Singing with the Fiddle
Accompanying Old Time Songs and Ballads
Released: September, 2006
Label: Homespun Video

The violin can be used to accompany old time country songs with startlingly beautiful results, and no one does this better than Bruce Molsky. On this DVD lesson, he shows you how you can achieve distinctively rich and compelling harmonies in a musical interaction between your fiddle and your voice.

Bruce covers all the basics, starting with simple exercises to develop your ear and tune your singing to the pitches of the fiddle. He shows the most common chords for folk songs and how to use your instrument to harmonize with the sung melody. Then he gets you playing and singing along with him on the lively Pig in a Pen.

During the course of this 95-minute lesson you'll learn accompany songs using a variety of tunings, with detailed instruction in rhythmic effects, chord movement, harmony variations, syncopated bowing patterns and other techniques to bring out the drama and excitement of your song.

Join in with Bruce as he takes you, phrase-by-phrase, through old time classics Omie Wise, Stay All Night, Bachelor's Hall, June Apple and I Truly Understand.