Workshop feedback from Fiddle Hell

Sandra L from Beverly, MA writes: "Today I was thinking about getting around to cross-tuning my fiddle - the advice you gave during FiddleHell weekend was bouncing around in my head. So now I've cross-tuned a fiddle - AEAE - and am having the absolute best time playing around. Everything sounds so BIG!  I can't wait to get together with the folks that I play with. Thank you so very much for the suggestion - and the confidence with which you gave it, which allowed me to ignore the many others who seem to think it is a no-good-very-bad thing to do to an instrument. (If they could only hear mine, they would realize that I couldn't have made the fiddle any happier.)"

It's a good day when there's email like that in my inbox. Thanks for taking the time to write, Sandra!

Evolving tune site

Hi all, I've been working towards improving my festival recordings site. Here's a link to the work in progress. It's just in the laboratory stage, a sandbox that I can play around in and see how everything works. My first thought was to keep it under wraps until it was ready, but what the heck. I think I have some friends who might be interested in the process, so have a look around and let me know what you think. The URL will change when the real thing is ready, fyi.

Sandy

Down under down under

Spending some concentrated quality time with my friends in Tasmania once again. I have to admit, today I am fiddled out. Spent all day and part of the evening playing tunes on Friday. And, lucky me, spent most of Saturday jamming at a birthday party for a banjo player. Even though there was lots of fun bluegrass, we still found time to stay in one key for long enough to get our old time on. I'm stretching now-a-days and trying to sing. It's encouraging to hear folks sing along. Gives me more confidence and positive reinforcement to ham it up more and more.

There was a Celtic session today, but I had to pass. Just needed to get a little common sense rest in.

I found the tip protector from my bow on the kitchen floor today. I thought it was a little floppy yesterday. Darn. Hope I can get it glued back on soon. Worth it to have a spare in the case, even though it'll take some getting used to.

I'm spending some time exercising my brain around a web site upgrade for my festival recordings. I'll keep hammering on that and let you know when it's ready for prime time.

It's worth it to follow those tunes that catch our interest, seems to me. I have a short list of those tunes that I've been working on and get a kick out of spreading them around down here. Wild Goose Chase, Cold Icey Floor, Logieville Two Step, Coleman's March, and Sandy. I chased Going Back To Fielden from Dirk Powell since my last visit here. Friends mentioned it last time, and it was worth the chase.

Stay tuned.