Blues on the Fiddle

The fiddle is a perfect vehicle for this soulful music, with its liquid slides and expressive, vocal-like intonation. As Darol says, "Once you learn to play a little blues, you can get by in pretty much any style." He starts right off with a great Sonny Rollins’ riff blues, "Sonny Moon for Two". You’ll learn the piece lick by lick, finally playing a duet in harmony with Darol. "Cool Blues" by Charlie Parker is another great riff blues. "Don’t be scared," says Darol, "it’s the easiest tune he wrote." Again, you’ll trade licks and learn how to take blues ideas and apply them to any musical situation. Blues in the Garage, an original Darol Anger piece written just for this lesson, combines shorter but more complex licks with slides, triplets and other important stylistic moves.

Darol analyzes the pentatonic (five-note) blues scale and its added "blue notes," and teaches how you can easily transpose licks and tunes from one key to another. By using the right vibrato, bowing techniques, intonation and other nuances, it won’t be long before you can get the true blues feeling and are riffing and jamming in all the blues styles.