New to fiddle-online? Click “Continue reading –>” and scroll down to learn more about an easy way to sign up for your first guest online concert/workshop!
First, let’s talk a bit about fine tuners. Nearly everyone uses fine tuners, the little knobs on the tailpiece of the violin that you turn to slightly tune up or down.
Some plastic tuners come with tuners on every string while some players use one only on the E string. Why is this?
The strings exert upwards of 40 lbs per square inch of pressure on the bridge and the upper plate of the violin, and much of this comes from the E string. Usually made of steel, the E is the tightest string, and is the most difficult one to tune by peg. It also doesn’t go out of tune much. For these reasons, most people like to use the fine tuner for this string.
The lower strings
are a little looser than the E, and also go out of tune farther. Being a bit less tight, they’re easier to tune with their pegs, and since they go out of tune more, they are more difficult to get in tune just with a fine tuner. Some fine tuners, when they screw in all the way, can scratch the wood of the violin. Other fine tuners are made so they don’t move vertically in that way and are not a danger to the wood.
In any case, fine tuners are not as helpful in the lower strings as on the E string; you’re more likely to hit the end of the screw more often and have to adjust by peg anyway. But it can be helpful to tune by peg to the general area and then fine tune the string to the precise spot, especially if using an electronic tuner. If tuning by ear, the peg is usually easier, actually, as you listen to the pitch slide into place to match the correct pitch you’re listening to. Don’t forget that there’s a pitchpipe you can tune to, located on your personal home page when you log in to fiddle-online.
For more about tuning see the Tuning article.
First registration tips: Concert/Workshop
If you’re new to fiddle-online and you’d like to sign up for a special guest concert/workshop, you can but don’t have to join the site. There’s a special direct registration page for you, which allows you to pay for the special workshop with a credit card and have direct access.
You’ll fill out a registration form and pay the small fee (80% of which goes to the artist) and you’re in, with access to the workshop page from then through 30 days after the event. The workshop page contains the link to the live class, and all materials, including interactive sheet music of the tune to be taught, plus (after the workshop), videos of the performance and a review video by the instructor.
By filling in the form, you’ll be joining the site, so next time, you’ll want to go the “Credits” page and purchase credits in order to sign up for the next concert/workshop, or any other offering. Joining means you get access to all the site’s offerings and the one thing you are required to get is the monthly newsletter emailed on the 1st of each month about what’s coming up. You can unsubscribe from this, though that will close your fiddle-online account and lose any credits you may have in your account.
Another option instead of the direct registration page is to join (green button on the home page), which gives you 2 or 4 credits to your new account, allowing you to sign up for the event at a discount.
©2020 Ed Pearlman