Eagle Nest

This is a bald eagle's nest here locally on Lake Norfork. I drive by it every time I go to town and make a point to at least glance in it's direction, if I don't stop along the side of the road to watch the goings-on. Sometimes there's nothing much to see, but some days I get lucky and can view both prospective eagle parents, sometimes just one, going about their eagle business. They seem unfazed by people stopping to watch.

It struck me the other day as I was driving by that maybe I was taking this pretty wondrous opportunity to keep tabs on an eagle's nest for granted. Not everyone gets to see an eagle's nest every day and the thought "blog fodder!" crossed my mind, so I grabbed my camera and snapped a pic. The mama is sitting in the nest, though you can't see her due to distance and angle - you'll just have to trust I didn't take a picture of a sparrow's nest. The nest is so massive usually all a person can see is her head poking out.

Dad and I set up his spotting scope last year to take a peek, and sure enough - she was there, her eye glaring a hole in us as if to say, "If I weren't busy with eggs at the moment, I would gladly fly right down there and rip your face off."

Folk Alliance - part Dos

You're absolutely right, I am unabashedly milking our Folk Alliance experience for all it's worth by making it into two posts. But, as I've said before, it's my blog.

During fiddle lessons this week, Violet and I both lamented that we're still walking on a musical cloud, hearing tunes in our heads, still tapping our feet when there's nothing to listen to. After hearing so much music round-the-clock for days, it seems kind of quiet and empty this week. I guess there's always a little bit of blues that come around after a really great experience, even though you're glad to be back home. At least we have some really good new cd's to listen to.

Here's a few more pictures from last week.

This is Violet "lobby-jamming" with the banjo picker from the Virgina band "Old Sledge", Delmer Holland's grandson (white hat), and Matt Kinman from North Carolina. You can't see me since I'm of course behind the camera, but for most of these jam sessions I played fiddle on the tunes I could play and the spoons on the ones I couldn't. Matt Kinman is a crazy-good fiddler (as well as guitar and banjo-picker), and eventually he picked up a fiddle to play and handed me his guitar, drawling, "Here, you wanna jine in an pick 'iss fer a while?" Sadly, I don't know the first thing about guitars, and had to decline, to which he smiled and said, "Girl, you need to be larnin'...yer sure missin' out."

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Yeah, tell me about it...

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One evening during all the crazy goings-on, I left Violet and Sterling listening to another old-time band to go hear Ray Wylie Hubbard, who was performing in one of the bigger, very crowded, conference rooms where they were feeding live to XM Radio. I caught a second-row aisle seat because I had it on good authority from my brother that I didn't want to miss seeing Hubbard. It's hard to put Hubbard into a particular genre - he's kind of Texas Red Dirt country meets blues meets back-porch strumming meets rock. My brother was right for insisting I make a point to see him...unlike most of the performers at this conference, Hubbard has gained some modest popularity, and I was familiar with a few of his songs. But not just that, he was a heck of a performer, even with just himself and a guitar. I was really hoping to hear "Redneck Mother", but he said he was playing some of his "better songs" he'd written due to this "higher class" audience. That made me laugh out loud. So, he mostly sang ballads, but he did sneak in "Snake Farm", which I'm pretty sure is my new favorite song. Kind of makes me want to go get a tattoo of a python wearing a sailor hat eating a mouse. Not really...

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One of the events we participated in was the Fiddle Summit, hosted by Matt Brown. Fiddle Summit consisted of a bunch of fiddlers from very different genres and playing styles. This is Tennessee fiddler Delmer Holland (what better name for a fiddler) and his grandson showing off Delmer's old-time style, with Matt looking on. As you can imagine, Delmer and Violet hit it off like peas and carrots.

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Delmer is quite an inspiration to me. He was a guitar picker who's Dad and other relatives played the fiddle, but he'd never had much interest in learning. When he was in his 60's their band needed a fiddler, so he took the instrument up and taught himself. Now in his 80's, he's an old-time fiddling whiz, winning competitions left and right. His story is a good lesson on "it's never too late." In addition - I couldn't tell by listening to him but he ONLY notes with his first two fingers! He said when he was learning, he could just never get the other two fingers to work...pretty amazing if you hear him play. (To hear him, youtube "The Blue Creek Ramblers")

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Here's Matt Kinman at the Fiddle Summit. I was quite enamored with Matt's playing - you can't tell from a picture how he was flying all over that fiddle in some crazy cross-tunings while playing it in the real old-time style - with the instrument at his chest. This is the way Violet's Dad played, and how she first started playing. I can play a few songs this way, but certain parts of my anatomy make it difficult. That, and, I tend to get wild tapping my foot, which makes this style of playing practically impossible for me at this point.

