Classical lessons

I found a teacher on Craigslist and had a few lessons. However this teacher had a classical background and I quit after about a month.

I had been starting to work on The Musical Priest. So I came to a new teacher learning a new tune, which looking back, created a lot of misunderstanding.

He told me things that my other teacher told me to do, but in a more roundabout way. That they were the same things I was told before, which was encouraging, for example, to keep my left elbow well under the fiddle.

However things began to fall apart for me when he started tinkering with how I should hold the violin. He wanted me to try getting rid of the shoulder rest - using the shoulder rest helps, I find - I have the legs screwed out as far as they will go without falling out of their holes, I'm pretty tall. Then he wanted me to move my left thumb so that the pad of my thumb was not against the fingerboard, like fretting guitar chords, but more so that the side of my thumb was against it, also moved down more towards the scroll. That would mean that I would have to re-learn where all the notes were. I could see the benefit in having more of my fingers over the fingerboard, but I wondered if I had managed alright so far because my fingers are pretty long.

The good things were that this teacher started me thinking about the mental parts of playing - for example, to visualize where my fingers should go next. Also he said that overall, my arms should be curved, from the shoulder to elbow to fingers. I learned that I do not know how to play quietly - I am not going to try to learn, but I learned a little bit about the classical world that is out there.

What was not encouraging, was that he asked me how the dynamics of my tune should go. I thought, "I just give'er!" but I said was "it's music meant for dancing so it should be fairly rhythmic". I didn't think I could learn fiddle-specific bowing tricks and tips from someone who had to ask me how the tune should go.

I finally gave up when one day, I started playing other tunes that I knew better, and I straightened up my posture and everything fell into place and they sounded better than the Musical Priest was sounding, and he brightened and said "what did you do? Keep doing that" I said, "I stood up straight" and then I realized that he was trying to make my tone sound better with his changes, that we were on the wrong track. It was no longer fun. So I emailed him and said I was going to stop coming for lessons. I had tried to forget some of what he taught, I was trying to settle my fingers back where I had them before - my brain was a bit confused.

After a couple of months went by, I picked it up and played, and it sounded great for a few moments, and I realized that what he had taught me, was what I was doing automatically now - my arms relaxed and curved as I played.

So I guess I have to take more of a mental-state approach to playing, and not force it, not be tense and trying hard.

And after all that, I never did learn how to play any new scales, which was kind of the point of my going to a classical teacher. He did mention "fiddle lessons" in his ad which I think was a bit misleading.

The first teacher is still on tour. :(