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Earl
`Olu`olu
USA
502 Posts |
 Posted - 06/16/2017 : 04:21:32 AM
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The National Old Time Fiddle Festival starts this weekend and goes through all next week in Weiser, ID. Mostly it is old timey, western swing, and bluegrass music featuring fiddles. For the past four years I have taught Ukulele 101 and Ukulele 102 basic courses during the week. A local group (The Uke-a-Ladies) perform sweet three-part harmonies on the park stage downtown, and much jamming occurs at all three campgrounds during all hours of the day and night. You can hear everything acoustic -- slack-key (me), Gypsy jazz Django style, bluegrass, swing, folk, etc. One year I stumbled across a song circle after midnight, and five fellows were sitting around a lantern doing Eagles tunes fully as well as the Eagles do them. Chicken skin moments abound....
Mostly it's not Hawaiian music or slack-key, but we sneak some in at certain jam circles. There is a fellow who comes over from Oahu most years who is a great player and also loves to jam any kind of music, so we always connect. And when he teaches workshops, I try to help out if needed. One time there were 45 people there, heavy with true beginners, so it was a bit more than one teacher could handle. He led and I circulated around the back of the room assisting those with really puzzled looks. 
I play my ukulele a lot at Weiser because it occupies the same tonal range as mandolin, so it gets played mando style when there are too many guitars and not enough mandolins present in a given jam circle.
Sorry for the long post, but the time is finally here and I am enthusiastic. There should be several days of musical fun, very little sleep, and sore fingers! 
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2153 Posts |
Posted - 09/18/2017 : 3:02:55 PM
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| Educate the people one mele at a time........... |
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Earl
`Olu`olu
USA
502 Posts |
Posted - 09/19/2017 : 5:53:28 PM
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It was a complete bust this year workshop-wise. New people on the committee and instead of setting up a workshop schedule in advance, they opted to "rent" the rooms to instructors, who were then responsible for scaring up their own students. No publicity, nothing listed in the official contest program booklets, etc. I would usually take a few workshops for me -- things like Western Swing guitar, upright bass, mandolin, and harmony singing. Nothing at all this year.
They went from having dozens of back-to-back workshops in three different venues dropping down to having one set of workshops by one guy on one day, teaching his version of fiddle tunes. The rest of the workshop schedule was a blank grid. For each of the five past years I typically had 18-20 ukulele students for Monday's Uke 101 (absolute beginner) and 10-12 for Thursday's Uke 102 (taking the next step). I fear that maybe the event that has been so fun end musically enriching for the past ten years has now jumped the shark.  |
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Eynowd
Lokahi
Australia
181 Posts |
Posted - 09/19/2017 : 6:28:59 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Earl
It was a complete bust this year workshop-wise. New people on the committee and instead of setting up a workshop schedule in advance, they opted to "rent" the rooms to instructors, who were then responsible for scaring up their own students. No publicity, nothing listed in the official contest program booklets, etc. I would usually take a few workshops for me -- things like Western Swing guitar, upright bass, mandolin, and harmony singing. Nothing at all this year.
They went from having dozens of back-to-back workshops in three different venues dropping down to having one set of workshops by one guy on one day, teaching his version of fiddle tunes. The rest of the workshop schedule was a blank grid. For each of the five past years I typically had 18-20 ukulele students for Monday's Uke 101 (absolute beginner) and 10-12 for Thursday's Uke 102 (taking the next step). I fear that maybe the event that has been so fun end musically enriching for the past ten years has now jumped the shark.
It doesn't sound like a particularly sensible way to run a decent festival. It's probably a heck of a lot easier for the organising committee, but I suspect they're going to lose a LOT of repeat attendees after this one.
Hopefully they will realise the error of their ways and do a better job in the future. |
Geoff - g'day from Canberra, Australia. |
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Earl
`Olu`olu
USA
502 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2017 : 04:22:03 AM
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It seemed like attendance was way down overall at the fiddle festival this year. Apart from the workshops fiasco, they suddenly got real proud of their camping sites. Unimproved camp sites with no shade in the middle of a soccer field for $27 a night? At 37°C (96°F) or hotter. I found it easier to just commute back and forth since it's a little over an hour's drive from home. Harder to stay up late for the evening jams when you have to drive home, but there were many fewer of those too.
They had something really good going for many years, but the new "organizers" will severely harm the festival in the learning process. It is already a shadow of past years.... I may not even go at all next year. That would have been unthinkable until lately. |
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Ukulele at the Weiser Fiddle Festival
