National Folk Festival 2012, a set on Flickr.
Great Easter weekend at the National Folk Festival. Three concerts, one fiddle workshop sessions until the wee hours and so many acts to see! Need a week to recover now!
April 13, 2012
April 13, 2012
Collaboration completed – Welcome to Inverness
Posted by jerry under Uncategorized | Tags: Cape Breton, collaboration, fiddle, Hardanger fiddle, music, natalie mcmaster, scott skinner |Leave a Comment
Here is the promised collaboration with Sherly Chan from Malaysia.
The tune is a Scott Skinner tune ‘Welcome to Inverness’ – and is a video response to Natalie McMaster’s rendition of the same tune.
Cheers
Jerry
June 18, 2011
Session in Portsmouth UK
Posted by jerry under Celtic folk music, Folk music, Interesting instruments, Violins | Tags: celtic music, folk, Portsmouth, session |Leave a Comment
I was staying with friends in Havant, UK and they took me to a local Celtic music session at a tavern in King Street, Portsmouth.
The first thing I noticed as I pulled out my pochette (travel violin) is that in fact none of the other fiddles were standard violins either!
A group of unusual fiddles
in addition to the viol-like fiddle, the top-corner violin and the guitar-shaped violin, there was my pochette and a baroque-style violin (not pictured).
After introductions I quickly found that I had about 60-70 percent tunes in common and quickly settled in for a very enjoyable session.
Session at King Street Tavern, Portsmouth
Here is another view of the musicians
Session at King Street Tavern, Portsmouth
I was invited to join them at a session in Winchester a few days hence, but sadly, my plans led me in another direction. I had a great night and our friends enjoyed the music too 
February 22, 2011
Welcome to Inverness
Posted by jerry under Uncategorized | Tags: celtic, fiddle, folk, music, scott skinner |Leave a Comment
I promised to present the international collaboration piece with Malaysian musician Sherly Chan (Chansherly212) playing a Scott Skinner tune called “Welcome to Inverness”
Cheers
Jerry
January 13, 2011
Mackie – developer of the Tracktion3 recording software I use did a comparison physical abuse test of several prominent mini mixing desks.
The tests included yanking them off a table onto a hard floor, walking over them, then walking over them with a heavy weight, then driving and SUV over them, then driving over them with a heavy pickup truck loaded with several people in the back then finally dropping them from the roof of a three storey office building. The mackie desk survived all the tests.
Check out the video
December 30, 2010
New collaboration coming soon
Posted by jerry under Celtic folk music, Folk music, Hardanger fiddleLeave a Comment
Merry Christmas season!
I am working on a new collaboration on YouTube with Chansherly – watch this space. In the meantime, here is one I did earlier. I hope to write a bit more regularly in 2011 – this year has been a busy one and I’ve neglected the blogs a bit. So look on this as a renewal ahead of the new year:-)
Cheers
Jerry
October 3, 2010
Mirecourt violin repair – 9 – First notes
Posted by jerry under violin repair, Violins | Tags: luthier, violin, violin repair |[2] Comments
With the violin complete all that is left is to string the instrument and tune it up. It will develop more tone with time and playing, but I’m very pleased with the sound. This is a fine 3/4 size Michel-Ange GARINI made in the Vosges Mirecourt region of France for the workshop of Jerome Thibouville-Lamy (JTL) in the early part of the 20th century – probably around 1903-5.
Here once again is the ‘before’ photo
Garini violin 'before' photo
And here is the first tune after restoration:
So it’s been quite a learning journey for me, and worth every step and mis-step.
Cheers
Jerry
