Fiddling Demystified
“A substantial contribution to the growing field of fiddling pedagogy,” says Laura Risk in her Sept. 2009 Strings Magazine review, “Fiddling Demystified should be required reading for all string teachers hoping to branch out into fiddling.”
“Received your book and CDs and I’m very impressed with their content! I’m so glad that you chose to include instructions on how to play/bow the tunes and styles on the CDs – your pleasant voice giving clear instructions is most helpful! Thank you for sharing such a wealth of information!” Nancy Sasser, Macon GA string teacher
2nd edition release 11/09
order Fiddling Demystified from Donna’s new online mail order store – mp3 CD downloads and mail order books, CDs and DVDS – powered by Nimbit.com
Fiddling Demystified grew out of Donna Hébert’s fiddling classes and her method for teaching by ear and playing in multiple fiddle styles. Certified a Creative Teaching Partner by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, she brings fiddling to the classroom and has also trained seven fiddling apprentices under NEA sponsorship in her native Franco-American style. Adjunct fiddle instructor at Amherst College, in 2008, Hébert won a prestigious Massachusetts Fellowship in the Folk Arts.
Fiddling Demystified launched a new fiddle instruction catalog in 2008 with Hébert’s encyclopedia of fiddling for violinists, violists and cellists. Vol I: A Practical Guide For String Players starts off with twenty pages of style vocabulary and technique lessons. Donna has fully styled, annotated, cross-referenced and indexed all 31 tunes in the collection, demonstrating in depth a variety of Celtic and North American fiddle traditions.
With lessons embedded on each page of music, the book notates rhythm and ornamentation for the tune and style. CD tracks deomonstrate the tune at slow and fast speeds, with a lesson track, for 140 minutes of ear-training and coaching. You can listen to the CDs while sight-reading the detailed transcriptions to shorten the time needed to absorb fiddle style and repertoire. Fiddle techniques are broken into four categories: Rhythm, Bowing Licks, Scales and Harmonies and Left-Hand Ornaments and Donna demonstrates how these combine to grow a fiddle style. Play along with the CDs to practice finding chords and harmonies, bending notes and creating ornaments with the left hand and dynamic shadings with the bow.
On the separate companion Fiddlejam CD, Donna and friends jam on all the tunes from the book. Max Cohen, George Wilson, Jane Rothfield, Stuart Kenney, John McGann and others join her for a great session!
String wizard Darol Anger in his Foreword to A Practical Guide for String Players says:
“Donna gets it all right. I suspect that the general level of fiddle knowledge and playing will take a major uptick soon after [Fiddling Demystified] is published, just as other great music books such as Earl Scruggs’ original banjo book, O’Neill‘s great Irish fiddling reference and the infamous jazz Real Book influenced the course of musicians’ lives and work.”
Why is Fiddling Demystified special?
Among a host of fine fiddle tune collections available today, what makes “A Practical Guide” and the entire Fiddling Demystified series stand out? It has to be the level of detail in Donna’s transcriptions and CD lessons and her analysis of style. Her primary focus is on “cranking out that rhythm!” says Darol Anger in his foreword to “A Practical Guide.” Says fiddling colleague Jane Rothfield,
“Donna has written a veritable encyclopedia of fiddling. She cracks the codes of fiddling rhythms, styles and techniques with an easy-to-understand right and left-hand method.”
Jane Ezbicki, 2006 President of the Massachusetts String Teachers’ Association, asked Donna and Groovemama in 2006 to work with the Wayland MA High School Orchestra and she remarked,
“Donna and her colleagues changed the way my students and I think about fiddling. They actually helped us to feel confident enough to turn our music over, close our eyes and play independently.”
Teaching workshops for schools, universities, conferences and ASTA chapters, she also directs Fiddling Demystified Camp, a five-day August fiddling intensive, and The Great Groove Band of school-age folk musicians every year at the Old Songs and Philadelphia Folk Festivals. Since 2006, she has directed summer camp programs at Old Songs in Voorheesville NY, with four weeks in July and August 2009. With the Vermont Folklife Center and fiddler George Wilson, she also co-directs The Beaudoin Project, preserving, documenting and presenting the music of Louis Beaudoin and his family.
Says Dr. Alan Jabbour, Director (ret.) of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, and an expert Appalachian fiddler himself:
“Donna is an outstanding performer and a world-class teacher of the art of fiddle. I consider her at the forefront of the developing field of fiddle pedagogy.”
