**Get the most up-to-date info on these things in our Fiddle Jam Club Newsletter.

Events to watch for:

• Live call-in sessions, coming soon: weekly open office hour!
• Fiddle Jam Clinics, live in at your school or organization
• Tour dates
• Release dates for new products
• Deadlines for contests and other opportunities

<<::>>

NEW!!  After an initial run of two courses in 2014 (Fiddle Jam 101 and Music Mechanics 101), I’ve worked out some of the kinks and have decided to change the format of all courses going forward.  Rather than a “hold-your-feet-to-the-fire” kind of “Accountability”course with a specific end date, I’m going to make all future courses a one-time fee for lifetime access!  I get it, everybody’s busy… me too!

I thought it was a good idea, but in the end, the numbers don’t lie.  Only about 15% of people that signed up actually finished!  If you were one of those that got left behind, no worries… I’ll grandfather you in when I re-release those two courses, as well as update access for those who finished too.  I just have to move it up my to-do list at this point to tweak some of the materials and settings for the new format.  Watch for announcements in the newsletter soon (probably March 2015).

I am continuing to develop new course materials as well, and am actually getting pretty excited about some of them!

Here’s the list so far (as of Feb 2015): Feel free to let me know your thoughts and interest!  It is some of your questions that have sparked these!

1. Fiddle Jam 101: Jammer The original way-cool EZ way, Fiddle Jam Method from the beginning.  Crack open the door to your creative self!  Have fun while learning how to improvise to simple one-scale-fits-all tracks.  Tons of positive encouragement.  Major scales, Blues scales, EZ “Tater-ing” (improvising back-up parts), all applied to some easy songs.  Great for the near beginner, Hobbyist, or the Classical cross-over student who just wants to get “hip!”  Covers multiple music styles: folk, blues, country, swing, funk, rock n roll, and more.
2. Music Mechanics Course: Fiddle Jam style!  Don’t let Music “Theory” scare you away.  Learn the nuts and bolts of how music works as applied to your fiddle and being able to use it in the service of keeping your Goosebump Factor intact!   I will show you the easiest ways to use musical knowledge on the bandstand, on the fly, with as little thinking as possible.  EZ chord speller system, scale anatomy, intervals, moods of the modes, triads, 7th chords, arpeggios, reading rhythms, note numbers, chord numbers, & pentatonics …all learned, and then applied each week.
3. Blues Violin Course: The Blues… where it all began.  Learn how to navigate within this most creative & moving style!  EZ-Zones, playing with emotion, rhythm, straight vs. shuffle feel, riff & licks vocabulary building exercises, tunes, bass lines, boogie woogie, I-IV-V, Blues progression variations …Lots of FUN!
4. Fiddle Jam 102: “Gigger” Level two of your Fiddle Jamming adventure.  Where the original Fiddle Jam Book and our Jammer level materials on the site purposefully keep it all with a one-scale-fits-all approach, this is not necessarily the way it always works in the real world.  In this course we will explore how to start “growing your ears” and learn to switch easy Pentatonic scales to MATCH simple chord progressions in what I call Roots Music.  This will include older Country, folk & fiddle tunes, Cajun music, and the more countrified side of Blues & Rock.
5. Tatering Course: How to create back-up parts on the fly, so you can step back, and play supportive things when it is someone else’s turn, or even just learn to participate and play SOMETHING even if you do not know the song!   EZ Music Mechanics: how to choose notes that fit the chords in a song, play simple repeating “bass” lines, using  “leading” tones, Boogie Woogie, Double string drones, ear training, and more.
6. Fiddle Jam Greatest Hits Course: Learn up to a dozen simple Fiddle Tunes that have become favorites in my Fiddle Jam Classes.  All these fun tunes have room for back-up tatering & improvisation too… of course!
7. Gypsy Jazz Course 101: Gypsy Jazz has enjoyed quite the resurgence in popularity in recent years… get on the wave!  This will be a introductory course to this exciting violin style originally developed in the 1930’s and 40’s by guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grappelli.  Learn about harmonic minor scales, swing feel, & some licks and tricks.  We’ll start with some of the less harmonically complex tunes like: Minor Swing, Noto Swing, Spider Man, Swing 42 and others, and probably touch on some easy music mechanics.
8. Jazz Violin 101: Get started in this sometimes intimidating style with songs that stay closer to our one-scale-fits-all approach at the beginning (like “Autumn Leaves” and others).  Then, get introduced to leading tones, modes, and how to create custom scales to fit chords while working with songs like “All of Me.”
9. Rhythm Changes Course (Jazz 102): If Jazz has a standard form, “Rhythm Changes” is it.  Learn how to navigate the 100’s tunes that fit this format.  The III VI II V I progression (usually in the Bridge), learn to recognize and think in “diatonic chunks” and when to throw in the Blues scales for musical punctuation! 
10. Electric Violin Course: Learn about stepping into the guitarist’s world and playing with distortion and other electronic effects.  We will apply these techniques to various Rock n Roll eras from the 1950’s to present, and cover what musical knowledge, playing techniques, and approaches it takes to play this exciting stuff!
11. More to Come!