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Hey Hey all...
What are we working on ?
I have sheet from Phantom of the Opera and am planning to work on Think of me.
I work on Yesterday, Paul M - I have sheet for Imagine as well, that I need to work on.
I got Sheet Music for Twilight Tunes yesterday. I plan to work on Bella's Lullaby, even if it is a bit hard.
I have sheet for All of me, John Legend as well.
In addition some classic songs... Easy versions of Claire D'Lune, Air Ect.
And of course Fiddle tunes: Tennessee Waltz and Snow Deer.
I am also working on House of the Rising Sun. Well I haven't actually started it but play too soon.
I practice my set songs each or every other day as well
Ashokan Farewell
Minuet 1, Bach
Godfather Theme
Old Joe Clark
Drunken Sailor
Scarborough Fair
Skye Boat Song
Star of the County Down
Sad Romance (just started that one up again)
*Need to get back on the Titanic Theme song, and Over the Rainbow again as well.
@Fiddlerman - will there be a spring/summer Fiddlerman Group project soon? (hint hint hint)
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Wow, what a great set of songs to be working on!
For a week or so now I've been working on Let It Go after I transposed it to C major. As a beginner I just couldn't handle all those flats in the Frozen sheet music book.
I also picked up Suzuki book 1 and the CD from the library last week (they only had the 1978 version, so that's what I'm working with). I'm hard at work on Gavotte (Gossec) but those 16th notes are giving me a terrible time.
I also just started working on Josh Groban's You Raise Me Up. Even played poorly, it makes my heart sing 
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Well, I've been working an exercise to focus on legato string changes. Staccato exercise as well, I'm currently trying to get 16 notes out of one bow length. Alternating forte and piano when working scales to get a bit more control over dynamics.
Rock, blues and folk improvisation against backing tracks. Sometimes some other genres as well.
Been working on a couple of my own songs, and also kind of pruning my "repertoire" a bit. Starting to think about what directions I may take in practice and music choices, considering my 3rd year mark comes up in April.
"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman
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Oh .. Let it Go.. boy that would be a really good one to learn.
OH.. man.. I have wanted to play You Raise Me Up...for a long time...
Sitting on my hands so I won't buy the sheet music this moment.
Thanks for your list.
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I'm working on Vivaldi's Concerto in A minor 3rd movement and scales in higher positions.
"We’re all afraid, you know.. to get up on stage. Maybe you’ll mess up. Maybe they’ll totally reject you. Even so, you grit your teeth and get up on stage anyway. Something compels us… moves us to play music." -Kaori Miyazono
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I don't have much to work with yet as I'm only about 3 months in, but I practice:
Amazing Grace (Mark O'Connor)
Boogie Woogie (Mark O'Connor)
Schradieck
A, D, and G major scales
Twinkle
School is Out (J.T. Rhoda)
Danny Boy
Let it Go
I have the sheet music for Beethoven's Virus, but yea.........
Oh, and the BBC Sherlock Theme
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@bobby - Cool list...
My list at three months was (Twinkle and Over the Rainbow, which I couldn't play the "fast" part on Over the Rainbow..) giggle.. is there really a fast part.. ha ah..
@derpyviolinist .... I am jealous.
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OK I am going to show you something really, really geeky, nerdy!! I have a small notebook that I put together to take to jam. During jam I sit on it and pull it out when it is getting close to my turn to lead. I started out with songs I had memorized listed by keys but it was taking me too long to search through the list for a song I announced [I do not have the keys memorized] so I came up with the weekly songs list.
Every week I pick 5-6 songs to memorize or re-memorize for jam. I still flit around from learning one song, no this song, no that song!! But I do have a plan on memorizing a specific list.
Violinist start date - May 2013
Fiddler start date - May 2014
FIDDLE- Gift from a dear friend. A 1930-40 german copy, of a french copy of a Stradivarius. BOW - $50 carbon fiber. Strings - Dominants with E Pirastro Gold string.
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For some reason the list of D songs did not post but you can click on it in the list of attachments. It of course is the longest list!!
Violinist start date - May 2013
Fiddler start date - May 2014
FIDDLE- Gift from a dear friend. A 1930-40 german copy, of a french copy of a Stradivarius. BOW - $50 carbon fiber. Strings - Dominants with E Pirastro Gold string.
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That's actually a really clever way to go about remembering keys. I too can't remember the keys very well, I may have to use something like that. Though, I don't have a jam group =/
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@Schaick
Very very nice ...thanks for sharing. I can see you really are moving along with your jams and what great tools to ensure your success. Right on! Thanks for sharing.
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@Just4Fun I got the sheet for You Raise me Up today. I can't wait to hear it on my violin. Thanks for the suggestion.
@DanielB sounds like a very focused and productive practice you are having.... as April Approaches and your third year it sounds like you are still really going for it.
