Creating More With Less

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I recently attended a violin workshop with the renowned Irish fiddler, Kevin Burke (who's actually English and lives in Oregon). He was talking about adding rhythm to the music with certain notes that are repeated on the beat. Below is a snippet from Walsh's Hornpipe. Even if you don't read music, you can see that the same note is repeated rhythmically. (I made those notes red.) When you listen Kevin play it, (it's very the first tune on this video,) those notes really stand out.
How to Make More with Less

Kevin said that to give this tune more rhythm, you have to play these repeated notes more lightly. He said that most people make the mistake of playing them heavily, and then they sense the tune doesn't have enough of a rhythmic feel, so they play them even more heavily, and so on and so on.

Man, does that sound like aikido.

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