Tips for adapting viola to irish music?

Hi everyone!

I'm getting back into viola, my instrument from 5th grade until 12th back in school, after not playing for about 11 years. I'm startung up lessons again next week, I'm very exited!

I've loved traditional Irish music for a very long time, and would love to play some trad on my viola. I know the viola isn't the traditional choice; its sound is deeper, and I'm sure technically it will be more challenging. I'll either need to transcribe the music down, or master playing in the upper ranges. I heard solo isn't an issue, but it's challenging or even avoidable to join a session, which is disheartening. I've always wanted to try playing in a session.

I'm up for the challenge though. So if anyone has experimented with playing Irish trad on the viola, especially in a session, and has any advice...or something helpful to say besides "just buy a fiddle" I would love to hear it.

Thank you in advanced!

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Inge Buijs-Hengstmengel on February 7, 2015 at 1:09

In the ensemble group I'm in there's a girl who plays viola. She attended a fiddle workshop a while ago and that helped her a lot. She's quite good at jumping up to higher positions for certain bits in the tunes, but we don't play quite at session speed, most of the time, so I don't know if that'd really work.  I think the thing to do is to take it one tune at a time. See what works. Some parts work well enough an octave down. I hope some more knowledgable folk will chime in.

Permalink Reply by Evyn Koyama on February 7, 2015 at 6:24
Thank you Inge! I'm so happy there's another violist out there giving it her best! Wish I could meet her. Since posting I've accepted that sessions are probably not a realistic goal for me as a very focused violist (AKA no plans to ever play violin/fiddle). But doing some fiddle solos on my viola isn't such a bad goal I think! Not sure if a session would want a violist anyway. :-(

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