Expose yourself to as many styles of music as possible. Step out of the box and check out the rich music available to us, fiddle music from around the world.
Every style of playing music embraces players of top quality. Find them or recordings of them online or in a CD shop. Nowadays media companies try to control what most people hear in order to sell lots of their own product. They know that people like what they hear the most.
Too often we are skeptical about a whole type of music without really listening to it, or without listening to good practitioners of that style. For example, many people cringe when they think of bagpipes, because there are very few top quality players of the instrument. There are only 30 Grade 1 pipe bands in the whole world, and only three in the U.S. This gives an idea of how few top players there are. Think too, about music you might feel you’re very familiar with. Have you taken care to listen to some of the best musicians in that style? Below is a list of many fiddle styles you might want to tap into.
Hearing something unfamiliar opens a new world. It might be something that really appeals and intrigues. Or it might be music you dislikes — but even this is useful, because it helps us clarify why we like the music we do like.
Whether classical, folk, popular, jazz, or any category you can think of, there are different styles that have developed at different time periods and in every geographic location. It doesn’t matter whether the music seems simple, or seems impossible to play–it shouldn’t be judged by whether it sounds playable (Ye Olde Joke: How many musicians does it take to change a light bulb? Six–one to change it, and five to say “Oh I could do that!”) The more you listen to one style of music, the more you discover there are substyles within that style, based on fine players based in different areas, or composers from different backgrounds or time periods.
I once played some recordings of Hungarian fiddle music for a class and they didn’t understand it. And yet the unadorned melodies were simple and appealing. They just weren’t familiar with or appreciative of the style. One person thought it sounded middle eastern, which is a pretty far cry from Hungarian. Some day I’ll play some Lebanese fiddling for them, to demonstrate middle eastern music in comparison. Or some Gaelic psalm-singing from the Scottish island of Lewis, where the singing sounds far more middle eastern than does music from central Europe.
Here are a few fiddle styles for you: Jazz, blues, country, bluegrass, Irish, Scottish, Cape Breton, klezmer, French Canadian, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Hungarian, Texas longbow, old-timey, Metis, Egyptian, Moroccan, Romanian, Shetland, mariache, Brazilian, New Mexican… do you have other favorites? List them in the comments!
Listening to a world of music sets us thinking, activates our ears, makes us appreciate the music we like, curious about music we don’t know, and brings our world a little closer.
©2016 Ed Pearlman