Learn to play perfect Irish fiddle rolls.

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This crucial piece of Irish fiddle ornamentation is such an important part of making your fiddle playing sound authentically Irish. But it can be really difficult to learn to play good ornaments unless someone shows you how. In this video, I break down one of the most important pieces of the Irish fiddle ornamentation - the roll (or, more specifically, the long roll).

I show you two different ways of thinking about long rolls on the fiddle, and two different methods for learning to play them really well. I show which of the two methods is now my preferred way of teaching fiddle rolls. I play them slowly, with closeups of my left hand so you can exactly what is going on. I show you how to rolls on first finger, second finger and third finger notes. Then I suggest some ways that you can practice playing your Irish ornamentation on the fiddle.

Finally I play some rolls in an Irish jig, called Paddy Fahey's that we will look at in more details in the follow up to this video (see Part 2 - • Paddy Fahey's jig... )
00:00 Introduction to playing rolls on the fiddle
01:34 An example of a long roll in a tune
04:04 Learning to play rolls - 1st technique
08:20 Learning to play rolls - 2nd technique
11:48 Which fingers to use when playing a roll
12:38 2nd finger rolls
15:00 3rd finger rolls
16:56 The rhythm or timing of rolls
17:46 A long roll in Paddy Fahey's jig
18:11 Practising long rolls
20:07 Where to play long rolls - intro to part 2