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Scales, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd position.
I don't really have a list of songs. I have been hammering away at Irish Washerwoman and will float around on a few others but keeping my focus on Irish Washerwoman. Really trying to make each note sound right. Then I will end the sessions with just jamming away to back tracks > The backing tracks that DanielB pointed us to are a lot of fun.
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Well, part of it is focused. And part of it is jamming to backing tracks to build up my "vocabulary" of sounds in different genres I like to play and just have fun, like Stonedog says. Some of it, of course, I'm just picking up one of the violins and playing some song I like or maybe that I just heard. Don't want to give the impression that it's all 100% serious workworkwork..
And yeah, April 10th will be the anniversary of the day I ordered my first violin. I think it was around April 22nd or so that it actually was delivered, so I have a little bit yet to my 3rd year. Still a little early for me to be doing my annual self-evaluation, since I'm still seeing what I can accomplish in the last few weeks of it.
"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman
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Just hit a full year in to playing this instrument! I "understand" sheet and can interpret it slowly - but I cannot play directly from sheet - so most of my tunes are done by ear (with occasional reference to sheet for something I'm not 100% happy/sure about - then back to ear).
I'm currently working on getting double stops and drones working "well" - I'm kinda half-way there. Working on shifted positions as well. I do a lot of improvisation to backing tracks ( oh - and yes - thanks for the latest batch @DanielB - the Hard Rock Heavy Metal is my current play-along of choice by the way which led me to wanting to dampen the open strings on the EV with the FX I was using ! )
Many of my tunes are fairly simple, traditional ones - here's my current repertoire
*Dark Island, *Loch Lomond, *Skye boat Song, Kelvingrove, Red Red Rose, Corn Rigs and Barley Rigs, Auld Lang Syne, Amazing Grace, Wild Rover, Whisky in the Jar, Molly Malone, Lord of the Dance, Swallowtail Jig, Danny Boy, Lily The Pink (really!), *Old Joe Clarke, Red River Valley, *Tennessee Waltz, Ashokan Farewell, Star Spangled Banner. I refer to them as "simple" - well - they ARE the way I play them at the moment, pretty basic manner, not much shifting - so verses are a bit repetitive and don't benefit from higher registers which may appear in the sheet etc etc.. but I will vary repeated verses by a bit of improv / interpretation / expression / tempo variation and so on which helps make it a bit more interesting to the listener.
I'll often transpose the tune to a key that I am either happier playing, or that is simply more pleasing to my ear.
The "*" tunes are also being used now on my drone and double stop practice.
Tunes "in development" are - Sailors Hornpipe, Elizabethan Serenade, Bach Minuet in G, Cotton fields, City of New Orleans, Dvorak New World Symphony ( you know, just the bit we all know off by heart, not the whole darned thing LOL ). Oh yes - and I have a collaborative effort with Lyd (one of the harpists) currently being worked on.
There are probably about another dozen that are just "fragments" of things that come into my mind from time to time - mostly rock - things like MeatLoaf tracks, RHCP, Moody Blues, Animals and so on....
It has become an obsession, and I probably take on FAR FAR too much - but I'll tell you something - a year on - and I simply cannot even IMAGINE getting bored with the instrument....
And great to see what other folks are working on, nice thread @coolpinkone - thank you - I had been planning to draw a line in the sand for the one-year-mark - you forced me to take the time out to make a summary - and it is something to look back on when I draw next year's line !
I seriously recommend not copying my mistakes. D'oh - 
Please make your own, different mistakes, and help us all learn :-)
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@BillyG I love all your vim and vigor!!! Right on!!!
Loved your post hearing about all your songs. I always forget your are only playing one year (that's a compliment by the way). Good Job.
So happy to have you as a fellow fiddler!!!
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@Bill Congratulations 1 year!!
You said - "It has become an obsession, and I probably take on FAR FAR too much - but I'll tell you something - a year on - and I simply cannot even IMAGINE getting bored with the instrument...."
Yep I am right there with you!!
Violinist start date - May 2013
Fiddler start date - May 2014
FIDDLE- Gift from a dear friend. A 1930-40 german copy, of a french copy of a Stradivarius. BOW - $50 carbon fiber. Strings - Dominants with E Pirastro Gold string.
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I'm working on catching up and missing the times I could actually find time to practice.
I love checking out all your motivating lists!!!
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
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Right now i'm working on Gavotte from Mignon and Gavotte by Lully from suzuki book 2. Also playing part 3 from house of the rising sun with the double stops. Working on third position and scales. I did just put a book of tunes from the harry potter films into my cart on amazon and will probably buy it in the next few days.
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Good stuff @mischa91 - keep up the good work! And it is great to see lots of new members taking an interest in the next project.
Fantatsic !
I seriously recommend not copying my mistakes. D'oh -
Please make your own, different mistakes, and help us all learn :-)
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