The blues fiddle will tug your heart strings

I think the violin is far and away the best instrument for playing the blues!  

Blues fiddle is all about bending and sliding notes and, because violins do not have frets,  they are streets ahead of other instruments with fixed notes (like pianos) - in my view of course!.   You can use the notes in between if you wish (which have no place in the twelve note scale of the fixed intervals instruments).   The twelve note octave is a relatively recent thing.

This page will give you an overview and give you recommendations if you want to get started with blues fiddle.  If you already play blues, we will give you some new ideas or listening to help keep your passion going. 

First things first.  A little bit of history.  

The blues is rooted in the African music of the American slaves.  They brought their music them from Africa.  Many played the banjo.  This music quickly spread to the fiddle and the blues became a mix of western and African music.
 
People write whole books on playing blues fiddle and if you are interested in taking this further we recommend you track some of these down.    Some come with DVDs such as Darol Anger's  Homespun Blues on the Fiddle (Book/DVD) .  Darol trades licks with you as you learn tunes and styles from the Mississippi Delta to blues-inflected bluegrass, 88 min. Includes music booklet. Good fun! 

And here is a mix of interesting titles for you to browse. The first two are UK based, and the other three titles in USA - but you should be  able to find all of three quite easily - so no excuses!.  

                                                                    

  

You have probably all heard of the 12 bar blues.  This is simply a rhythm of 1, V and IV chords.  However, the blues scale includes flattened, 3^rd note, 5^th notes and 7^th notes (or sometimes just some of these) and its this that gives them their sad feel along with the expression the player or singer puts into it . 

If you plan to improvise the blues on your fiddle, its is really important to learn your pentatonic scales.  These are the basis of the blues. 

If you don’t know what these are Darol Anger's book is great   Darol analyzes the pentatonic (five-note) blues scale and its added "blue notes," and teaches how you can easily transpose licks and tunes from one key to another. By using the right vibrato, bowing techniques, intonation and other nuances, it won't be long before you can get the true blues feeling and are riffing and jamming in all the blues styles.  The book is for intermediate players.

This is not as difficult as it sounds.  

Its great to jam along to a guitar or mp3.  And once you can jam along with blues you should be able to get by in pretty much any style.  

There are some wonderful blues fiddle players and I recommend you download a few mp3s or get some CDs that will help you to absorb the music.  Music is like a language and the more you soak it in through listening and practicing the more it will come out - almost subconsiously like speaking.  My picks are in the widget in the margin at the top of this page and you can have a quick listen.  

Players you could watch out for are:

Bčla Fleck - some of his albums have great fiddle tracks like Down in the Swamp (play the widget above if you want to hear it) from Drive

Darol Anger & Mike Marshall I've already mentioned Darol Anger's book above.   He's also a great fiddle player from the USA that plays many styles.  I like his playing and I particularly like his collabrations with Mike Marshall, a fantastic mandolin player (which incidentally is tuned like the fiddle.  Once you can play the fiddle you can probably play the mandolin without too much trouble too!)

Darol Anger produces quite a lot of  teaching resources which are fun and friendly.  

Papa Jon Creasley -  a fantastic blues fiddler (and also singer).  The blues fiddle album he stands out for is Papa Blues .  He also payed in Hot Tuna and Jefferson Airplane followed by Jefferson Starship.  

John Christian, some great listening;  

Don Sugarcane Harris, a great electric blues player who worked with Frank Zappa.  He has many great albums and we've given a couple of tracks in our picks widget.  We also recommend Sugar Cane's Got The Blues - great album

Finally Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown, whose career spanned over 50 years from the late 1940s.  A blues legend who has played with many of the greats such as Eric Clapton.  A hugely talaented guitarist, vocalist and fiddler.   For quintessential blues fiddling listen to the track Just Befroe Dawn,  The Original Peacock Recordings

There is also huge range of music.  Try Sheet Music Plus for the World's largest selection of music.

You'll be playing the blues fiddle in no time!  Enjoy!

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