I am leading a new Irish session at the Red Monkey on Chandos Road in Redland, Bristol on the first Sunday of every month, 2-4pm. Alongside Dominic Henderson on uilleann pipes and Marick Baxter on flute, plus guests. This is a lovely community bar, with …
Since I moved from London in 2018, I have been really keen to find some players of uilleann pipes in Bristol to play tunes with. But good pipers are really rare! I have always loved the sound of uilleann pipes (traditional Irish bagpipes); and the …
Straight from the Jug – proper traditional Irish music and song on uilleann pipes, fiddle, and voices. Music with energy and drive!
We are available for bookings, for weddings, birthdays parties, garden parties — anywhere you want the sound of true traditional Irish music!
Dominic Henderson is a renowned uilleann piper and whistle player from North London who earned his stripes as a teenager playing at sessions, before taking his talents further afield, qualifying for the All-Ireland uilleann pipe final in 2007.
Dominic has a keen interest in traditional piping, but his strength lies in a unique modern uilleann piping style which blends respect for the tradition with his own musical experimentation.
Bradon Smith is a respected fiddler player and fiddle teacher based in Bristol, UK. Classically trained but growing up in a folk family, Bradon has played folk fiddle since the age of 5. He is a well-known fiddle player on the Bristol, Bath, and London session scene.
Bradon also plays fiddle with Shanvaghera, a four piece band playing pure-drop Irish folk music.
He plays regularly for ceilidhs with Shanvaghera, as well as being a sought after fiddle player for other ceilidh bands in the South of England and beyond.
Fiddle and uilleann pipes has for a long time been one of my favourite duo combinations in Irish traditional music. They just seem to complement each other so well, blending together but also filling in the gaps left by the other instrument. I love playing with good uilleann pipe players. They also both provide a lovely drone backdrop for songs!
Years ago, Dominic Henderson and I used to play together regularly in South London, often to be found in the front window of the grand old pub The Antelope in Tooting on a Sunday afternoon (and then, quite likely, off to sessions at the Howl at the Moon in Hoxton, and then on to The Lamb in Camden!).
I moved away from London and we had fewer chances to play together. But when Dom moved over to the South West webegan playing together again — re-finding our love of driving rhythmic tunes, as well as the opportunities of playing some slower reels and airs together. We added songs for two voices to our repertoire, and Straight from the Jug was born.
This is a lovely Irish jig called Timmy Clifford’s jig, or sometimes called Micho Russell’s jig. I learned it from the playing of the Kerry fiddle player, Gerry Harrington. As far as I can work out Timmy Clifford was a box player, also from Kerry, …
I’ve had a request from a student to learn a tune called Ashokan Farewell – sheet music, as well as some recordings of mine of this well known tune can be found below. Ashokan Farewell, a lovely waltz written by the American fiddler Jay Ungar, …
I am leading a new Irish session at the Red Lion in St George, Bristol on Wednesday evenings. Come one come all for some mighty Irish music.
Irish music in London’s Irish Centre for a special Irish ceilí for London Pride! Shanvaghera are delighted to announce we will be playing traditional Irish music at the London Irish Centre, in Camden, for a special Irish ceilí – a Gaylí! – for London Pride …
We’re lucky at the moment to have loads of live Irish music in Bristol and Bath going on every week. There are more Irish sessions right now than I can remember since I came to Bristol 6 years ago. And it isn’t just the amount …
The question I get asked often is: ‘Is it hard to learn the fiddle?’. There’s definitely a opinion that it is really hard to learn to play fiddle!
The assumption seems to be that it takes years to start playing tunes. Or even to make a nice clean sound.
But it doesn’t have to take long, or be particularly hard. But it does really help if you get a few things right from the start.
There are a few things that make learning the fiddle different from some other common instruments. The one that seems to get the most attention, concerns playing in tune. On the piano, when you push down a key, the note sounds in tune.
On a guitar, banjo, mandolin, ukelele and similar instruments there are frets that help you to get the notes in tune. If you place a finger anywhere between the frets, and pluck the string, the note will be in tune.
But on the fiddle fingerboard there are no frets, and no keys. So playing in tune relies on putting your fingers down in the right place on the finger board. Exactly the right place, ideally!
And this does seem to cause people a lot of concern. But in my considerable experience teaching beginners how to play fiddle it isn’t so hard to learn to play the fiddle in tune.
Some beginners (and teachers) like to put stickers on the fingerboard in the spot where the fingers need to be placed. You can even buy sheets that stick on the fingerboard. These can help, I don’t tend to recommend them for 3 reasons.
In my experience, about 99 out of 100 people can quite quickly learn to play a note and say whether it sounds ‘right’ — or in tune. The rest is about trial and error, constantly listening, constantly correcting your finger position.
Over time you’ll be able to bring your finger down in the right postition more consistently. But even very good fiddle players are constantly making tiny changes based on feedback from their ears. Even if they don’t know it!
What will really help with getting consistent tuning is to learn to keep you hand position approximately the same when playing with each of the different fingers, and on each of the strings. Have a look at my page on How to Play the Fiddle to learn a good starting point for how to hold the fiddle with the left hand.
And getting some advice from a teacher at an early stage is also a great idea to develop a nice relaxed left hand that will help you play in tune right from the start.
The other thing that people worry will be hard when learning the fiddle, is making a nice sound. When you first pick up the fiddle, you may worry that it will sound awful. But again, I reckon I can get almost anyone making a nice sound in our first 1 hour lesson.
I’ll write another whole article on making a nice fiddle sound. But the basics are fairly simple:
I spend a lot of time with my students talking about bowing technique. So much of your playing quality comes from the bow. The tone, rhythm, phrasing, lilt, pulse are all affected by the bowing technique. So it really pays off to invest time in your practice to thinking just about bowing.
I sometimes say to students: “You can learn to play fiddle tunes in the first year – the bowing is the lifetime project”.
Starting out with a good bow hold is an important place to begin. You want your right hand to be really nice a relaxed. But still have good control of the bow, its movements and its pressure on the string.
Think about building some simple fiddle bowing exercises into your practice.
It won’t take you too long to get some basic technique, get playing roughly in tune, and get a few beginner fiddle tunes under your belt.
Then the real work begins.
Learning how to play the fiddle isn’t hard. But learning how to play really well, that’s where the work is. But also enormous satisfaction.
And a lot of it starts, I think, with listening. That link will take you to a very small sample of a Irish fiddle players I recommend listening to. It is not comprehensive!
Listen to your favourite players; try to work out what they are doing that you like.
My advice would be: at the beginning, forget about 2 things – ornamentation and speed. You can add the ornaments later, you can build the speed as you progress. Slow and good is better than fast and bad.
Focus instead on what players that you like are doing with emphasis, pulse, phrasing and so on. Can you hear how they are using slurs between notes to create certain patterns?
This kind of listening isn’t casual, it is focussed. And it’s incredibly valuable.
The basics of learning to play the fiddle are not necessarily hard. Some help from a good teacher will definitely set you on your way. But you can also teach yourself.
Focus on the fundamental stuff at the beginning:
Then you will be well on your way!
Here’s a beautiful waltz written by Swedish guitarist Roger Tallroth. Normally it is known as Josephine’s Waltz here in England; or I’ve seen it called Josefin’s Waltz in many places. But it’s name as given by Roger himself is “Johsefins dopvals”. It’s a lovely but …