Tales of an Absolute Beginner - The Bow
Hello, all! It's Ashley once again, reporting back after a full week of fiddle learning. I have been part of the in-person Kansas City session on Thursday nights, but also decided it wouldn't hurt for me to take advantage of the Zero to Fiddling course we launched this week. It feels like this two-pronged approach is going to give me the best chance of getting... proficient? We'll see how it pans out for me.
The biggest success moment of my week came in the in-person class, where we focused on bow technique. It seems to be pretty common knowledge among string players that perfecting this part of the playing process is extremely important, but also deceptively challenging. I learned about the "frog" and how my little pinky finger is pretty much the muscle of the whole situation. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of the clumsiness my fingers felt the first time I learned how to hold chop sticks. Getting the right pressure in the right places and letting the balance of it all work in my favor. It feels like something that will eventually "click" for me, but for now, I am doing a whole lot of conscious placement and adjustment each time I place the bow in my hand.
After getting the hold relatively correct, it was time to make contact with the strings. I must say... I felt like I was getting much better sound than the recording of my practice session indicated - ha!! We did a simple progression from C#, D, C#, B and eventually back to A that I soon learned was the foundation of the song Boil 'em Cabbage Down. As I got my bearings with the fingerings, the bowing, and the rhythm, players from the Advanced Class that plays after us Absolute Beginners began filing in and playing along with us. It was a pretty cool experience in my very first class with the bow to be able to feel like I was playing a real tune that sounded... well... good!
We wrapped up and I moved to the back of the room to observe the Advanced Class play. There was a brief moment at the beginning where I pulled my instrument back out thinking the progression sounded simple... I was quickly in over my head and "composing" as Laurel likes to call it - haha! ANYWAY, I had my first at home practice session today and can confirm I have a long road to decent sound ahead of me. However, I'm already realizing how fun it is to flex different muscles creatively and how this effort has required parts of my brain I don't use in every day life. So, we will just embrace the journey, squeaks and all.
