Class Description

This is an intermediate course. Take your tunes to the next level by adding left hand ornamentation and varied bowing. Over six weeks, we will cover several tune types in the Irish repertoire, spending one class session mastering a new tune, and in the next session looking at ways to vary that tune. Students will practice applying ornamentation and bowing skills to play with more ease and expression, be it with bowing patterns, cuts, rolls, triplets, melodic variation, and more. Students may be asked to contribute a tune they already know, so that we can practice applying new principles to a more varied class repertoire! Fiddlers joining this class should have enough mastery of their instrument to learn tunes by ear in a group setting, at a moderate pace. Yasi Zeichner is a fiddler, singer, and Irish sean nós dancer based in the hills of central Vermont. She loves sharing fiddle tunes, and teaches primarily by ear, drawing on years of immersion in New England’s vibrant traditional music scene, particularly Irish traditional music. Her goals are to help fiddlers improve their technical skills and musicality, reach their musical goals, and find joy in exploring ways of making the music their own. Along with teaching fiddle, Yasi is an educator at the Vermont Farm and Forest School, and serves on the board of the Summit School of Traditional Music and Culture.