"Sugar Hill"/The Blues

I think my fingers are too fat to play the fiddle I have. I feel like I'm having to do some trange hand contortions. Learning "Sugar Hill" in the key of D. I'm in a bit of a music dry period. Think I needed to slow down. Trying out "Lonesome Road Blues" on banjo lately. I realized that I can feel the blues - and I love singing the blues - it's the vocal equivalent to something.......i don't know....something like....not the jazzy blues stuff....but the old timey blues stuff that was most definitely a precursor - roots music is called "roots" music for a reason. I can't express right now - just know that I love to sing the blues.

"Fiddle Tunes"

The fiddle is, yet again, clicking a little more. Now it is easier for me to play more slowly and more rhythmically precise....whereas before I could only function in super-fast-fiddle mode. The (odd?) syncopations are finding their way into my arm muscles.....I never imagined the syncopations and bowing could be so difficult, but they are. Did a quick learn of The Carolina Chocolate Drops fiddle tune, "A Genuine Negro Jig" that they learned from an old old old manuscript (was it Snowden?) It's not the same as theirs, but it's something new and refreshing and is letting me explore more this A Cross-Tuning. Love that fiddle tuning can be similar to banjo. Want to play in G instead of A? Great - just tune the strings down a whole step and there you go. THE JUNE APPLES (a band I play in) are looking to pull out three fiddle tunes for a gig this week along with plenty of banjo tunes. Well, in old-time music, pretty much all tunes are "fiddle tunes".....