1

Discover essential teaching components that prepare you to work confidently with your first students. Observe lessons taught by other teachers, receive feedback and encouragement, and take your first steps towards building your music community.

Foundations

2

Learn popular songs from important violin-fiddle traditions. Learn to accompany your students on the ukulele. Discover how to host low-stress, no-fail jams with students and families. And receive the skills and encouragement that allow you to participate in a local community music session.

Exploration

3

Grow your repertoire and become increasingly proficient in the essential skills of a versatile, recreational violin-fiddler. Motivating your students becomes easier as you gain skills and confidence to host jams and run music events for your students. 

Social

4

Play intermediate and advanced tunes with speed and ornamentation. Experience the confidence of joining in recreational groups playing folk, jazz, and classical. Share the important concepts that you now know first-hand for enjoying these settings.

Confident

5

Play advanced violin-fiddle music with the unique sound of each style. You have the skills and experience to enjoy any recreational music setting and are leading community sessions with advanced students and skilled community players. Your students are inspired by your versatility and the joy you take in being able to play anything you hear.

Fluent

Foundations

Student Levels

• Learn the songs, skills, and essential concepts in Levels 1 & 2 of the FiddleQuest curriculum

• Observe lessons taught by other teachers 

• Receive feedback, guidance, and encouragement on your own lessons

• Learn your first chords on a ukulele, allowing you to provide rhythm support for your students

• Host a beginner fiddle jam and take your first steps toward establishing a music community

• Learn their first notes on the violin

• Develop their bow arm and left hand

• Start on the path to building a strong ear that will allow them to play whatever they hear

• Be comfortable being accompanied by you or a parent on the ukulele or guitar

• Play simple melodies like Twinkle and Row Your Boat

• Join other students in beginner jams and take the first steps to playing socially

Student Levels

Exploration

• Learn the songs, skills, and essential concepts in Levels 3 & 4

• Learn to accompany students on the ukulele on all the songs in these levels

• Learn to host low-stress, no-fail jams with your students and families

• Participate in zoom meetings with experienced FiddleQuest teachers

• Receive the skills and encouragement that allow you to participate in a community music session

• Play 24 popular American, Irish, and Scottish tunes

• Grow the number of notes they can hear, process, and play back when they are learning a new tune

• Play several 2-octave scales

• Learn to improvise (using the same keys as the scales)

• Start to sight-read harmony parts and follow chord charts

• Take part in student jams with enough music in their repertoire to play for a couple of hours

Student Levels

Social

Student Levels

Confident

Student Levels

Fluent

• Learn the songs, skills, and essential concepts in Levels 5 & 6

• Learn to lead your students in busking in your community

• Plan and run a motivating adventure for your students

• Run regular jams for your students and local musicians

• Add Scandinavian, old-time, and bluegrass styles to their repertoire

• Increase their playing speeds to a moderate tempo 

• Improve their intonation quickly, sped along by their heavy reliance on ear-learning

• Sight-read triplets, accidentals, and dynamics

• Learn ornamentation, including Irish flicks and rolls, Scottish burls, and classical vibrato

• Grow more confident in playing with (and for) others, busk (playing on the street for tips), play in jams, and participate in school orchestras

• Learn the songs, skills, and essential concepts in Levels 7 & 8

• Learn to accompany singers

• Participate in an Irish session and a bluegrass jam

• Learn to run a low-stress 3-day fiddle camp

• Embark on different adventures with students both in and out of town

• Play popular blues, jazz, and classical music 

• Recognize musical patterns, making it easier for them to quickly learn songs from longer phrases

• Learn Irish and Scottish sets (3 or 4 songs strung together)

• Sight-read different key signatures, time signatures, intermediate articulations, and dynamics

• Join old-time, Irish, and bluegrass sessions and back-up singers and instrumentalists with improvised harmonies, comping, and solo breaks

• Learn the songs, skills, and essential concepts in Levels 9 & 10

• Enjoy the confidence of knowing hundreds of pieces of music

• Play and teach the songs and skills required to be a versatile musician who is welcome and comfortable in any music session

• Take part in epic adventures with other FQ teaching communities

• Play at a high level of musicianship

• Be welcome in any recreational setting (and some professional ones, too) 

• Play at fast speeds with rich tone and genre-specific ornamentation

• Be able to improvise music that creatively fits different styles (e.g., jazz, blues, bluegrass, pop)

• Play advanced classical music that goes above the 3rd position 

• Sight-read at a level acceptable for a youth symphony or community orchestra

• Learn that they can dig deeper into their favorite style of music and develop into a performance-level player