Dan Grotewohl - Bear in the Greengrass

Over the next couple of weeks I hope to be ready to settle down and get back to teaching fiddle.  With our mobile society and high speed this and that, it seems worth venturing into the world of webcam lessons.  How often have you wanted to learn something only to realize it is not within convenient driving distance, if not out of reach altogether?  Thus my trial with webcam fiddle lessons.  For more details, email me at mtnfiddle@yahoo.com

We have finally rented a place in Charlotte, NC--a comfortable 1920's era bungalow in a tiny hamlet of old Mecklenburg County surrounded by the industrial and suburbia sprawl of north Charlotte.  There's still a fair bit of unpacking to do before we can say we are officially settled in, but...

Queen City is growing by leaps and bounds, with developments sprouting up directly next to historical landmarks that predate the American Revolutionary War--old cotton plantations mingle with NASCAR and ghosts of centuries past dodge traffic; we are trying to find our footing here as the new and the old cross paths like bow hairs on strings.

Speaking of which, yes I have begun to practice again.  After a lengthy break from the fiddle (you can read my previous post), the fiddle and I have reacquainted.  As usual, we spat and finger point, and sometimes the words are not pretty nor polite!  I am practicing mostly with the metronome, varying the speeds from the low 90's up to about 152 or so.  Of course, I start blowing apart at around 144 beats per minute.  That is, with left-hand-heavy American fiddle tunes and Bluegrass material where the pace is pretty well crankin' even in the low 130's.  'Course, if one is playing a sparse noting hand, those tempos may be mild.  No matter the level or ability, playing with a click track is very helpful--for years I refused to even own a metronome and I suffered heartily when forced to listen to the unrelenting click-click in my headphones while trying to lay down a track in studio.  Change the tempo often, mix it up, split the beats, whatever, just keep working at it, and before long you'll be keeping a beat as steady as an old plow horse.  Meanwhile, I'll be somewhere off in the brambles and poison ivy trying to find my fiddling again.