Tag Archives: LOCO

No fiddle recital until spring

Posted on December 20, 2014 | 2 comments

My teacher, the amazing jazz violinist James Anderson, put off his studio’s fall recital until spring. Too many of his young students had try-outs and auditions to practice for. For us adult beginners, recitals are just a lark.

Meanwhile I still have LOCO, my mid-week gig as a contra-dance band sideman playing backup chords and Pentatonic scales for much better melody fiddlers, along with mandolinists and guitarists. It’s like a free lesson and it’s also fun. I’d forgotten how much I loved ensemble work from my high school and college days as a trumpet player.

For the spring I believe I’m going to work up at least one piece by Duke Ellington, probably Satin Doll, or maybe Prelude to A Kiss. Shoot, I might do both. When it comes to jazz I confess to liking these old ballads the best.

UPDATE:  I’m working up Prelude and a Klezmer piece, Der Yid in Yerushalayim (The Jew In Jerusalem), which includes a harmonic I’m struggling with.

MORE:  The spring recital was set for June 7 but James has canceled it in favor of a new, uncertain date in late June or mid-July. He got a June 7 gig he just could not refuse, playing in the orchestra for this famous, Grammy-winning choir.

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Posted in Fiddle Stuff, Music

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The Bodhran at LOCO

Posted on May 23, 2013 | Comments Off on The Bodhran at LOCO

Eleven folks showed up last night for our weekly pickup contra dance band, including a guy with a bodhran, a Celtic drum, which was a first since I started sitting in on backup fiddle in late February. (Last week there was a guy with a recorder but he didn’t return.)

Most of us, as usual, were fiddlers, though a guitar, a banjo and a mandolin were there to help keep the bodhran on tempo. One fiddler, a guy I like to call the banker because of the way he dresses—as if just coming from the executive suite—was really cutting loose as always, stomping both feet like a Breton fiddler, playing the melody on such pieces as The Hanged Man’s Reel.

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Posted in Music, Texana

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Hammered dulcimer

Posted on April 5, 2013 | Comments Off on Hammered dulcimer

Something new at LOCO’s weekly performance the other night: a hammered dulcimer. That sucker has 48 strings. Imagine the time consumed in tuning it. Comparable to tuning a piano.

The guy who brought it discovered it was out of tune (probably the heightened humidity from the rain that day) and didn’t seem to want to waste time tuning it, so played his fiddle instead. I think he played it once, though. It was hard to be sure, as I was sitting between an amplified fiddle and an amplified mandolin, and could hardly hear my own efforts at fiddle harmony.

I’m getting better at recognizing keys and playing chord voicings contributed by my teacher. Instead of trying to keep up on the sheet music, by counting the beats, I finally figured out what the chords look like on the guitar and now I watch those players, instead. Still a challenge to keep up, though, and I sometimes revert to long, slow bowings of the pentatonic scale in whatever the key is because it fits with every chord.

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Posted in Music, Obsessions, Texana

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