Denis Sweeney (Donnchadh Mac Suibhne) from Randalstown, Co. Antrim, is a long-time fiddle teacher whose students have won many awards at Fleadh Cheoil etc. He created a series of four tutorial books of practice pieces for his students, plus a book of Slow Airs. Now Denis has recorded CDs of all those tunes, with his learner's tips and tricks, for Glens Music so that we can offer a complete self-teaching fiddle course for those who do not have a local traditional Irish fiddle teacher, or who just want to improve their skill and widen their repertoire. A familiarity with music notation is useful, but reading notes is taught from Unit 1. You can have the Slow Airs Unit at a special price if you buy the complete fiddle course. All prices include mailing worldwide.
We’ve got to the stage where we want to play REELS! There’s no doubt that reels are the most exciting thing to play in our music. Unit 3 starts off with a lot of reels which are simple and without fancy stuff, because the important thing is to get the rhythm right from the start. Ornamentation is gradually introduced in both reels and jigs in the second part of the Unit, and by the end you will have met most of the "birls" or "twiddly bits" used in traditional music. Golden Rule Number One is "If you can’t play it slow you can’t play it fast". There are many slurring patterns used by different great players, some of them quite complicated. Suggested slurs in this Unit are fairly simple, just to give the idea of how to get a tune flowing along. They are not meant to be the finished product, or the ideal way of bowing a tune, if there is such a thing. 52 tunes including reels, jigs, slides, slip jigs, hornpipes etc.
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| This page last modified 5th November 2008 | FIDDLE COURSE UNIT 4 | SLOW AIRS UNIT | FIDDLE COURSE SPECIAL DEALS | GLENS MUSIC HOME |
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