Hey friend,

Before sheet music, before tab, before any of it — people learned tunes by ear. You heard a song, you sang it, you found it on your instrument. That's the whole trick we're working on this week.

Sing Then Play

Here's a thing that took me too long to figure out: if you can already sing a tune, you're halfway to playing it.

Your voice already knows the melody. So use it.

Start by playing the scale for the tune. Then listen to the whole song once, just to soak it in. Sing or hum the first line a few times — until it feels natural, not forced. Then find the starting note on your fiddle and go note by note if you have to. Sometimes the notes chain together on their own. Sometimes the whole line just falls out at once.

Either way, the move is the same: sing a line, play a line. Work through the tune that way.

It's a more intuitive path than reading dots on a page. And here's the bonus — doing this actually helps you read sheet music later. You're training your ear and your eye at the same time. They're not enemies.

And this week you've got the perfect tune to try it on. Take Me Home, Country Roads is finally on FiddleHed — and it's friendlier than you'd think. All you need is 7 notes from the G pentatonic scale. Sing each phrase, then find it. Work it chunk by chunk, and play along at the end. It's sing-then-play, start to finish.

👉 Watch the lesson on FiddleHed →

🎻 Try This Week

Pick a tune you can already sing — then steal it back onto your fiddle.

• Pick a song you know cold. Happy Birthday counts.
• Play the scale for it once.
• Sing the first line out loud, three times.
• Find it on the fiddle, one note at a time.

Five minutes. That's the whole assignment.

Play Every Day

Office Hours Replay​
The Office Hours replay is now posted! Highlights:

• How to transpose a tune to a new scale
• How to find the key of a tune by ear
• A fourth-finger exercise and how to tune it
• The Georgia shuffle on quarter-note sections
• How to build a medley (and find people to jam with)

👉 Watch Replay →​

🎻 Upcoming Events

Friday, Jun 5 · 11:00 AM EDT​
Classical Corner Practice Group 🎼
Focus session on classical violin technique. Open to all levels.

Monday, Jun 8 · 3:00 PM EDT​
Take Me Home, Country Roads — Call & Response
This is sing-then-play, live: I play a phrase, you sing it back, then we find it together. Perfect pairing with this week's lesson.

Tuesday, Jun 9 · 10:00 AM EDT​
Weekly Meetup with Tom and Deb 🎶
Drop in for a casual group play session. A great way to connect and make music together.

Thursday, Jun 11 · 3:00 PM EDT​
Waltz Tunes With Deb 🎶
Dive into waltz rhythms and tunes with Deb leading the way.

Friday, Jun 12 · 11:00 AM EDT​
Classical Corner Practice Group 🎼
Focus session on classical violin technique. Open to all levels.

Go to the Events page for login info.

🎻 Until next week, keep on fiddling…

— Jason

PS: Thank you for being here. If you enjoy the newsletter, please forward it to a lucky friend. And if this email was forwarded to you, get your own ✨