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>> Here in Turkey in the Straw we've got a
few challenges mixed together as usual for
our songs.
The first is basic coordination of the
right and left hands.
This is a, a quick tune, although I do
have a, a slower version here for
you as well.
Swinging version.
In its basic form, though, it's a quick
tune, and so you need
exact coordination between the two hands,
so this is a great song to develop that.
You get to mix, slur and separate bows.
A lot of times we, we practice slurs,
practice separate bows.
But this really mixes them together, which
is great practice.
It also helps coordination, by the way.
And you get to use first, second, third,
and even fifth position in this one.
So first, let's talk about the difference
between swinging eighths and non-swinging.
Swinging eighths just means you play them
like triplets.
So instead of the way it looks on the
page.
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It's going to be.
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And that, too, is a nice tool to help
coordination.
In fact, that's a mild form of one of my
favorite practice methods,
which is dotted rhythms, so a triplet's on
its way to being a dotted rhythm.
And so when you are practicing, let's say,
the quick,
the straight version of this one, it's
still really useful to practice.
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And its opposite.
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That really builds the great
coordination which is essential for this.
So, the quicker the tempo is, basically of
any piece you're playing,
the more you have to be aware of your arm
level because the arm level
needs to lead the way whenever you have
string crossings.
So, right at the beginning at letter A for
example.
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There's your first string crossing.
And so the arm needs to move a little bit
higher in advance.
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So during that down bow on the F.
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The arm level leads that and
the same thing is going to happen at B.
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That one's even a little bit easier
because it's during a slur, so.
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As part of the natural slurring motion,
you can let the arm lead there.
So you'll notice that for pretty much all
string crossings, but
especially in a quicker piece like this.
Now, just before letter B and just before
letter C, I like to end these phrases
with short quarter notes as opposed to the
other ones,
which have been nice and smooth and long.
But they stay on the string.
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Or.
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The rest of the piece is nice simple
fiddle style good and on the string.
Now if you'll look at the fourth bar of C,
here's our shift into fifth position.
And we still use a guide finger of the
first finger.
The first finger is your most common guide
finger even when it's,
even when you haven't been playing a one.
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So, I have the first finger already down.
It's tucked right behind the two so it's
fingering an A.
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So, what's the one doing?
It's actually shifting from A to the C.
That it's going to be playing a minute
later.
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If you don't have that one down in advance
and
it's harder to get that shift accurate and
also then you've got to coordinate putting
the finger down with the bow change.
There's no need to get into all that.
Just have it down in, in advance and it'll
be automatic.
And then finally at the very end of this,
at letter D.
Here's the one place in this tune where I
actually go off the string.
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The famous fiddle ending there.
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