More Shuffle Bowing Practice

Summer is flying by and I haven't been practicing like I should. (Ah, confession is so good for the soul. lol.) You're also probably aware by the dates of my blog posts that I haven't gotten in much writing either! Sorry about that!

I do, however, check my blog stats to see who is visiting, where they are from and what they are looking for - and I've noticed a pattern. Many of my visitors are looking for help with shuffle bowing and quite honestly, after not playing for some time, I could use some work in that area as well. I don't have what some might refer to as a 'natural talent' for music, so it's a lot work (aka practice) for me to get things sounding like they should and sometimes it just takes a very simple, repetitive tune to bring it all back.

To that end, I turned to my teacher for assistance (after an appropriate level of groveling and apologizing for my lack of discipline). I was looking for a familiar tune that could be adapted to a nearly continuous shuffle with no tricky fingering to slow a novice fiddler down. I also wanted a tune that would take only minutes to memorize, so that I could concentrate on my bowing rather than what note comes next. We settled on Cripple Creek as it is such a well-known tune and is literally a part of nearly everyone's repertoire. Our 'ultra' easy adaption is humorously called Simple Creek.

In reviewing shuffle technique, my teacher reminded me that emphasizing the first short stroke in each shuffle pattern will help you to obtain an old-timey sound. In other words, long SHORT short long SHORT short long SHORT short, etc. Sometimes that's a bit tricky for me as I tend to want to emphasize the long bow stroke instead. Go figure.

Anyway, here it is. Simple Creek in all its glory. I won't do a separate file to include drone notes this time as there is really no need. It's played almost entirely on the A and E strings with only a brief shift to the D string to catch that lower E. Get your shuffle on!