Chords for Tips on bowing (fast songs)

_ _ _ _ Hello, _ I've had some people write with questions about bowing technique and _ even to say, can
you put a piece of paper on your bow, and you see I've done that, so we can tell what
direction the bow is going.
_ _ And I'd like to say that it's not critical, especially in
slow songs.
In fast songs though, in reels and types, the bowing is something to think
about.
And a lot of times I'll bow differently each time.
So, I'm not really spending a lot
of time telling you whether to go up here or down there.
It's something that's usually
best planned out ahead if there's a tricky part where you know the bowing is going to
be difficult, to go ahead and work that out in a way that's comfortable to you.
Now, I
will tell you that there is some technique to _ bowing in fast songs.
_ And I'm just talking
about playing eighth note _ reels.
How do you do it?
Let's say you're doing a line and _ _
_ [E] _ _ [B] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ it's_
Alright, just those notes.
Alright, if I do a long bow, _ _ _ _ _ _ that's how it sounds. _
[F#m] And if I do short bow strokes, in other words, each eighth note gets its own bow stroke. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ See [E] how that's different from_
[D] _ It _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [N]
gives it a much more staccato sound.
Now, if you're
playing a long string of notes, it's going to get very tiring to play short notes and
it's going to sound real choppy.
But if you play all long notes, it's not going to have
the rhythmic feel that you really want in a fast song.
And so, here's what I do.
_ Here's
sort of the secret to bowing on fast songs.
So, here it comes.
A lot of you know how to
do what's called a shuffle with _ a bow stroke.
It's like a long, short, short, long, quarter,
eighth, eighth, quarter.
Right?
This shape.
[D] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [G#] _ Occasion [Bm] sound. _ _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _ [Bm] _
_ _ _ _ _ [D] Done.
I'll do it slowly. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Down,
up, down, up.
Down, up, down.
Up, down, up. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ Okay, [B] so each up bow is followed by a short
down up.
And then a long down bow and a short up down.
So it's like something that alternates.
Now, how does that tie in with a fast song?
Well, here's the trick.
_ _ If you learn how to
play that shuffle, _ then you can play it during a fast song _ and it's sort of the perfect combination
of long bow and short bow strokes.
_ [E] And so, here I'll show [D#] you, I'll give you an example
of what I'm talking about.
So, I'll play the shuffle, I'll speed it up, and then I'll start
noting with it, and then I'll give you an exercise or two.
_ [D] _ So, here's the shuffle. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ Now
speed it up. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [B] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _
_ [B] _ _ Okay.
_ Now let me slow that down for you.
Just to show you that the bow strokes
remain the same.
Alright?
_ _ [E] So here's the shuffle.
_ _ _ [F#] _ _ _ _ _
_ [B] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [D] _ _ So here's what it sounds like.
The shape goes
like this.
_ Long, short, [B] short, long, short, short.
_ _ _ [F#] _
_ _ _ [B] _ _ _ _ _
[D] _ _ _ _ _ [B] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [Bm] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ Alright?
And so instead of long bows _ _ _
_ _ and short bows, _ _ _ here's _ the shuffle. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [E] And to me it makes a great pattern.
Let me play a
song for you.
I always, one of the first songs I teach using the bowing is Old Joe Clark.
And so here's what it sounds like all shuffled. _
_ _ _ _ _ [C#] _ _ [E] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [B] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [G] _ _ [B] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ Right?
So at the very end I got off the shuffle
just a bit, but not much.
_ So, let me give you an assignment now.
Scales.
So let's play
them and play them with shuffles.
So here's an example of a D scale, and you can play
this with all your scales and it'll help you with your bowing and your tuning.
[D] So, here's
a D scale.
_ _ [F#] _ _ _
[D] _ _ _ [B] _ _ _ _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _
Actually, just so we can get the whole, all the strings, let's go for a G scale.
So we start down low.
_ _ _ [A] _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _ _
[D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [G] _
Alright, that was a G scale.
Now with the shuffle.
_ [Am] _
_ [B] _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _
_ [Bm] _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ [E] _
_ _ [G] Now with the
shuffle doing each note.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Bm] _ _ _ [G] _ _
_ _ _ Long, [A] _ _ [B]
short, [C] short, [D] _ [E] long, _ [F#]
short, short, long, short, short, long,
short, [Bm] long, _ _ [F#m]
short, [A] _ short, short.
[E] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ [A] _
_ [E] _ _ [Bm] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ Or something like that.
So there you go.
That's a little
advice on bowing on the fast songs, slow songs, doesn't [B] really matter.
_ Thanks. _