Who are the people in your neighborhood?

Where's the music? Where's your neighborhood?

One of the most frequent excuses that I hear is that folks would play more if there were more old time players in their area. It's hard to convince people that there are probably players around because it truly does feel like you're on an island without any other [fill in the blank], banjo players, OT guitar players, fiddlers, etc.

My friend in Pennsylvania has had great success with bringing players together. When I first met up with her, she was saying that there was not enough players in her area. Next thing I hear, she'd organized a monthly jam, posting notices online and around town. Now I hear she's organizing dances. I should point out that we first started corresponding on the Fiddle Hangout. Didn't meet face-to-face until we made arrangements to find each other at a festival.

So, what people think is local really needs a revisit, in my opinion. Geographically, local means one thing. Over time, local might not be as local as you think.

I have a solid group of friends that I only see at festivals. They live far away from me. Heck, I have a batch of jamming friends 12,000 miles away in Australia. Now I realize not everyone can travel around regularly to that extent. But, if you can't find folks to jam with nearby, perhaps you'd like to try widening your scope.

Reach out to folks online, post on a forum, be more descriptive in your profile so folks know what you like. People do travel now-a-days much more than ever. Maybe you can meet up from time to time at a festival. Or, travel plans can be adjusted to match a local event. I used to love traveling for work because I could schedule my trips to NYC to include an OT jam in Greenwich Village, something I'd never be able to do on my own. I include those folks amongst my favorite and long time OT friends and run into them 4 or 5 times a year at festivals. (That's more than I see some of my local friends.)

Travel a little yourself. I decided to take a 2 hour ride this past weekend over to western Massachusetts from my hometown of Albany, NY to meet up with some festival buddies. The event was publicized on Facebook. Now, now, I hear half of you moaning about 50 reasons not to flush your time down the Facebook toilet, but hear me out. That sort of distance is not something I'd normally do for a few hours of fiddling, but I had a chance to get in a real nice visit and a real nice session. Next time I run into those folks, there'll be a bigger repertoire of tunes and preferences that we'll share. I learned a thing or three more about banjo playing and bass runs, too.

Since you're reading this online, you already know the advantages of finding and sharing information on the internet. Maybe it's time to update your bookmarks, download a few more chord charts / tunelists / bowing patterns / sound files / pdf notation / and whatnot.

Heck, maybe your situation has changed and you can devote a little more time to learning that second / third / fourth instrument. Next time you find yourself whinging that there's no other [fill in the blank], banjo players, OT guitar players, fiddlers, etc. in your area, you can look in the mirror.

:-)

Festival recordings

Fiddle Jammer homepage

Time for another summer

And, that means more fiddling.

There was no drama of note this year at Yarra Junction. I survived and had one of the best festivals ever! So nice to be able to catch up to that batch of folks. And, actually, early May was a perfect time. Cool and green, not dry and dusty.

I'm back in New York State, unpacking and taking care of the stack of details that tend to accumulate when traveling. Soon as I have a moment, I'll post some tunes. And, I better do that ASAP, because here comes Black Creek, Old Songs, Harry Smith, Clifftop, and for the first time, Ashokan Fiddle and Dance camp. Woohoo!

Another Yarra Junction on the horizon

This will be my fifth in a row. I have a nice life, indeedy. Let's reminisce.

The first year, 2006, I saw my first huntsman spider. Introduced by my banjo buddy, Tom, who used a newspaper to gently nudge the beast out of the back of his van. That was the year that I camped along the fence near the trees that can suddenly drop their branches as a form of self pruning during droughts. To be fair, knowledgable people had examined the branches above and not that I noticed, but the potentially dangerous branches were probably a safe distance away.

In 2007, I scored a place for my tent under a deciduous tree, good for shade and for not dropping their branches. However, I did see a huge branch fall to earth. Twice. Now I really believed the signs that say "DO NOT CAMP UNDER THE TREES".

2008 taught me about fire preparation and snakes. A change of weather was due at 5pm and we were warned that if the wind moved toward us, an evacuation would be necessary. Promptly at 5pm, a good rain started and the wind moved away from us. A snake was spotted near the workshop building. 'nuff said about that.

And, fast forward to 2009, when the fire came too close for comfort, so the organizers deftly moved the festival over to Blackwood, VIC. And, the Blackwood festival was born. The only encounter with natural disaster that year was my introduction to March flies. A relative of the northern hemisphere's horsefly to which apparently, I have no natural immunity and scratched at those bite for months. Months.

This year, the timing of the festival was moved away from the fire season. Next week I'll make the trek to Yarra Junction in the autumn for this year's adventure. Maybe this will be the year that I'll be frozen to death before the branch falls on my snakebitten arse and the huntsmen eat me for lunch.

Time will tell. In the meantime, I will have the utmost rocking time jamming with some of the best and nicest old time players in the world. Lets hope my Zoom H2 is working and I get some recordings so you can hear some.

Koonya and Canberra

Koonya festival coming up in April here in Tassie.

I'm busy writing notes to myself and polishing up some tunes.

But, first up to Canberra for the National Folk Festival.

Fresh tunes

Some festival recordings from Blackwood.

Blackwood, VIC

Jamming there. Stop by and say hi. Let's play some tunes we don't know. :-)

Hobart, TAS

Hello from down under down under. Getting settled in and playing music every day. Translation: nothing much along the lines of news blog posts. Stay tuned. Er, cross-tuned.