Good learning youtube

I’m sure this has been asked a million times but I’m actually struggling to find what I’m looking for.

I would like to find some straightforward youtube videos of someone playing Irish fiddle well, straight ahead so you can see the bowing, and with just enough ornamentation to make the tune sound good. Not some contest winner or professional who plays so amazingly or uniquely nobody could ever emulate that. Not someone who plays a ton with variation. Just someone good to learn from.

I don’t need a tutorial where the tune is broken up into bits and pieces. Just someone playing simply, plainly, clearly, whatever the adjective is. Do you have any suggestions?

Here’s lesson #1 for ya, and if you don’t find the lesson helpful maybe someone else will. ;)
Good luck.
https://youtu.be/44LU0nt921M

play video

-though of course if you’re a beginner then you’ll most probably (but not necessarily) need regular ‘in person’ lessons.

Kevin Burke, definitely worth the watch

Excellent clip on how to play fiddle rolls:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAK6x2yspw8&t=117s

play video

Tom Morely has a nice channel for Irish Fiddle. He also has a book available that comes with a cd of the tunes set up to play along. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCohqx8EQl_f6vbhmMuYImxA

Interesting that Martin Hays bows a lot differently on triplets than the guy I took a few lessons from. I was learning a lot of things about where to put slurs to give it lift and the person who was teaching me said he was teaching me the Sligo style.

Tom Morely seems kind of saw-strokey, but at the end of the first video he did show some different slurs. There’s probably something useful there though.

I found this software for my iphone (Transcribe+) where I can load a video and then play it slower or faster and make little loops that play over and over in it so I can learn the hard parts and get the bowing. I just have to get the video out of youtube, and I have other software that does that (youtube-dl), and then onto my phone. I no longer need anyone to try to play slow on purpose or break tunes down phrase-by-phrase, which annoys the hell out of me. My teacher has sort of flaked on me for several weeks so I was looking for an alternative to keep the momentum going here.

When I hear a tune I’d like to learn I often check to see if Antóin Mac Gabhann has recorded it, and if he has I’m sorted! See what I mean:
https://youtu.be/F3lrKXweVmE

play video

Thank you Christmas, That’s another good person to learn from.

Okay, question for anyone: I put the Martin Hayes one in and was trying to pay close attention to his bowing and was struck by how sometimes he’s bowing down on the downbeat in a certain spot but when that same part of the tune comes around again he’s bowing up. It sounds the same to my ear either way.

When you guys play the fiddle are you very deliberate in your bowing direction? Or are you kind of agnostic?

I come from American old-time music and I’ve had people tell me that the bowing direction does not matter and others tell me that it does indeed matter a lot. The person who was giving me Irish lessons is not an old-time player at all and he was in the camp of bowing direction in Irish music matters a lot.

Hi sbhikes,

I spend a lot of time listening to people who are better than I at fiddle (and there are a lot of them 🙂 ) giving advice. As such, I’ve heard wildly conflicting answers to the question you’re posing, all from people who play wonderful music. That leaves me thinking that there are three avenues for a learner who’s interested in bowing/bow direction:

1) If there’s a special style you love the sound/feel of, find out that style’s guiding principles and follow them
2) If there’s a particular fiddler you love the sound/feel of, find out that person’s guiding principles and follow them
3) Pick and choose what works for you to get the sound you want

With all that said, and not having watched the Martin Hayes video you referenced, it’s possible that his bowing is such that the pattern of slurs is consistent, but just lands him in a different starting bow direction on each repetition. Also possible that he may have thrown in a variation/ornamentation that changed his bow direction?

I do know that I’ve received encouragement to practice all ornaments/bowing in both directions, so that if I find myself veering toward the tip or the frog, I can bow my way out of it without getting “stuck.”