play all their music with the same sound, the pieces come from different eras, different cultures, and sound better when the musician draws upon those characteristics.  Some classical musicians specialize in renaissance music, or baroque music using original instruments, or German romantic, or American modern, etc., and may play these types of music quite differently.palette

Fiddle music is local music from around the world, and has not only noticeably different styles from one country to another, but usually is played differently from region to region, or even from village to village.  Some local styles are built entirely on the playing of a well-respected fiddler.
I once heard a concert by a group that presented an eclectic mix of folk tunes from around the world.  When the group got around to some of the tunes and styles I knew best, it became clear that while all the melodies were interesting, they were all played the same way, because that group was not knowledgeable about the many styles they were drawing tunes from.

To those who know a style, it is truly moving to hear a great player from that tradition.  It can be entertaining and impressive, but not moving, to hear someone get all the notes of the tunes but miss out on the soul of the style.  There’s a song that says it best:  no matter how amazing the player, “it don’t mean a thing if ain’t got that swing.”

How do you learn a fiddle style?  Like anything else, what you learn depends on what you become aware of.  The more you are aware of, the more you hear, and the more chance you have of incorporating that awareness in your playing.  If you want to find out what “that swing” is, you need to listen to really good players from the tradition, and try to get a sense of what they are trying to do.  What is it that moves those who care about that kind of music?

The best goal is to learn a style from within, rather than Continue reading What’s in a fiddle style?