A tiny break in the fog brings joy to all

The sun burst forth late in the evening yesterday. I went to the park to play my fiddle with the Glendessary Jam. There was a huge turnout. Everyone was so happy. It was warm and beautiful. We played tunes in the key of G which for some reason seem to be really fun and full of variation.

The park was full of people. A group was belly dancing. A couple was getting married in the gazebo. Baby ducklings were bobbing in the pond. People would come by to hear the music and dance. I didn't wear a down jacket. Ah, this is what summer is supposed to be like.

Of course the fog was rolling back in before the music was over. I could feel the cold wind. My fingers were getting cold and stiff. I went home, having enjoyed a brief moment of happiness. It's another gray day today. Back to my down, back to the gloom, back to barely feeling alive.

Seed Exchange jam session

I played my fiddle with the Glendessary jammers today at the Seed Exchange. We were lucky there were sunny skies. It has been raining every day like cats and dogs all this week and the rain is supposed to return tomorrow. There's even a layer of snow on the tops of our mountains. This is not a usual occurrence. You can bet there are people up there building snow mans and little kids seeing the snow for the first time in their lives.

The Seed Exchange is one of those events that gives me hope for humanity. People were there just giving away seeds and gardening advice. Nothing real elaborate.

The reason the Seed Exchange gives me hope for humanity is because it's the exact opposite of what I learned about watching the movie Future of Food (or see their web site here.) There is true evil in the world and it's well described by this movie. Sometimes I go back and forth between whether I want any hope for humanity or whether it would be best to allow the evil described in that film to win. Maybe humanity isn't worth saving. Anyway, hope does feel good and things like making your own home-grown music and home-grown food provide big doses of it.

At the seed exchange I picked up some scarlet runner beans and pole beans seeds and some kind of herb I already forgot the name of. My little garden is too small to get greedy about free seeds. Lots of lettuce is growing. I made a nice salad the other night. Not sure where the beans are going to fit. Maybe in some pots.

After the playing the music, I walked down to the music shop to get new rosin for my bow and a new chin rest for my fiddle.

On the way home, I decided I would walk home in my bare feet, a distance of about a mile and a half. Some kind of street tree has dropped all kinds of sticky berries all over the sidewalks. It was difficult to walk with them stuck to my feet, forming a crust of sticky seeds all around the edges of my feet. It was kind of awful, but once I got that stuff on my feet, I didn't want to put my shoes back on.

Speaking of music, I decided to order a plastic PVC flute from Doug Tipple in the key of E. I placed my order this afternoon. With an E flute I will be able to play A tunes using G fingering. They sometimes play A tunes at the Irish session and I can almost pick them up on the fly, but that darn G# always messes me up. An E flute will make that easier. Or if not, at least it'll make for a nice camping flute.

They had a reed E flute made in India at the music shop where I got the rosin for only $16. It sounded really nice. It seems each key has it's own feeling, and E sounds rich and lovely. I suppose I could have gotten the reed flute instead. But it might not have been in tune. Doug's flutes may be made of simple materials, but they are of excellent quality and are in tune. They sound great too.

I'm learning to play the fiddle

I've been trying to learn to play the fiddle. It's been a long, slow, sporadic adventure.

I bought a fiddle and starting attending the adult education fiddle class about 12-15 years ago, but I didn't keep up with it because I had to sneak out from work to attend the classes and then leave early from the class. Eventually, I didn't go back to the classes.

Not long ago, I was playing my flute in the Irish session when someone suggested I come to the old-time jam in the park. So I started attending that with a dulcimer. The dulcimer was too quiet. I could not hear if I was playing anything right, so I started bringing a mandolin. I remembered the fingering from trying to learn fiddle long ago and the mandolin has such a sweet sound even the wrong notes don't sound bad.

I wasn't particularly drawn to the music, but I liked it because it seemed easy to learn by ear. It turned out to be great ear training that has helped me be able to learn to play Irish flute by ear. Being freed from sheet music, whatever tenuous hold I ever had on it, is great. It makes music so much easier to learn and more fun.

In addition to finding the jam to be a great way to help me learn Irish music, it was simply a good time spent with really nice people. They have the jam every week, so I kept coming back. They also get hired to play paid and unpaid gigs once in a while, so I attend those when I can and sometimes earn my dinner or a little cash.

Attending the jam each week, I muddled along with the mandolin, learning the tunes on the fly by ear. I never could remember any of them when I got home, so I started taking the adult education fiddle class again so maybe I could learn the tunes. I had given up on the fiddle all those years ago. It's not easy to play, but I had to bring it to the class or look like a wuss even though all I really wanted was to hear the tunes slowed down enough to get all the notes.

Through the class, I learned a few of the tunes but the class was canceled this year. I have been bringing the fiddle to the old-time jam and trying not to play too loudly that I cause others pain. The teacher from the adult education fiddle class attends the jam and she tries to help me a little here and there, but it's hard to learn the tunes on the fly on such a relatively difficult instrument. I keep bringing the fiddle because the teacher is there at the jam and I don't want to disappoint her. But I also keep bringing the fiddle because it's starting to grow on me. I am starting to enjoy it more and dare I say it, sometimes I even think it's starting to sound a little like music.

One of my friends at the old-time jam pointed me to a great web site with lots of tunes called Mossy Roof. It's like having brought a recording device to the jam and bringing it home to practice and learn. I can play the tunes back as slow as I want with Quicktime and learn them. Today I learned Grasshopper Sitting on a Sweetpotato Vine.

My arm is killing me now. I have to put the fiddle down for a while.