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Here's Violet, as she says, "showing out" at Fiddle Summit. She was quite proud of my fiddle, and insisted on playing it during the Summit. I didn't argue.
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The Fiddle Summit was our last scheduled appearance, and we spent the rest of our time jamming with other Old Time enthusiasts. Matt Brown writes about us on his blog:
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http://www.brownsdream.us/blog

It's funny that he recognized that the "Old Timers" (one of the conference organizers called us all "The Old Time Kids") couldn't resist jamming at the drop of a hat, in any given area at any given time, unlike some of the other music genre performers who were a bit more refined and reserved.

While at the conference I was asked what spurred me to all of a sudden learn the fiddle in my 30's. I don't have a really good explanation for why I never started early, except that it didn't really cross my mind as something I could actually do. Kind of like when you're a kid wishing, "I wish I could go to the moon and live in a rocket ship and have a pet Martian." I'm sure if I'd asked, my folks would have done whatever was needed to get me playing, but as it was my heart wasn't really into the piano lessons they were paying for, and I was thinking much more about sports and boys and how to finagle my way into getting the latest "in" pair of jeans. I've always been drawn to the fiddle and stringband music, hid my bluegrass cd's under the driver's seat in my car in college, and always kept it in the back of my mind that I might want to learn someday - someday when I could stand the "un-coolness" of it. Then all of a sudden out of nowhere, age 30 smacked me right in the face, and I realized that I was either going to spend my life whining and wishing I'd played a fiddle, or I was really going to buckle down and do it. I had a false start in my 20's - the desire was there, but not the dedication it takes to learn a particularly difficult instrument.

I've been surprised to discover how many people find an interest in learning an instrument, a language, or an appreciation for a new sport or hobby far into adulthood, so I don't feel QUITE so "johnny-come-lately" as I have in the past. In addition, I have the hope that I can become a good musician in my lifetime, even though I didn't start as a kid - as long as I'm having fun.
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By far, the best part of last week was the playing of music simply for the sheer joy of it, and not caring who was listening. When you can join in with other instruments, everything else in the world falls away and it's just pure happiness. I guess that's why I'm addicted. At one point in our jams, we'd attracted nearly 30 other players, and I was surprised to notice that not only had we attracted all those musicians, but quite a crowd of onlookers taking pictures, as well as a documentary film crew.

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The best compliment I received all week, besides the person who told me my fiddle didn't look handmade (that had me walking in the clouds), was the lady who'd been playing fiddle her whole life, turned to me in a jam session and said, "Wow - how do you do that? You play JUST like Violet." I nearly melted into the floor.

I really look forward to having much more music in my future.

Folk Alliance - part Uno

(Thank-you Hannah for the title)

Whew! After nearly five days at the 2010 Folk Alliance Conference held at the massive downtown Marriott in Memphis, as Grandpa would say, I'm worn to a frazzle. It's nice to be home after what had to have been some of the craziest days of my entire life, but what a great experience and awesome opportunity it was to hob-nob with some truly amazing musicians and performers.

I can safely say this conference was really nothing like I expected. Yes, there was plenty of "traditional folk" performed by typical granolas that you think of when you hear the word, but this group's definition of "folk" encompasses MUCH more than I dreamed possible. There were Jazz and Blues groups - some with only string instruments, some with brass, Old Time string bands (my favorite, of course), Bluegrass bands, Cajun fiddlers, Gospel bands featuring steel guitars, International bands featuring everything from traditional Irish/Celtic performers to Australian bands with drums and didgeridoos - and everything in between, including blends of different genres and styles. I saw every instrument you could possibly imagine - aside from every stringed instrument from fiddles to cellos to harps, brass and wind instruments, harmonicas, every kind of drum (even trash can lids for cymbals)....I even saw a huge xylophone being wheeled through the lobby.

