KY Music Week Highlights!

Kentucky Music Week 2008

...was the best week I have had in years! I enjoyed every minute and I am so greatful to have been able to be a part of it! This is Jory Hutchens, the 17 year old fiddle player who taught the fiddle at the 2008 Kentucky Music Week in Boston, KY. He is a great fiddler and a teacher and we enjoyed his sharing his talent with us. Below are two videos of him and his father playing for the class on the last day.

This is Guy George, musician extroardinaire! He plays many instruments including, saxaphone, steel drum, tin whistle, and hammer dulcimer. He was a delightful, creative teacher in our tin whistle class. He made the hard work fun!



This is Susan Trump who taught the hammer-ons and pull offs to mountain dulcimer players. I made a video of her playing but the sound was messed up so I can only provide a snap shot. She is a meticulous teacher and helped me to improve on my strumming as well the hammer-ons and pull-offs.

Another dulcimer class was with Butch Ross, a dulcimer artist! He taught us how to make an arrangement for a dulcimer group that would help to fill in the gaps and have a full, melodious sound. It was challenging for me as I had forgotten an awful lot of the music theory that I studied in college. I tend to play by ear now but this class forced me to apply my mind to the music. As another classmate put it, I am once again paper trained! I didn't get a good snap shot of him, so this is borrowed from his website and it is linked to his YouTube page.

My last class of the day was with Robert Force, the most unique dulcimer player and teacher I have ever encountered. He exudes dulcimer music that makes your senses sway with the breeze and the rise and fall of the ocean waves. Although the class was advanced for me, I could only want for more as the week progressed. I was able to pick up a few things and I hope to improve in the future and maybe someday..... My camera batteries died and I did not get any video but I did get this snapshot. It is linked to his webpage.











And to the lady who makes it all possible, Nancy Barker! Nancy is the organizer of this festival and she does a terrific job. She brings in great talent to instruct us, wonderful volunteers to help, and creates a very workable schedule!

If you are a folk musician, novice or accomplished, check out the KMW website and maybe you can be a part of the 2009 festival! You may never look at music the same way again!

Getting ready to jam! Whoa, a whole week of music! I can't wait. This is my first year to attend this festival. I am signed up for 5 classes that meet for 5 days. In the evenings there will be concerts and jamming at various sites. There are breaks each day where there will be basket weaving and soap making demonstrations and of course jamming going on somewhere. Did I say I love to jam? The graphic is my own, a coverpage for my music folder for the classes I will be in. I am taking three dulcimer classes, one fiddle class, and one tin whistle class. I will also be working during lunch to earn my keep, so busy is the keyword for me next week!

Independence Day

Time passes so quickly and I have just begun an Americana project. I have taken small flags that I purchased and used a coffee/tea/cinnamon stain process to age them. I also added some walnut stain which really gives them a grungy look. I plan to sew them onto twigs with rusty wire, rather than using the dowels that they came with. The dowels can be used for other things. The twigs give them a much more primitive look.
I found some red, white, and blue tea towels at The Dollar Tree last week and they absorbed the stain beautifully! I did not add the walnut stain because the tea stain worked perfectly. I am really pleased with how they came out. I only bought 2 towels thinking I would wait and see how they looked. I should have gotten more!
The yard is coming along well, in my opinion. I'm not sure if the neighbor would agree. We don't move fast enough for her. We have adopted natural landscaping. This is basically using native plants in your yard, rather than turf grass and imported plants that may be invasive. There are a multitude of reasons why this approach is more beneficial, but I won't get on my soapbox here. You can read more about it at http://www.for-wild.org/.
It would be costly to purchase plants to revamp everything so we are taking it slowly by learning which plants are native and eventually trading plants and seeds with other folks who do this. We do not transplant from the wild because it disrupts the area from which it is taken. There are a couple of nurseries in the area that offer native plants for sale, but not many. The Bunton Seed Company, in downtown Louisville, offers some seeds.
Many people think that this concept just involves letting whatever comes up to grow. That isn't the case because most of what comes up on its own is invasive or it probably would not be there to begin with. When subdivisions are built, almost all of the native vegetation that exists there is destroyed and when land is disturbed and bare, invasives move in and take over.

oLDE cRoWs AuCtiOn SiTe

This is an introduction to a new auction site for primitives. There are currently a host of epatterns available at very reasonable prices! Enjoy!
We're headed to the river for some strumming!!!!

Etsy

I have a shop on Etsy, which is a site devoted to selling art and handmade items! Many of the prim crafters on Ebay have opened Etsy shops because of Ebay's new policies which do not allow us to sell patterns via electronic transmission in the regular auctions or stores formats. I have been on Etsy for a couple of years as my daughter began selling there and introduced me to it. Their primitive craft listings are growing!
Sales have been slow in all venues for the past month. I guess the price of gas is eating away at our budgets pretty badly. The good thing about online purchases is that sometimes shipping can cost less than driving across town to get something! Now there's a thought!

PigeonCreekPrims