Fiddle Chopping Lesson 1 – The Basic Chop
In this FREE fiddle chopping lesson, Naill Murphy teaches the basics of this emerging technique. Fiddle chopping has gained significant popularity in the past few years, and now’s your chance to get up to speed! Make sure you have this basic chop technique up to speed before you move on to more advanced techniques. Play along with the three speeds of the great tune Sporting Paddy below to practice this basic technique before moving on to the more advanced chopping lessons. Enjoy! Also, feel free to check out the other lessons in Niall’s chopping series – these lessons are available with a paid Fiddlevideo.com membership. Cheers from the Fiddlevideo Team!
SIGN UP TODAY to download audio MP3 files of the three performance speeds of Sporting Paddy to your computer. Once you transfer the files to your mobile device, you can chop along with the tune whenever you wish! Membership gives you unlimited access to download performance audio MP3 files for any of the lessons on this site. Listening to the audio performance is a great way to prepare to learn this song as well…
Once you’ve mastered this lesson, feel free to check out the rest of the fiddle chopping instructional series:
- Fiddle Chop Series Lesson 2 – The Double Chop
- Fiddle Chop Series Lesson 3 – Basic Chord Chopping
- Fiddle Chop Series Lesson 4 – Shuffle Chop (Without Chords)
- Fiddle Chop Series Lesson 5 – Shuffle Chop (With Chords)
- Fiddle Chop Series Lesson 6 – Advanced Chord Chopping
- Fiddle Chop Series Lesson 7 – Bass Line Chopping
- Fiddle Chop Series Lesson 8 – The Triple Chop
Here are a couple of videos of Niall demonstrating fiddle chopping in a performance environment:
Fiddle Solo, Le Bikini, Toulouse
• A VIEW FROM THE STAGE •Fiddle solo, Toulouse.I will never tire of playing for lovely audiences like this around the world and count myself very lucky to be able to do so. Here I am with french band, Doolin’ during a sold out gig in Le Bikini, France. Hope you enjoy 🙂 Please share with your friends.Niall?
Posted by Niall Murphy on Saturday, April 29, 2017
We hope you enjoy this free lesson from Niall. If you would like to take advantage of a full membership and start learning the rest of the chopping series as well as some great tunes, we encourage you to:
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- MP3 downloads of the audio performance tracks
- Sheet music for the basic song melody (including guitar chords)
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Time to get chopping. Looking forward to this series.
This is pretty insanely cool! Thanks for posting all the extra performance videos too. Niall Murphy has impressive skills. Great to have his lessons here on FV, they are my new favorites 🙂
Hi Kitegal,
Hey Thanks for your comments on the chopping videos! Yes Niall has honed some impressive skills and we’re really glad to hear you’re taking advantage of the lessons. Thanks for posting. Best, Roland
In the first fiddle chopping tutorial it is not very obvious where the fingers placed. Assuming that they have a place on the strings in order to get a particular chopped sound.Also there is no sheet music to help with this.Niall says to cover the strings…..? Maybe the later tutorials will clarify.. thanks Sean
Hi Sean, Sorry to say that I haven’t jumped onto the chop fest yet, but have heard that covering the strings is most likely used for the basic chop to mute the strings and just create a percussive effect.
In this case its not a chord or some note it is just muting the strings in open 1st position lightly touching. Casey checkin with this to confirm its right.
So the intent is not a specific note or chord but to make that percussive effect. . Later a different touch is used to produce the chordal shops and other interesting variations.
I hope this helps and any new postings are welcome. Best to all, Roland
Niall, you should partner with Amazon! Just ordered D’Addario Kaplan rosin after seeing how slick you were putting it on your bow. One handed. Unbelievable. Chop Chop!