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Fiddlin' around
Mar. 5th, 2008 10:19 pmI managed to go to the Glasgow Fiddle Workshop for the first time this evening.
I've been meaning to go to this for the last two years, since I ran across them at Celtic Connections. It's a folk music school that meets in a local college and has lessons from absolute beginner (me!) to advanced, in various instruments, but specifically playing Scottish folk music.
They ran the 'come and try' workshop at CC, which had everyone picking up the instrument and from a standing start - I'd touched a violin exactly once in my life - playing a scale and then a tune, in an hour. I was impressed.
Also, the day before at the Bellowhead concert I'd said to Neil that I was doing this and he offered me the use of a fiddle if I wanted it. Apparently his girlfriend had bought him one several years ago and he had never got around to learning to play it. So I said, yes, please, and duly have the use of one absolutely brand new fiddle(which makes one nervous when one is trying to tune it and the string goes 'ping').
Unfortunately, work has been quite mental recently and I only just got a sufficiently circular tuit, prodded by the fact that Jane fancied going to the thing too. She can actually play the violin, so she'd be going to the advanced class, but, y'know, company is good.
So I went along, said that it was my first session apart from the workshop, which had been led by the teacher for this evening, and got packed off to another room with the fill-in teacher. And then went through the last month's curriculum in forty-five minutes. I think she was a little bit shocked.
I really haven't played the fiddle before, but I play trombone, guitar and whistle and I've been singing since I was five. All that kind of helps.
So, I joined the class for the second session after the break and learned another tune.
Jane seems not to have made it - she phoned just as the class was starting, looking for directions from the underground to the college, but I didn't see her at the break so I don't know if she got lost and gave up.
I've been meaning to go to this for the last two years, since I ran across them at Celtic Connections. It's a folk music school that meets in a local college and has lessons from absolute beginner (me!) to advanced, in various instruments, but specifically playing Scottish folk music.
They ran the 'come and try' workshop at CC, which had everyone picking up the instrument and from a standing start - I'd touched a violin exactly once in my life - playing a scale and then a tune, in an hour. I was impressed.
Also, the day before at the Bellowhead concert I'd said to Neil that I was doing this and he offered me the use of a fiddle if I wanted it. Apparently his girlfriend had bought him one several years ago and he had never got around to learning to play it. So I said, yes, please, and duly have the use of one absolutely brand new fiddle(which makes one nervous when one is trying to tune it and the string goes 'ping').
Unfortunately, work has been quite mental recently and I only just got a sufficiently circular tuit, prodded by the fact that Jane fancied going to the thing too. She can actually play the violin, so she'd be going to the advanced class, but, y'know, company is good.
So I went along, said that it was my first session apart from the workshop, which had been led by the teacher for this evening, and got packed off to another room with the fill-in teacher. And then went through the last month's curriculum in forty-five minutes. I think she was a little bit shocked.
I really haven't played the fiddle before, but I play trombone, guitar and whistle and I've been singing since I was five. All that kind of helps.
So, I joined the class for the second session after the break and learned another tune.
Jane seems not to have made it - she phoned just as the class was starting, looking for directions from the underground to the college, but I didn't see her at the break so I don't know if she got lost and gave up.
