Monday 30 November 2015

Nyckelharpa Four a Day - Day One

Hello!
So my third blog entry. :D
I have a website where I have teaching resources. I have recently opened up some of the resources and thought I'd share them on this blog. I have been writing daily exercises, slowly working through different things. It is a work in progress! The idea of these exercises is that you do one day at a time, moving from one day to the next. They are exercises and it's all about playing beautiful notes and working on technique. It's not about playing faster, it's about playing beautifully and accurately. It was originally devised with no tunes, but I'm going to add some in as I go along! The title is taking the idea of having five pieces of fruit a day - this is your four a day - four lines, each with four bars on. Maybe I should get out more!
:)
Vicki

Enjoy, I hope it helps!

Day One - today we are going to start with three notes. Open top string A, first gold key, first finger  B and second gold note, second finger C. Play each note with a steady even pulse.  The most important thing is to keep the bow on the string at all times, don't stab at the string with it. Every note needs to be more beautiful than the last. Play these slowly and beautifully until you can imagine that you are moving into a nice meditative head space.

Day1-1

Monday 23 November 2015

Nyckelharpa Basics Part 2

Hello!
It's time for me to share my next video, "how to hold the nyckelharpa bow". Of course a bow hold can be subjective. I don't play the violin, I'm a double bass player, so obviously I'm influenced by what I'm used to. When I teach violinists though I generally find that I'm usually encouraging them to have a more positive and harder bow hold.
I hope it helps!
:)
Vicki

Wednesday 18 November 2015

Halsway Schottische at Halsway Manor

Hello!
Nigel Eaton wrote the wonderful Halsway Schottische and it went round the internet with lots of people recording their versions of the tune. So I wrote a version for nyckelharpa that I recorded with myself playing all the parts. This year as part of the Nyckelharpa Festival at Halsway Manor I absolutely had to get this piece performed there! So here are the results!
Enjoy!
:)
Vicki

Monday 16 November 2015

Nyckelharpa Basics Part 1

Hello!
I've had this blog for a while now but haven't done anything with it. That's about to change. I have a plan for this blog to use it for some teaching of the nyckelharpa. I've been busy teaching and building and planning and sorting out. I'm a musician, I'm a teacher, I'm a performer. I'm also a bit of a nerd that worked in an online learning community. So here I am sharing some of the things that I've done over the years. I thought I'd start with sharing my "how to hold the nyckelharpa" video. It's quite an old video and for some reason it came out quite red, but it does the trick. It shows the standard hold and how to tune with C tuning. I hope it helps a bit! (I've since got some better lighting so it's the only red video I have!)
:)
Vicki