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I was reading the stupid Mel Bay book that I bought the other day. I feel ripped off because I can't return the dumb thing. (It's for 10 string with knee levers when I have an 8 with none.)

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I would never willingly give up my ability to play by ear. Being able to play by ear is just as important as reading music and applying it.

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I have been involved with about a half dozen productions of a Broadway musical involving a certain bawdy house in the Lone Star State. We have used both fiddle players, most of whom wouldn't know a crescendo from a box of Cracker Jacks, and violinists who couldn't find an ad lib solo with both hands but who sightread like there's no tomorrow.

The fiddlers struggle with the parts that require faithful reproduction of the notes on the page (and usually just play off the top of their heads and hope for the best) and really shine on any ad lib parts AND on the traditional warm up tune OBS.

The violinists breeze right through everything, UNTIL it comes time to improvise. One example was the Concertmaster of the Kalamazoo Symphony at the time(yeah, I know, it ain't the Philharmonic, but it's the best we have), a very well respected player and music professor with the doctorate to prove it. TONE TO THE BONE (on violin, at any rate), but very little soul to be found anywhere. I nearly rolled on the floor when I first heard his version of OBS. IT IS VERY DIFFICULT TO MIX THE TWO DISCIPLINES.

That's not to say that a great improvisor will spoil his/her playing by learning to read. In the jazz world, both go hand in hand very well, and most don't get far with high level jazz improvisation without learning to read proficiently.

By the same token, a great classical player who begins improvising late in his/her career has to work VERY hard (in most cases) to avoid having their ad lib solos sound like finger exercise and scale etudes. The technique is wonderful (maybe TOO wonderful if fiddle is what you're after) but the soul ain't there.

Melinda: since you are classically trained, I would be curious to hear your approach to making fiddle sound like it should without damaging your viola chops.

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Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2003 Fessenden S/D-12 8x8, 2000 Fessenden S-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Dobro, Standel and Peavey Amps

[This message was edited by Larry Bell on 21 March 2003 at 06:26 AM.]

They got down the good reading chops, but they are not locked into a box.

I play with one like that tommorrow night.

I put a TOUGH chart in front of him and he reads it down with feeling. Throw out a chord from Mars at him in a jam and he just grabs it and runs.

[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 22 March 2003 at 02:11 AM.]