Sunday, December 19, 2010

Ashley MacIsaac @ Pepper Jacks in Halifax

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Fiddler Natalie MacMaster brings sounds of Nova Scotia close to home

Fiddler Natalie MacMaster brings sounds of Nova Scotia close to home | fiddle, violin, nova - Life - Gaston Gazette: "In the grand scheme of things, whether you want to call it the fiddle or the violin, it’s all the same, said Natalie MacMaster. But if you’re at “Christmas in Cape Breton,” the upcoming holiday concert at Knight Theater in Charlotte featuring MacMaster, expect to hear plenty of traditional Celtic fiddle music.

“Some people consider a fiddle folk music and the violin classical,” said MacMaster, who grew up in the Cape Breton region of Nova Scotia and picked up the fiddle at 9 years old. “I’m sure I call it a fiddle more often, but I think they’re interchangeable in my mind.”

Hailed as “a ball of fire, performing jigs and reels with unstoppable, foot-tapping energy and ballads with irresistible, keening passion” by the “Los Angles Times,” MacMaster has appeared onstage with rock guitarist Carlos Santana and fellow fiddler Alison Krauss. She’s also recorded with the legendary cellist Yo-Yo Ma and is a distant relative of singer/guitarist Jack White of the White Stripes."

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Rossland News - Antique fiddle reveals 100-year-old hidden message from its creator

"Michael Gifford and a merry band of musicians recently celebrated the 100th birthday of Gifford’s American fiddle.

The fiddle was built in Grand Junction Colorado, 1910, by luthier George Hardwick. From there, the fiddle’s journey is not well known until Gifford picked it up in 1981.

“Some friends of mine in Boise, Idaho, bought a whole bunch of [these old fiddles], and they picked one out for me,” Gifford said.

And that is how Gifford, who already played the mandolin at that time, started to learn the fiddle.

“I quit and started so many times because it was always loud and strident and I didn’t like the tone quality,” he explained. “Finally, after quitting and starting so many times, I started to get a little bit better and realized that not all of it was my fault.”"

Mountain View students learn how to turn iPad into 'Magic Fiddle'

"Seventh-grader Heejung Chung walked into the Apple Store in Palo Alto on Wednesday evening with a violin in a hard case strapped on her back, but spent the next hour playing the iPad on her shoulder.
Heejung was invited to attend a workshop with nine other students hosted by Apple and presented by Ge Wang, whose company Smule created the iPad app 'Magic Fiddle.' As the students from Community School of Music and Arts in Mountain View sat on stools around a circular island at the back of the store, each with an iPad in hand, Wang began the lesson.
'Have good posture,' said Wang, a Stanford assistant professor in music and computer science who founded Smule in 2008 less than two miles from the Apple Store on University Avenue. 'Don't slouch.' When their chins touched the iPad screen, graphic bubbles streamed across it and the iPad was turned into a violin."