# Folk and Baroque



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Blair Atholl in Perthshire, May 2012:


Chapter Three - Folk & Baroque
I remember that I came to a decision as we were driving through Yorkshire - I checked it out, and John also thought it a good idea. After all, Fiddle Guru was a baroque specialist as well as playing in a ceilidh band, and how likely was it that I'd ever have the chance again of being taught by such a good player? I now had 45 minute lessons, but what if I upped the time to an hour and included 15 minutes of Baroque on the end; maybe the Guru could also teach me something about the history of baroque, but it would just be an add-on to my main interest, folk, I thought in my misguided naivety.

Since I'd first brought Bonnie home, I hadn't gone a day without practising, and though I looked forward to our holiday at Blair Atholl (pictured) I couldn't bear not to bring Bonnie with me. John had recently acquired a guitar over the internet, so we strapped both instruments on to the back seat, and once we arrived at our holiday cottage, we practised separately every day. John's hands were very sore as the strings were so stiff and metallic. I found a space in the corridor outside my bedroom where I set my music stand up. I was practising some Irish tunes, The Star of Munster, The Rose in the Garden, and others - trying to perfect rolls, crans and flicks, but not doing all that well. Half way through the week my shoulder rest broke, and I had to manage just with a scarf. When I'd started with Fiddle Guru, he'd suggested that I do without a shoulder rest, but honestly, it's a lot more comfortable for me *with*. 

The castle at Blair Atholl was the home of the employer of Neil Gow, my hero Scottish Fiddler, and they had both his portrait and his fiddle on display in the Great Hall. I felt very moved looking at them.

On the Thursday we'd found out that there would be a Session in a pub in Dunkeld. It had a local man who ran fiddle classes there, and we were looking forward to some good entertainment. We got there early, and heard some fiddling going on in a room upstairs, but apparently it was just a lesson. We waited and waited and about half an hour later than advertised, a group of about seven musicians came down, most of them pensioners. They rejected the table in the pub as not big enough for their purposes and went outside to the front pub garden - very near to the road and the river, very cold and with lots of midges jigging about. We followed them out, reluctantly, but ready to put up with discomfort for the sake of the music.
They struck up a tune - a slow, boring tune, with very thin and uncertain playing. It was pathetic - I knew I could have done better myself. Then they stopped and started chatting and eating. Obviously their mentor was away - they'd been left to manage timidly on their own - and they couldn't cope.
John and I drifted away after ten minutes and drove back to our holiday cottage. 

I kept thinking about violin lessons all week, and when we got home on the Saturday, I emailed Fiddle Guru to put my scheme forward, saying that I didn't expect to start the one hour lesson on Monday, which was when my next lesson was scheduled. But he emailed back to say that he'd like to start then, so I went all through my Eta Cohen books picking out the baroque pieces so I'd have something to play. 

When I went on Monday, he was quite pleased with the way I played them, but explained that the baroque bow stroke was quite different - spoon shaped - which I found very difficult to get the hang of, and I still do. He means that one should glide on to the bow at the heel - press harder as one draws the bow - and then gently tail away before starting the next note. It gives that delicate feel to the music. But even now, with a baroque bow, I don't have enough control. 

He had produced some music too but we used mine. Anyway, the baroque soon expanded from the notional fifteen minutes to fill half and then two thirds of the lesson. It was partly my doing, because I have always found it very painful learning folk music with the Fiddle Guru, even though that was my reason for seeking him out in the first place. I am nervous, which makes me play badly, and he seems much sharper and more sardonic than he does with baroque. I have my theories (as to why he pounces onto my mistakes like a stoat), but I don't really know why.

Whenever we have some brisker-than-usual argy-bargy, it is about folk music; but the whole venture is so worthwhile that, argy-bargy or not, I feel compelled to stay the course. Whether Fiddle Guru will, I sometimes wonder...

Anyway, I think it was about the second or third lesson after this New Start that the Guru brought in Suzuki Book 2 and suggested that I start on it. I agreed and John ordered one on line, while I borrowed Fiddle Guru's spare copy until it arrived. It did have a lot of baroque pieces in it, but I think the main reason for moving on to it was because Fiddle Guru preferred to have a set scheme to work through - he'd done Suzuki himself. 

He was dead keen on getting on to The Huntsman's Chorus, number 3 in the book, which is a tune I didn't know, but now that I do... how I wish that I didn't! Oh I do hate arch male tra-la-la-ing. It was just about now that I realized that my taste maybe differs a little from that of Fiddle Guru!


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