I have been remiss in posting. I have not been remiss in making music integral to my life. The end of the school year brought the usual concerts - the fruition of our work. Vista Orchestra and Recorders performed, the EIMP of CUSD performed, and my private studio students were in a recital. The Women's Choir at church sang in the big music service.
However, right now on the forefront of my mind is the amazing, transformative week I spent at
Sierra Fiddle Camp. My mind is swimming with tunes. Scottish tunes, Swedish tunes, Old Time USA tunes, and a few from other places. Tunes on my fiddle, tunes in my voice.
I learned how to learn tunes by ear on the fiddle. This is big for me. I know that it has created new synapses in my brain, and I think I may spend a good deal of time on our upcoming sabbatical in working on fiddling. I wondered how I would continue learning by ear. In camp it's set out for you. The teacher plays a tune in full, then breaks it down into chunks and we repeat small chunks and add them to others until we have a whole A or B section, then we end up knowing the whole tune.
(Interesting fact. Although I felt as though I knew the tunes really, really well, when I played them by myself at home, I needed to relisten to the recordings I made to clear up some fuzzy places. It's very helpful to be playing in a group (which is one reason I love teaching string classes).)
So, someone suggested that I make my own recordings of tunes to learn. I can play the small chunks for the looping. I will have to try that. I also have some recordings from Peter Cooper's book with work on ornamentation, so that will come with me on sabbatical.
