fiddlin' around with this 'n that

Test

2012-02-11T14:23:00.001-08:00

Testing to re open this blog

A little Blanket-Makin'...

2011-03-01T14:44:00.000-08:00

've been doin' a little blanket-makin' in the evenings while spending time with a relative... here's one of the latest, made for grandson Roro, who loves to yell out "QUACK-QUACK" whenever he sees a duck. This is his new blankie from his granny, so he can be inspired to yell out duck calls all the time now. I've been busy with another one, sort of a surprise for another family member... will put up a photo of that one once it's finished... sort of my own method, so to speak... partially borrowed, partially stolen, and partially inspired by other similar techniques in crochet I've read about. Since I went through all the trouble to borrow some, steal some, and think up the rest, I'll call it my own technique of crocheting reversible picture blankets.

Fun with Cripple Creek while in West Virginia in 2008

2011-02-17T07:14:00.000-08:00

Just a couple of clips with Dwight Diller of West Virginia. In the first clip we can see an example of how Dwight plays the fiddle on Cripple Creek. He told me many times he doesn't go for the idea of patterns or exact shuffles and licks on fiddle so much as just getting the general feel that you get with a banjo's bum-diddy, bump-diddy, boom-a-lack-a, or whatever else type of feel that carries the tune. Of course, Dwight seems to not really consider himself any sort of formidable force on the fiddle... I do like his fiddling: I think it's an honest, clean type of fiddling and it works out really well. He is the ultimate master of clawhammer banjo, though, and that's where his true art lies. Still, he is also unique and good on fiddle and teaches many people a lot about that instrument. Dwight cross-tunes for anything he plays on fiddle and I didn't see him in standard GDAE tuning once during the three days we spent at his place in West Va, back three years ago when I recorded these. By the way, my daughter and I were playing banjos along while he fiddled Cripple Creek, and it sounds like he was hollering out "DUMB!" in my direction as I played... but he was hollering out "THUMB!" because he was trying to show me how to drive the rhythm much stronger with the thumb in clawhammer banjo.

In the second clip... we get to see how a person born to play clawhammer banjo and who can play at any speed can take something like Cripple Creek and play it at a snail's pace and still get it to feeling like it has a bunch of life to it. We had that discussion because in all of my years of playing any instrument or any music I've played, for some reason I have always tended to take things slower and prefer them at a much slower pace than average. Dwight is ok with the whole idea, but his feeling is that you can tame the tune fast if you really wanna make it sound like something slow.

I should mention the guy in the coveralls sitting there with a banjo is Dwight's son, Caleb, also a really good clawhammer banjo player.

nice fiddlin'!

2011-02-08T07:52:00.000-08:00

Annie and I were lucky enough to make it out to the Vandalia Gathering in West Virginia three years ago. We mostly went to get the John Morris's fiddle jam. I played banjo on this one, one of my favorite old time tunes... had to turn the camera over to Annie really fast. I think John Morris is about the best old time, Appalachian style fiddler around today that I've seen or heard of. His playing reminds me a lot of some extremely elderly fiddlers I'd heard playing here and there in my past. Morris has been a huge inspiration to my own quest for finding my way in Old Time fiddling.