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The muse of joy and sorrow why people play feedle(stories)

The Christmas Fiddle

This is a true story...

It was Christmas Eve, 1977. I had made up my mind to buy my wife a fiddle, but my funds, as always, were limited. I knew nothing about violins; I still don't. But I knew the difference a decent guitar can make to a new player and so I was a bit discouraged by the the fiddles I had found for the price I could afford...

On that Christmas Eve I was chatting with man on the subway about Christmas and presents, and he asked me if I had been to Weaver's Violins downtown. I said, no, I'd never heard of it. I've been looking in the folkie places, the places I knew best. After work I took the subway up and found Weaver's, I think it was on 13th Street then.

Well, it was a violin shop all right. It was the sort of violin shop, however, where the violins cost more than houses in the suburbs. I was ignorant of course, so I strolled up asked the price of the violin in the case in front the older gentlemen standing there. He looked me over, and answered rather flatly, "$35,000". He was, I found later, Mr. Weaver himself, and he turned away to help another customer whom he seemed to greet as an old friend. Clearly I was in the wrong place. I began to circle the shop as if actually looking at the violins, keeping up appearances, but I was headed for the door.

On my way out I passed the repair shop and peeked in. A young man looked up from the violin he was working on and smiled and asked if he could help me. I said thanks but I'm afraid I'm a bit out of place here. He asked me why and I told him that I was looking for a violin for my wife but not one as expensive as they sold. He asked if I played, and I told him about my folk music and that my wife had expressed an interest to learn the fiddle. I hoped, I told him, that we would be able to make music together.

While we talked I was watching him change the bridge on a violin and I asked about the different shape of the bridge, and I sat down on the chair opposite him while he explained. We chatted for a few minutes about the difference between the setup for fiddling as opposed to violin playing, but finally I rose to leave and was about to say goodbye, when he said,

"Wait, how much money do you have?"

"Well, I only have $200 dollars."

He looked at me for a moment, and then he went to a nearby shelf and brought back a violin and handed it to me. It was gorgeous. It felt well-balanced, the wood was lovely and the finish beautiful.

"Could you play it for me?" I asked, handing it back. He did so. It had a beautiful tone.

"You'll need a bow as well." I'm sitting there speechless as he puts the violin in a case along with the bow he had used, and then he motioned for me to follow and led me back out into the shop. He crossed to where Mr. Weaver stood, handed him the case, and said,

"$200.00."

Mr. Weaver looked at him and then at me, and then opened the case.

"You're giving him this violin. Why?"

"It's Christmas."

And he did. So you see there is Christmas magic. It happened to me.
by SHaron Goldwasser

Music for the birds

A few months ago a couple of musicians I know started talking about being attacked by birds while playing out of doors. I would have thought it was a joke, but it happened to me also. I went out on a friend's deck to play my fiddle, and I no sooner played a couple of notes then two chickadees crashed into the back of my head, landed on the nearby bird feeder and began jabbering at me. One of them pooped on my fiddle case and they flew off in a huff. No joke!

I've played on that deck several times before and since, but that was the only occurance. I also play a lot outdoors when visiting a friend in Vermont and though there are lots of birds, the worst I ever encounter is his dog's desire to sing along.

The two young musicians mentioned earlier were both mystified by their attacks. One of them is a very good violinist, so the birds that attacked me were probably not music critics. The other is a bagpiper, and is used to taking risks with critics. My one theory is that I interrupted the birds in the middle of a song, and they interpreted my butting in as something very rude and expressed their annoyance in no uncertain terms.

Breaking the Code

Summer music camp is intense - it goes on all day, and the experiences it generates can be equally intense. There's one I'll never forget. While teaching young fiddlers at my Amherst, Massachusetts camp, one student had a breakthrough. She had great ear learning abilities, but had been blocked about learning to read music. I never pushed sight-reading, just taught her by ear since her piano teacher had tried to force her to sight read, making her even more resistant to learning that way.

At camp that year I included a Swedish waltz, "Vals from Boda" and had the students read and play the tune at the very same time that I played a Swedish recording of fiddlers playing that tune. The students were hearing it loudly while they were reading it and playing along. Halfway through the tune, one girl started to gush tears and kept playing throughout the tears, and when she could talk she said, "I can READ! It makes sense to me now!" Somehow the totality of hearing and reading and playing the tune at the same time helped her to break the code and understand what she saw on the page. To celebrate, we waltzed off the porch and around my house several times playing the tune, and my student's eyes weren't the only ones full of tears.


by Donna Hébert , a New England contradance and Franco-American fiddler and teacher.