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I witnessed some heated debate between many participants as to what the broad term "Folk" actually encompasses...which I found out was not just an ongoing debate, but additionally spurred by the Alliance's decision to recognize Bob Dylan with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Apparently this is a touchy subject with a lot of people in the folk world, and really I didn't understand the argument, but it seemed to center on "is Dylan really folk since he was popular and went electric?" Of course Bob Dylan wasn't there, but since his response likely would've been incoherent it probably didn't matter. During some performances, especially by older performers who were a self-proclaimed part of the "Big Folk-Scare of the Sixties" (whatever that was), disparaging remarks were made toward Dylan, as well as other popular folkies of the time like Peter, Paul, and Mary and Gordon Lightfoot. Apparently to some you're not "folk" if you get popular...because if you get popular you bow to "The Man" and are a puppet of "evil corporate America." Seriously - that is verbatim.

Eventually through the course of the week, Violet, Sterling, and I were drawn together with the other old-time string band musicians to hang out, visit, and jam, as well as listen to each other's performances.

The FA Conference is a bit hard to describe, but seems mostly to be a way for musicians, groups, singers, and songwriters to be heard by agents, producers, record label representatives, festival organizers, etc in the hopes of getting recorded or to be hired for gigs, and to just get a little publicity. The way the FA organizers allow so many performers to be heard is by having "Showcases" in all the conference rooms, one after another all evening. all at the same time. In addition, the three upper floors of the hotel were nearly round-the-clock smaller "Private Showcases", where in every room a performer or group were able to do a few songs for whoever could jam themselves into the room long enough to listen...each room on each floor a constant revolving door for all kinds of performers until well into the wee hours of the morning. The halls and elevators were crammed with agents with clipboards, musicians, instruments, and us. And while all this was going on, jam sessions were happening all over the place. In every nook and cranny of the huge fancy lobby, in the elevators, hallways, and even on the street outside just a few blocks from Beale street.

Our small part in this conference was mainly to get Violet to the Awards Ceremony, where she received her award and performed a song for a pretty huge audience. She also had a 30 minute interview in one of the conference rooms. Then, she was given a Showcase of her own to perform.

Here are some pics from the week. Unfortunately the pictures don't do the conference justice. If you can imagine a couple thousand people running around this hotel, all carrying instruments, jamming everywhere...that's pretty accurate. Music was coming from every corner of the hotel at any given time of day or night.

Here is Violet in her interview done by fiddler/banjo-picker/producer Matt Brown, from Pennsylvania.

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Violet played "Buffalo Nickel" with plenty of accompaniment at the Awards Ceremony on Wednesday night for a crowd of several hundred in one of the hotel's big conference rooms.

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Violet jamming with the awesome bluegrass group "The Chapmans", who play the kind of bluegrass that really rolls around in your gut. I'd seen them perform at Silver Dollar City before, and they were one of the best groups at the conference - definitely the best in the bluegrass genre.

Sterling and Violet playing in the Showcase, along with Matt Brown (banjo) and Tracy Schwartz (guitar). By the time she finished, there wasn't even standing room left, and people were stacked out in the hall. To say Violet was "The Belle of the Ball" is pretty apt.

More to come! There are just too many pictures, and too much to describe in just one post.

My Fiddle

Yesterday, after a year and a half of hard work, big aggrivations, small victories, and a lot of inhaled sawdust and literal blood, sweat and tears, I finished my fiddle. Once I got the strings strung, the soudpost set (a hard thing to do with shaking hands), and the instrument tuned up, I handed the fiddle over to Violet so she could play the first tune, which was "Angeline the Baker", followed by "Marmaduke's Hornpipe." Then I played a few songs. Then we both got giddy and giggly because is sounded so good, and started calling people to hear it...I'm pretty sure we hit all of Violet's kids, as well as my folks and husband.

Since everyone interested probably wants me to shut up and see what the finished product looks like, here are some pictures:

Here's my fiddle with the finish on, nearly ready for assembly. I used several coats gun stock finish, which REALLY changed the look and brought out the beauty of the sassafras, walnut, and cherry.


