Thank you, I appreciate all of the encouragement! I'll post more of these as I make some. I always videotape at the end of each practice what I work on and then kind of evaluate it and try to see things I should work on. From time to time I'll post some things.

I personally don't find it to limit wrist or finger flexibility any more or less than the usual TUS hold, but everyones fingers and hands are shaped differently so maybe with some folks it does.

My hands are big and my fingers are long so, in some ways I feel the bow is a bit more stable in my hand this way. My bow grip is pretty loose though and if I do use TUF, sometimes my thumb has a tendency to slide over the silver ring and on to the hair a bit.

For that version of "Uncle Pen" I am actually using the simpler shuffle, the one some fiddlers call the "Nashville" or "simple" shuffle. It's a "quarter and 2 eigth notes" and the most common shuffle. This shuffle is the simple: 1, 1and, 1, 1and, 1, 1and etc etc,

Or Duh-du-du Duh-du-du etc etc..

However, the advanced version calls for what some folks call a "Georgia Shuffle" in the fiddle world. You either up or down bow a slurred triplet, followed by a quick down or up bow, its tricky. Its supposed to be played fairly fast with the accent on the quarter. Its a slurred triplet followed by a quick quarter.

basically its (1-1-1) 1 (1-1-1) 1  the three slurred notes can be either up bowed or down bowed so it gives you a (Duh-uh-uh) Duh (Duh-uh-uh) Duh! Almost a train like kinda sound LOL...sorry for the silly crude description of the shuffle bowing.

To play Uncle Pen the harder way requires that Ga shuffle..which I can do in a single string but add notes or a scale too it and it gets difficult!

happyjet said
You sound amazing for have only played for 7 months.

I have played for almost 4 years, have a Gliga Gems 1 and you sound better than me!!!

You must practice loads every day.

Have you done any grades yet?

No, I dont do any grades or anything as I am not practicing or studying classical, strictly Bluegrass fiddle. My teacher is a professional fiddler from North Carolina who studied under a few fiddlers that are wwll known, notably "Bobby Hicks" is one of them.

Anyways hes teaching me the fundamentals of Bluegrass from the 40s, the early stuff. Lots of Blues, swing stuff, pentatonics scales, major and minors etc. Hes working on giving me a foundation that I cán later build on. I have a skype lesson with him once every 2 weeks.

I practice and hour to hour snd a half during the week every day, Thursdays off. Then on weekends I'll do 2 hours in the morning until midday, and another hour in the evening.

Thanks...I had my lesson online just yesterday.

My instructor is giving me the basics of traditional Bluegrass so I will have a solid foundation to build upon, then, in the future I can develop my own style.

I am learning the fiddle style of a famous Bluegrass fiddler from the 40's, the late great "Chubby Wise" of Lake City Fl. When it comes to just starting out, alot of Bluegrass fiddle professors will have their students cut their teeth on his material.