To Sail Like a Hawk on the Wind

I'm not sure that you can ever transmit by word the feeling a musician has when in the "pocket". I am a guitar player singer-songwriter first. and started teaching myself fiddle in 1996. I love it, but don't give it as much time as I should.The feeling I have when 3 or 4 of us begin to sing harmony, working our way intuitively on a song we may have never sung together before - that momentwhen 4 voices make that perfect ethereal chord!!!

Your blood seems to vibrate with that chord. It's that feeling. I have had that resonance playing fiddle with others, too. It is that Zen moment of becoming one witht he universe. Like a guitar string in perfect tune will do a 360 degree roll when plucked. That perfect vibration of time and space. When I sing black gospel music and I get down deep, I cry. I am overcome with that visceral "God gave me this voice to sing his name with all my soul" - that is a musician's reward, and why we play and why we sing. For those moments of sheer joy and release from earthbound status to sail like a hawk on the wind.

by Charisse Lowe , a musician from Wichita, Kansas.

Serenade for the Ducks

I've played a lot of quirky gigs in the Spring in New York City, but my favorite one was the year I got a call from a lovelorn fellow who'd been rejected by his true love. He'd rented the boathouse in Central Park, which hadn't yet opened for the season, and hired a famous chef, one waitress, and one jazz violinist -- me. The object of his affection's employer was in cahoots, using the pretense of a client meeting to send her out of the office late afternoon. When she arrived via a car service, probably wondering why her boss had suddenly sprung for such lush transportation, she found a romantic setting that even the steel-hearted couldn't resist.

But my story actually isn't about this couple. As I stood on the dock outside the boathouse overlooking the pond playing jazz standards such as "Lover Man," "You," "The Night and the Music," and "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To," my violin wove a magical spell that no one could have predicted. All of the ducks in the pond gradually migrated over to the dock, climbed aboard and formed a silent semi-circle around me.

I suppose one could say that the success of the event could be measured by the fact that my employer had scored such a success that he and his "I will - I do" companion were too wrapped up in apologies and romance to notice. For me, however, it was the clamor the ducks raised when my time was up and I turned to pack up my violin. They let me know that I'd achieved the absolute heights every artist dreams of. If you've ever had a dozen ducks quacking noisily a foot away with their beady eyes happily fixated on you, you may understand why I left this gig with a singing heart.

Julie Lyonn Lieberman ,a jazz violinist,

Waltzing with Walker

Recently, we (the Jackson Creek String Band) concluded our set at the Tavares Florida Heritage Day Celebration with "The Tennessee Waltz." Throughout the afternoon we'd noticed several older folks who seemed to very much enjoy the tunes from the past. A particular couple sat through several hours of music obviously enjoying it, singing along.

As we started the waltz, the gentleman, who used a walker to help himself get around, stood up and motioned for his wife to join him. He pulled her toward him and they danced, first with the walker between them. Then he pushed it aside and they swayed to the music, smiling, talking, and obviously remembering times from the past.

It was a special moment for us in the band. After we finished, she came up and said "we haven't danced in years,and we enjoyed it so - thank you."

Sometimes we play for money. Most of the time we play for the special moments. I LOVE playing waltzes!

Katie Bailey - Ormond Beach, FL

big baroque violin

violin and guitar -picasso

is the violin your preferred music instrument, lorie?

do you know... i used to play flute when i was kid, and i really loved it, i was all the day long playing and playing, blowing in my flute (getting on the nervs to my family by the way :p)... oh but when i took classes at school, the professor of music subject was so bad, he used to get furious with all of us, and i got really scared of him... so much, that i used to play truant in that subject... so i didn't learn anymore music.

See, thanks to my professor, the world lost the best flute player, better than Hamelin's flautist:p

freaky

i bet you made everybody in your family with headaches.

u know i have always liked string instruments.
when i was younger i used to play mandoline. i took private courses with a teacher.he was a very nice one
but then i quit cos it seemed so hard at the time, and i wanted to learn everything fast, so eager to learn everything fast...