The completed walnut chin rest, ready to go on.
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Making the sound post, which is a round peg of soft pine about 1/4" thick which stands up between the top and the bottom inside the fiddle. Kind of tricky to get it set up and in the right place, especially when it's the only thing left before hearing the fiddle.
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Drumroll......Ta Daaa! Strung, tuned, and ready to play. This is also the part where I came dangerously close to crying.
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My fiddle mentor seems very pleased.
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Holy Cow, it sure does feel WONDERFUL to have completed something I wasn't really sure I'd be able to fully tackle. Technically it isn't "completed", as I still need to add the purfling, which is the decorative line that goes around the perimeter of the top and back. It also supposedly will stop a crack if it forms. I was on the fence about adding it and wanted to take some time to think about it, but now that I've pondered it over, it does seem unfinished without it.

Even without purfling, I am incredibly happy with the result. The fiddle has good deep tone and is very loud, which was exactly what I was after. For at least two weeks of hard playing the fiddle will continue to improve in sound, and as the wood and strings settle it'll gradually even out and keep changing a little over the next six months or so. At least, that's what I'm told happens with a new fiddle.

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I've already been asked if there will be a number two. I think yes...I already have some beautiful flamed maple for a back and spruce for a top, which will make a much more "traditional" fiddle, as most factory made fiddles are made with maple and spruce - not sassafras and cherry. And of course I can't give up my days with Violet, though after we move they'll likely have to be spread further apart. Violet is already planning on me making another. She told me yesterday, "you've got the touch." Haha...I don't know about "the" touch, but as much fun as I have both playing and making them, even though I'm not that good yet, I think fiddles will be sticking with me for a good long while.

Nearing the End of My Fiddle Quest

Before I start talking fiddle, I want to say congrats to the Saints for their first Superbowl win. I wish I were a little more invested in the game last night, but unless the Chiefs are involved (fat chance there), or I have the opportunity to root against the Broncos, Raiders, or the Cowboys, it's hard to get really into it. But, I watched the game, and called my friend Laura, a New Orleans native, upon the interception that pretty much sealed the game. I can only imagine what Bourbon Street was like last night by the way Laura answered the phone...she had slipped back into New Orleans speak, screaming, and I couldn't understand a word she said for a good five minutes. She was excited, to say the least. Enjoy basking in the glory, Laura!

Back to the real point of this particular blog post...

For a year and a half now, I've been keeping what I hope are interested readers updated on the progress of making my own fiddle under the tutelage of famed fiddle-maker Violet Hensley. This week I'm finally nearing the end of what feels like a monumental quest, and it's probable, barring no unforeseen difficulties (and I've learned in fiddle-making to expect the unexpected catastrophe) that this will be the week I finally find out what my fiddle will sound like. However, it won't be me doing the initial playing - Violet already called dibs on the first song. To me this is akin to the Pope giving a blessing (if I were Catholic), so when the time comes I will happily hand it over.

Here are some highlights of the past few weeks:

Heating the hide glue (it's made from animal hide, which should give a good idea to how it smells) that is traditionally used to glue the body of the fiddle together. This glue is water soluble and makes future repair jobs possible, since water can be used to break down the glue without damaging the wood.

Top glued and clamped...

This was a biggie - gluing on the fingerboard. I used Elmer's glue for this step, which feels oh so permanent, which meant no room for error getting it lined up with where the end pin will go, risking the strings not lining up with the fingerboard. I also did some heavy-duty stressing out because it turned out my neck wasn't really tall enough, so notice the strip of "decorative" maple between the neck and fingerboard.
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Carving the chin rest out of walnut. I could've just bought a plastic one, but I wanted to make as much as possible by hand. (I keep reminding myself of this when I know the fiddle could've been completed long ago by using factory-made pieces for the end-pin, saddle, nut, chin rest, and tail piece).

I'm already wondering what to do when this fiddle is complete. During this difficult transition time when hubby is working in Little Rock while I'm here trying to sell the house and get packed, fiddle lessons have not only kept me grounded, but have been a real outlet for stress relief. Soon, though, the whole "Hooter crew" will be together again, forging ahead into a new life phase. I hope fiddles will be a permanent fixture.

Stay tuned for the Grande Finale!

Spending Spree

Yesterday I woke up to the omnious news that our country is in imminent danger of losing it's AAA credit rating.

Holy Cow.

