An Instrument of Bluegrass

One of my favorite styles of music has grown to be Bluegrass. Five instruments, Southern vocals, and an always joyful, upbeat sound! One of my favorite instruments to “zone in on” when I’m listening is the fiddle.

Fun fact for today: The violin is called a “violin” when playing classical music and it’s called a “fiddle” when playing folk, bluegrass, or country music. There is no difference in the appearance of the instrument.

Because I loved the sound so much, I began to have a desire to learn the fiddle. I soon found out that my great aunt owned one. We had already planned a trip to go visit my mom’s side of the family down in Louisiana when she said that we could borrow it for a while. We brought it home, and I started learning some simple tunes and notes through music books and lessons on YouTube. I heard several times that this was a tough instrument to learn and took years of practice to get good at, but that made me want to tackle it even more.  It was a challenge that I was determined to accomplish within the year.  I continued to practice and I soon found out that this was probably the hardest instrument I set out to learn. But I learned enough to play violin instead of guitar for one certain song in church during that Christmas. 

I enjoyed playing the violin, but did not feel like I was very good at it. I continued practicing after that Christmas, but then began to feel stuck and discouraged that I wasn’t getting any better. I’m a person who wants to see fast results when I start learning a new instrument (or in anything for that matter), and I quickly found out that the violin was not an instrument that I would get a fast response out of. I was able to do basic bowing techniques and learned mostly by ear, but I think the main thing that made it difficult to learn was having my fingers and hand in a position higher than what they normally are when playing guitar or piano. I accepted that the violin was not the instrument for me, but I continue to love the instrument!