How to Play the Morning Dew on the Fiddle

Hi there. Welcome to onlinelessonvideos.com. I'm Ian Walsh. You just heard a tune on the fiddle called the “Morning Dew” and I'm going teach you today. It’s comprised of three parts and the whole tune is pretty in the key of E minor. Along with this video, there’s a back in track with just some guitar and the chords are basically E minor, D C and G arranged throughout the tune. So let’s get started learning this. We’ll start with the first part. I'll break it down for you and let’s get going the Morning Dew in the key of E minor. Here we go.

Let’s start up this tune by taking a look at some of the double stops so we can use it here. Since this is an E minor, let’s start off with an E note. First of all, you have your E here with your open E and here you have an E, this is on your D strings, it’s your first note, your first full step here, you play it with your first finger. So right away, you can just check and make sure these two notes will sound in tune with each other. From there, let’s look at our double stops. We can go to the lower regions, you at a B. This is on the G string. so just notice, mix that with the E. Now, you also have this in the middle of your Fiddle, on you’re D string. So again, you play your E, then you let your finger kind of squash over but in the exact same flat area and you let it play at B as well. So you play…

That’s the exact same double stop only the B is on the higher register. From there, you can play a B and an E. Again, that’s your open E. So those are just some of the notes that we’ll be using especially this one in the middle. We’re going to do a lot of back and forth

So the beginning of this tune, the notes here, it starts off on E and we play along E, go to our B. So that first little section is… one, two, one, two. Now, from there, we’re going to go into that E-B-E-B thing. So we go... The note after that is A. So let’s take a look at what we have so far. We start off on the E. Let’s try that a few times.

Now, I'm going to show you the rest of first part here. We repeat a lot of what we have. So we start of on the E, we play that B-B-A-F again. The A right there and now we have some new notes. We walk up to our D. We’re going to use a C#. Let me put that in the context for you. And from there you repeat, you play the first part again. Okay, now, before we move on, when I add one important element, I think, into this first part, and that’s rolling with our first finger. So if you remember roll is five notes played together with one bow. Here’s what it would look like to play an E roll with your first finger in slow motion. So one bow, I choose to use a down bow here but I'm playing five notes.

And eventually as you go practice this over and over again, you’re going to pick up speed to where you’re not really hearing in that with your third finger, you’re hearing more of a grace note, and then it sounds like this. So we’ll use it slow for now. It may sound a little strange but it’s a good way to learn them or to get them is to practice them slowly. So we’ll try put that roll in the E in the very beginning here of the Morning Dews, so the first part.

So we start off instead of that just long E, we’re going to make it a rolls. So we’ll go… let’s try that again… one two, one two, one two, one two. Now, if we continue, I'll play the first part for you twice through now play along and we’ll put those rolls in.

Okay, let’s get into the second part.