I guess the thing that gets me the most is that as I did my morning cable news channel surf (even though Obama says we shouldn't watch these channels now), not everyone was reporting on this. And, most people don't get it. If we lose our AAA rating, interest rates will skyrocket, and life as we know it will change big-time. I should think that fact would be a little more important than discussing the latest American Idol episode. We're already seeing China, who owns the massive portion of our debt, starting to flex some political muscles.

And of course, all this talk of federal debt and spending has me thinking of our own debt and spending.

A few weeks ago our massive 40-something-inch rear-projection TV gave up the ghost and went out. For months now, we've been content to watch the ailing television, pretending not to notice the bright line forming at the top of the screen, which soon became a screen-wide permanent fixture along with an ever-increasing fuzziness and compression of the whole picture. A few weeks ago it degraded further, until the picture was like trying to watch a 3-D movie without the glasses, all slanted to the side. I resisted the knee-jerk reaction to run around the yard, arms flailing, yelling, "OH NO OUR TV IS DOOMED!"...and also resisted immediately jumping in the car and running to Sears to drop the several thousand dollars that we need to spend on new flooring in our new house on a new big-screen television instead.

It's amazing how quickly we adapt to technology. What we used to live just fine without are now considered essential parts of our lives. Daily Internet access, Smart phones, and ipods, as well as big screen TVs, are just a few of the things that didn't exist a few years ago, but now we can't seem to live without them.

When Marden and I first started dating, I was amazed he had such a huge TV (compared to my 19" I bought on a meager park ranger salary) and didn't think I could ever get used to it. Now that we've switched back to my old 19" upon the death of his big screen, I feel I should be using binoculars from the couch.

My husband summed up his feelings with, "I guess we need a new television." I was quick to agree...until it hit me - do we really? My 19" provides a clear picture, clear sound, and does everything our old TV did, just on a smaller scale. Do we really need to buy a new television just because this one, new just four years ago, is working fine but is just too small for our standards? Should we not wait until we're in a better financial situation to upgrade our television? Then answer is a big, fat YES...and not only that, it should be common sense.

The whole TV experience has me thinking about our current values and the way we spend money, and how we our definition of "needs" and "wants" has gotten a bit skewed. It's been discussed over and over again how Americans are not smart with money, and how we constantly spend beyond our means...and from the individual to our highest government, spending is totally out of control. It's the view of many economists that our cavalier attitude about money is what kicked our economy in the nether regions in the first place.

I've actually had the "unaffordable health care" conversation with an individual who was lamenting about not being able to afford health insurance, but who's house is chock full of the latest in entertainment technology. It's hard to take someone seriously when they are saying, "we just can't afford to buy our own insurance" when in the background there is a 50" flat-screen LCD television with a surround sound system topped off with a Blu-Ray player and 100+ movies and video games, not to mention the gazillion-channel HD dish package. Really? You can't afford $300/month for your family's health care? And the sad thing is, I'm afraid this person represents the majority. It's the entitlement mindset creeping in. The true feeling with some people is, "I shouldn't HAVE to spend $300/month on health insurance because I want all this other stuff."

I'm not going to beat the health care debate drum or get overly political in this post, but to me it's all pretty closely related. I hear people gripe about not having enough and that our government should do something about it, instead of taking steps themselves to improve their situation. Just go to Walmart and pay attention to what people buy - nearly every cart I see is full of luxury items and very unhealthy food choices.

I'm not in any way downplaying the seriousness of the state of our economy, nor am I putting everyone in the same category. There are plenty of people out there doing the best they can and making wise decisions with what they have who still need help. But I wonder about the attitude of our society as a whole. It seems the attitude of "keeping up with the Jones'" has become the acceptable norm rather than a negative way to conduct personal affairs. We're in bad need of re-evaluating what are "needs" and what are "wants."

Believe it or not - I'm not trying to be preachy. It's something I take serious and intend to seriously evaluate in my own life.

When we live in an ever-increasing entitlement mentality world where WANTS are now NEEDS...and people are looking to other sources for their perceived needs. It seems more and more people are choosing not to rely on themselves, but would rather look for the hand-out, without even really realizing it.

Amazing how the simple loss of television can cause you to question not only your own values, but the values of society as a whole.




"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our selection between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude..." - Thomas Jefferson



"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." - Thomas Jefferson



"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves." - William Pitt in the House of Commons, 1783.



"Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin