Comments | fiddle: Teaching Tips

kiddokight in fiddle

Teaching Tips

Jun 20, 2005 19:31

I've had two students for a while now, and starting tomorrow- I have NINE! little girls under 10, who want to try fiddle. Ages are mostly 4, 5, and 6 (I know, young- very young). I was wondering if anyone had any great teaching games that they played with kids that were musically related, or any handy techniques? Any good simple tunes to teach? ( ( Read more... )

Comments 9

ssha June 20 2005, 16:46:24 UTC

Flop-Eared Mule comes to mind.

kiddokight June 21 2005, 09:07:04 UTC

Ooh, good tune, thanks for the suggestion

ssha June 21 2005, 16:27:52 UTC

No problem. :)

ladyofannwn June 21 2005, 17:17:45 UTC

my first fiddle tune was swallow tail jig.
hmmmm... I get back to you if I think of anything. good luck!

kiddokight June 22 2005, 06:51:28 UTC

Hmm, i like that tune, awesome harmony part too. Thanks for the suggestion

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kiddokight July 3 2005, 19:51:51 UTC

Ooh, I do the blue jello thing- I just call it the echo game though- and the tune suggestions are great! I do alot of Nursery Ryhmes- Mary had a little Lamb, London Bridge ect- things they know and can use their ears on too! They do have short attention spans- luckily most the kids I work with are in the Waldof School, and for some reason they have incredible attention spans! Its great- a six yr old makes it through an hr no problem!

secretedremains July 8 2005, 15:15:05 UTC

as far as tunes goes, I would say stuff like Kesh Jig, Swallow Tail Jig, and some others like them. games, if you want to work with them on how to improvise( not sure what u want to teach them) than have someone just play a couple chords on a guitar, preferably in c or d major cause those r the easiest and just have them play anything they want just to get them used to hearing the keys and what fits. um other than that can't think of anything off the top of my head cause I've never taught ages that small, just have them practice or something, i don't know, it worked for the great composer Motzart apperantly so i has to do some good.

kiddokight July 8 2005, 16:14:05 UTC

Hmm, that sounds good. Swallow Tail has a tendancy to be a bit hard cuz its a jig and slighly syncopated, but still lots of fun. Thanks!

secretedremains July 8 2005, 15:24:53 UTC

some other tunes might be "St Annes Reel", "blue bonnet over texas", "Si Bheag, si Mhor", Drunking Sailor, "Charish The Ladies", "Cripple Creek", "Bile 'Em Cabbage down, "I'se the B'y, "Road To Boston", "Ash Grove" and "Old Joe Clark"
"There is a book called Fiddlers Philharmonic" by Andrew H. Dabczynski and Bob Phillips that is good cause it has a lot of easy fiddle stuff in it