Tips on bowing (fast songs)

In this video I give tips on how to bow fast fiddle tunes without sounding too "mushy" with long bow strokes or too "picky" with short bow strokes.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• John Cockman
• fiddle lessons
• bowing
• technique
• bluegrass
• old
• time

[capitalismforme]

@JohnsFiddleLessons After 37 years of playing, 1 national championship, 1 international championship, 4 state championships, and touring with 3 major label artists....yes, I can definitely tell the difference between the direction of a bow stroke regardless of speed of song.

[JohnsFiddleLessons]

@capitalismforme That's amazing; I absolutely can not. Anyone else?

[fwalser]

Good job.

[mattador4828]

@JohnsFiddleLessons MOOOOOOOOOOOO

[JohnsFiddleLessons]

@Spangley03 That's cool! I learned to read sheet music using the fakebook. I think it is an absolutely awesome piece of research.

[Spangley03]

@JohnsFiddleLessons It's good to expand your horizons. I picked up the fiddler's fakebook one day because I decided that exploring the techniques used in other playing styles would be beneficial to what I already know of the classical genre.

[JohnsFiddleLessons]

@Spangley03 No offense, but I'm not a huge fan of classical-style fiddling :)

[JohnsFiddleLessons]

@capitalismforme Haha please see my tutorial on playing without the bow. Actually I said that the "direction" is not critical in slow songs. Or at least I've never been able to close my eyes and reliably guess whether an up-bow and a down-bow was being played. Can you?

[Spangley03]

@capitalismforme AND there is rosin pretty far up on the fingerboard and not so much near the bridge. No offense!!! I'm a classical violinist and that's just something we take note of. Bowing towards the bridge makes the sound of the instrument louder as well. That is not only based off of pressure applied to the bow, John. ;-)