FiddleHed is the fun way to learn fiddling online!

In a nutshell, to play a tune fast:

1. Play the tune many, many times.
2. Minimize movement in the left hand fingers and bow.
3. Play slow, medium and then fast.
4. Use an external time source.

The best and simplest thing you can do to play something faster is to play it many, many times. Much more than
you think is reasonable. If you do that, you'll probably naturally start to try it faster.

To play faster, you need to minimize your movement and energy.
For the left hand, try not to lift the fingers very much. Practice this without playing. Imagine a spider crawling across the strings.
Don't even bow, just slowly lift the fingers a millimeter above the fingerboard. Harder than you might think to do.

Some simple exercises for this:
D01233210
D01L233L210
try these with slur 2, slur 2 separate 2.

D012321,
try with with slur 3

Practice using very short bow strokes; less than an inch of bow.

Push the speed in both directions. In order to play really fast, you need to be able to play really slow.
If you can play something extremely slowly, you'll know that piece much more deeply and confidently.
Speed up to the point that you can't quite to sit and then slow it down a notch.

If you can use a metronome or the playalong track, that will help you play fast too.
Metronome practice can be hard, even at a comfortable medium tempo. This is because you have
to be good enough at the tune to be listening and syncing to an external time source.

Remember, out of all the lessons on tunes, variations, technique, etc., the best thing I have to give to you is good practice. Simply play every day in a fun and productive way: loop small phrases, sing what you play, play things at different speeds, transpose phrases, parts and tunes to other strings & other scales. Listen a lot; listening is practice too. Don’t hurry. Try to focus on making the sound as good as possible so you enjoy it.

I made some “Learning Chunks” on the FiddleHed site to help you do this. These focused exercises contain sheet music, tabs and mp3 snippets to guide you on each step of your fiddle journey.

These and all new lesson pages can be viewed for one week after publication with a FREE trial membership. Check it out here: https://fiddlehed.com

And after you sign up, I’ll also send you a minicourse of lessons specially designed for your skill level.

Alrighty. Play every day, have fun and thanks for making music

Now, go fiddle with it...

Jason