How to Play the Fiddle - Soldier's Joy

Hi! There I’m Ian Walsh with onlinelessonvideos.com and I’m here today to teach you a tune of a fiddle called Soldier’s Joy. We’re going to learn it in the key of D and I’m going to start of this lesson with a sample of the tune played along to a practice track that we have. So here it is, the Soldier’s Joy. [Demonstration] So the first part of Soldier’s Joy really for the fiddle centers around the middle two strings for a lot of it, the D and the A string. So if you play those two strings together, you get a nice—okay and I’m doing nothing with my left hand there. I’m just letting my right hand play both with the D and the A string at the same time. So that’s kind of your route of this tune. Now let’s work on some of the notes. We’ll see if we walk up the D string. There was some of the notes and some of the pattern of your left hand, the full space to the one and then a full space to your second finger, and a half space to your third. And then you continue onto the A string and use that same pattern on the A string. So let’s try playing both strings with bow, the D and the A string and we’re just going to walk up the A string to the D. This is what it should sound like. [Demonstration] Let’s try that again. [Demonstration] Now let’s try with the D string blending with the A string. [Demonstration] Let’s try that again. [Demonstration] Okay, so it’s good to be able to get your fingers placed just on the string you intend to not in that both strings. So you can get that nice double stop. So this tune, we’re going to use a lot of that D and A string bowing. But we start off, here are some of the notes to get a started on Soldier’s Joy. We come in with this pick up A, B and then back to the A. So we’ll start on the A. [Demonstration] So that’s kind of a cycle of A, F, D, F. [Demonstration] Let’s try that again. [Demonstration] Okay I’m going to count this in and we’ll try it with the pickup note. [Demonstration] So the next little section is pretty similar only we’re going to end it going down to this A double stop which will be an E and A played together. So it sounds like this. [Demonstration] So let’s try putting those together. [Demonstration] So now for the next section in the first part, we just repeat what we have for the first. So we again with the A-- [Demonstration] And then we play the ending. So let me work this slowly for you. We start on the D and we move into our E string. You can see there we’re playing an F and then A. [Demonstration] After you get that, you move to the E. Okay, that’s kind of the same pattern only everything is shifted down a little bit. So you have…and then E string, and that’s to the C sharp to end on there. Then we play a D. Now while you’re playing that long D, you’re going to take your first finger and move it up to the F position on your E string. So you get this double stop here which is a D double stop. And you’re going to play F, E, F. So let me show you what that sounds like. [Demonstration] And you’ll end with that double stop. Let’s try that again. [Demonstration] And then you repeat the first part. Later on, we’ll come back and I’ll show you kind of this other melody that floats around and I’ve also heard it played. So let’s go through the first part what we have so far. I’ll count us in. [Demonstration] Okay let’s get started on the second part.