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You are here: Home / Lessons / Add Variety to Your Diet – Quick Practice Tip

Add Variety to Your Diet – Quick Practice Tip

Teacher: Vi Wickam

About Add Variety to Your Diet – Quick Practice Tip:

Hi I’m Vi Wickam and this is your myTalentForge.com Quick Tip of the Week!

Add some variety to your diet!

You can only eat so many hamburgers before you’re like, “I don’t want another one of those… not for a very, very long time!”

And the same thing is true for music. I could play breakdowns for a very, very long time before I would get bored… but I would get bored.

If I want to make my breakdowns more interesting, listening to music outside of that realm, or playing along with music outside of that realm, is a great way to do that.

One of my favorite things to do is, I have a Casio keyboard, and I like to put on different kinds of beats. So it’ll play some rhythms underneath my fiddling, so maybe I’ll throw on a funky rap kind of beat, or I’ll throw on a Latin beat.

I also have an app for my iPhone called “iTablaPro” that plays some Indian classical music rhythms that I can play fiddle tunes over, that also give me something really fun to play along with.

Having something interesting to play along with will add a rhythmic spice to your life.

But get out there and put some music on your radio, or your Spotify, or your iTunes that isn’t what you would normally listen to.

If you love listening to classic Country, throw some hiphop on the radio. If you love listening to hiphop, throw some old fiddle tunes on the radio, or some classic country, or some jazz, or some swing, or some Latin music!

But, expose yourself to some music you’re not used to. It will make your mind start rolling. It’ll stimulate that part of your brain that hasn’t been stimulated yet.

And you will find that those things will start filtering into your music, and it’ll make you more creative and more fun!

You’ll start enjoying your music even more!

So explore the world of music because it’s a great big world! And add some variety to your musical diet.

Have a great week- I’ll see you next time!

About Vi Wickam

Vi Wickam of Loveland, CO has been performing fiddle and writing music since before he could read. Along with his brothers and dad, The Wickam Family Band performed regularly on Blinky’s Fun Club, a nationally syndicated TV program.

Vi’s fiddling can be heard on numerous CD recordings, including two of his own. He’s played with many different bands throughout the United States, and even briefly in England.

Among his fiddling honors, Vi has won the Colorado State Championship twice, and been a finalist four times at the Grand Masters’ Fiddler Championship. He has judged fiddle contests throughout the US, and directed regional and state level fiddle contests.

Join Talent Forge to learn tunes from Vi.

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