Some updates!

I am now playing with Graminy – feeling lucky to play with this amazing group of acoustic all-stars from Madison.  They describe their style and sound as “class grass”.  My fella describes it as “the soundtrack of your next favorite BBC series on PBS.”  Cleverly groovy acoustic melodies with a nature loving lean.   Legendary violist/fiddler Chauncey Ali left the group to devote more time to some of his other successful projects (Mad Fiddle and Katie McNally Trio).  That left a viola shaped space in the group that I was asked to try out.  It seems to be working so far!  It is really challenging me and inspiring a growth spurt I’ve been craving for a while.

I added a mandola to my instrument family this summer.  Kinda Graminy’s fault.  I skidded into one of our morning rehearsals fresh back from a camping trip…..so I was still in a bit of a pleasant forest fog.  It was a dim stormy morning and they stuck a mandola in my hands, hoping to try a tune they’d written for 3 mandolins, mandola and guitar.  I was hooked!  I headed to work at Spruce Tree Music later that day and – it wouldn’t hurt to see if we have any mandolas, right?  Long story short, there’s a really comfortable and soulful 1941 Gibson H-0 mandola hanging in my studio these days.  It’s got me glad to practice and play in the evenings on the porch.

This summer has been about slowing down, not minding the honks and swerves around me, and quietly doing things  – a little bit every day. ( Also letting things some things go.)  I have discovered the magic of doing something every day.  Even if it’s just a tiny bit.  There is magic that emerges with that every day.  I tell my students they will improve if they play several times a week, even if they just come to lessons.  But there is magic if they can somehow play just a tiny bit every day.  Some of them just pluck an open string and listen to the resonance.  I can tell when they’ve done it.  I know how hard it is to maintain.  It’s enough for me if they just get a taste of it.