Fiddle Workshop with Chojo Jacques

Sunday January 22nd

2pm - 4pm

A 3 part introduction to fiddle - learning the basics of bowing, fingering, and other proper techniques to get started. This will be a general overview of the necessary skills needed for any style of beginning fiddle.

The first part will be focused on learning proper bowing techniques, including exercises to take home. 

The second part will be focused on proper left hand and fingering techniques, with scales to take home.

The last part will consist of learning a tune together, and applying the techniques discussed.

Primarily designed for beginners, but intermediate players wanting a tune-up of their technique would benefit.

Workshop is $30

Give the gift of music!  Gift Certificates for this workshop are available

Sign up now!  Space is limited!

Irish Tune Teaching Session

For some time now we have been having Irish tune teaching sessions on the first Sunday night of each month.  They have been going great and people seem to be enjoying them.  In an attempt to make them even better we are changing the format slightly.  We will now be making our way through the "Tunes for the T.I.M.E.S." Cd's, starting with volume 1.  These CDs were created by the Traditional Irish Music Education Society as a teaching tool to be used at the O'Flaherty's Irish Music Retreat, which everyone knows I'm a big fan of! (You can check out the TIMES website at http://www.irishtradmusic.org/ if you want more info)

Anyway, I have about 30 of these CDs to hand out for free at our sessions and then every month we will go over the next three tunes on the CD.  The CDs present each tune at full speed and at a slow speed and they are great for learning tunes!  The schedule of what tunes will be covered when check the Fiddler's Green website under the "Irish sessions" tab.  I'm hoping that if people have a good learning source to take home with them that they will "do their homework" and really start building up their tune list.

The whole point of these sessions is for people to get together and have fun learning tunes in common.  We're using the TIMES cds because they seem to be the unofficial tune list for central Texas.  Hopefully, when all the central Texas folks get together for a session at the Austin Celtic Festival (ACF) or the North Texas Irish Festival (NTIF) or Tour and Candy's room at O'Flaherty's we will all know more tunes in common.

So if you've never been to our sessions please come!  The more the merrier!  Hopefully, we can build up the Austin Irish Trad scene and show those Dallas folks who's boss!

Cool Stuff: How many tunes can you hear at once?

I'm a recent fan of Radiolab (http://www.radiolab.org) and one of their shorts caught my ear enough that I thought I'd share. It's about a pianist who is able to listen to four symphonies at once, in his head, complete with all the instruments. I'm not even sure I could hear one fully! It's pretty amazing, so have a listen to the podcast below:







-Michelle

O'Flaherty's Irish Music Retreat

I just got back from an incredible weekend at the O'Flaherty's Irish Music Retreat.  It's the biggest event in Texas for Irish traditional music.  If you don't know about it, you should check it out!  (On the web at http://www.oflahertyretreat.org)  It's always on the last weekend in October in Midlothian Texas, although it's moving next year to Waxahachie.  O'Flaherty's is a long weekend of learning, playing tunes, going to sessions, hanging with friends, attending amazing instructor concerts, and just generally getting a huge dose of Irish music.  I took a fiddle class from Liz Carroll, who was called "the first lady of Irish music".   I always knew she was amazing but she really blew me away!  And she's funny as heck!  She had the whole class laughing all the time.  The class was mostly adults but there were a few teenagers in there who put most of the adults to shame.  Each night we were treated to performances by the instructors, and those concerts are worth the price of tuition by themselves.  Martin Hayes, Kevin Crawford, John Doyle, Liz Carroll, Randal Bays, Rose Flanagan, and a ton of others.  I'm still reeling from Martin Hayes and John Doyle pretty much lighting the stage on fire!  It was possibly the most intense live performance of Irish music I have ever seen and it ended with the whole crowd literally leaping to their feet in a spontaneous standing ovation!  Whew! Yeah!

There were instructors for fiddle, uillean pipes, harp, whistle, flute, banjo, mandolin, singing, accordion, and guitar.  The main instructors also give "enrichment classes" which are really just lectures, to provide an historical and cultural background to the music.  It reinforces the fact that this music is not just a bunch of twiddly fiddle tunes but it's part of the Irish culture and there is so much that goes on "behind the tunes".  I love hearing about all the old players and the connections between them.

O'Flaherty's draws from all over Texas and there were some from Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and even out of state.  The retreat feels like, as Louvain, one of the organizers said, "a family reunion without all the trouble".  I've been going for four years now and I've gotten to know a lot of faces that make the retreat feel familiar and relaxed.

I'm really not trying to make this sound like an ad for O'Flaherty's.  I just love what Ken Fleming and his crew have done and I hope they keep doing it, and I do want to spread the word to as many people as possible.  I guess for now I'll just have to keep practicing my tunes while I wait for next year and do it all again!

A Blue Grass Boys Reunion!

As always, our shows start at 8pm, doors open at 7:30pm. Tickets are $20 at the door, cash only. Parking is available in front of and behind the shop, over flow parking available at Things Celtic across the street. We don't have snacks or drinks (other than water) but your welcome to bring your own! We'll see you there!

The Bill Monroe Centennial Celebration

Come out for a day long celebration of Bill Monroe's 100th birthday! There will be music all day, with the Bluegrass Boys headlining, and informal jamming in the shade. There will even be a raffle for a Gold Tone banjo, a Martin Guitar (donated by us!) , tickets to Old Settler's Music Festival and Marty Stuart Tickets at One World Theatre in November. There's plenty of free parking for the event: The lot in front of Central Market is available, there are a number of spots in the lot at 39th and Guadalupe (accessible from Guadalupe) and the third level and above of the Heart Hospital's parking garage is free on the weekends.

So come out for a great party and help celebrate the legacy of Bluegrass's legendary founder!

"Pickin' in the Park" is THIS SUNDAY!

Every year we do the Pickin' in the Park, which has turned out to be incredibly fun and the high point of the year for our musical events.  It's a blast!  We serve hot dogs and tons of people come out and gather in clusters with their instruments under the trees in Zilker Park and have a great ol'time!  It started out as kind of a customer appreciation party but it turned into much more than that.  It's one of the few times during the year that bluegrass, old time, Irish, cajun, folk, etc, can get together in one place and "cross polinate".  There's even an accordion group that films a webcast!  We at the shop love doing it and we hope lots of people come out for it. It's in the Rock Garden picnic table area in Zilker Park, just up the hill from the Zilker Hillside theater.  Enter the parking area off Barton Springs road like you're going to Barton Springs but take a right instead of going down towards Barton Springs.  Look for the Fiddler's Green banner!

BY THE WAY, the shop will be closed on Sunday!