My name is Mike Ransom. I live in Davis, California, am 47 and started playing the fiddle 3 years ago. Two kids, 6 and 10, and a wife who's a teacher, so I usually don't get to play until about 10 or 11 p.m. after making lunches and doing dishes. I think the fiddle has been slowly killing me, as I only get to do it by stealing time from when I should be sleeping. Don't know how far I'll get, having started "late" in life. I did play piano and (believe it or not) trombone as a kid, and I had a good teacher, so I'm hoping that I do actually posess the requisite neural pathways.
At any rate, I'm having a lot of fun with it, and things have actually come along pretty well, but I'm really wishing I could get over the hump to where I could play with other people. Almost there I think.
I actually started playing the whistle first, as something I could do while the kids were in the bath. I love the whistle too, but once I got going with the fiddle, I knew I had to concentrate on it. I've been taking lessons from Florie Brown (formerly of the group Golden Bough), and got a good foundation from her, but recently quit the lessons, as I didn't have time to really focus on any particular songs or exercises. Having backed off a bit on the fiddle, I've felt like I could afford to play the whistle more, so I'm doing that a little more again.
Tunes in Half Fast Fiddler's tunebook: 3
| The Pretty Milkmaid | February 15th 2005 |
| Discussions | Re: whistle advice | September 7th 2004 |
| Name | Type | Key |
|---|---|---|
| The Clumsy Lover | reel | Amajor |
| Knocknagow | jig | Adorian |
| The Providence | reel | Dmajor |