faculty bios online – registration below

• Artist: Donna Hébert
• Date: 17 Oct 2010
• Time: 2:00pm
• City: Donna Hébert in Wallingford CT
• Venue: Keys & Strings Music Studio
• Address: 31 Hall Ave
• Venue phone: 203.265.1500
• Country: US
• Admission: $35
• Age restrictions: All Ages
• Box office: USE URL TO SIGN UP ONLINE – 6 places left on 9/13
• Notes: Donna Hébert combines her Fiddling Demystified for String Players method with an encyclopedic knowledge of bowing styles for fiddling, teaching straight and syncopated rhythm patterns in different authentic styles.
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Old Songs Festival Great Groove Band

10 most important things about your time alone with the violin

1. Breathe! And keep breathing. Don’t hold your breath when you learn or play – it starves your brain and your sound along with it. Breath awareness will keep you in the present and focused.

2. Play in front of a mirror! A picture is worth a thousand words. Look for where your movement is awkward. See if you can correct yourself by watching what you do and redirecting your movements.

3. Change your stance! If you play seated, stand up if possible. Walk around a bit while you’re playing to help your body relax and open up. If you sit, keep your spine erect and perch your hip-bones on the edge of the chair. Don’t sit back or slouch.

4. Easy does it! Approach playing fiddle lightly.  A relaxed bow hold keeps you flexible and able to move in any direction. The same is true for the left arm. If you need a shoulder rest, find and use one that works for you. Don’t add tension to your hold in either hand. Instead, monitor yourself to see where you’re holding and then wait for the release. Remember to wait!

5. Listen before you play! Fiddle style is all in the ephemeral ornaments that curl around notes and in the rhythm that drives the tune, neither of which you’ll find notated in most tune collections. So listen-listen-listen!

6. Sing the tune! Doesn’t matter if you sing in tune – you are patterning the tune’s unique rhythms into your brain so you can retreive it later. Singing makes it physical, makes it real, makes it YOURS! If you can sing it, you can play it!

7. Learn something new every time you play! Find something new in every playing experience and you’ll find you are never bored with music. It can be as complex as a whole tune or as simple as a new way to finger an ornament, play a new chord or bow a lick.

8. Use all your senses! If you know you always hear a note a little sharp or flat, use your sight to help you find the right spot. After a while your ears will hear it right, too! If you primarily read music, try listening and singing along with your eyes closed to help wake up your ears.

9. Find shortcuts! Big improvements in playing technique can happen when we adjust our breathing, stance, bow and instrument holds. Also look for places where left-hand fingers can be left down to improve efficiency.

10. No shame – no blame! A wise man once said, “If you do not know a thing, you simply do not know it.” Take fear and blame out of the learning eperience and the result is a lifetime of creative and joyful self-education!

Pascal Gemme

donna@fiddlingdemystified,com

FACEBOOK PAGES – BECOME A FAN!

• Donna Hébert
  
• Mist Covered Mountains
  
• French Camp at Old Songs
  
• Donna, John Whelan – the Irish-French Connection
  
• Donna, Max Cohen, Molly Hebert-Wilson
  
• The Beaudoin Legacy
  
• A Place Called Beautiful - song downloads benefit Ovarian Cancer Research Fund

• Artist: Donna Hébert
• Date: 25 Jun 2009 - 27 Jun 2009
• Time: 3:00pm
• City: Donna Hébert in Altamont NY
• Venue: Old Songs Festival of Music and Dance
• Country: US
• Admission: various
• Age restrictions: All Ages
• Box office: 518-765-2815
• Notes: Groovemama coaches the Great Groove Band of young musicians to a main stage performance on Sunday. Groovemama also leads a harmony concert Sunday in the Dutch Barn.
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• Artist: Donna Hébert
• Date: 1 Dec 2009 - 3 Dec 2009
• Time: 10:00am
• City: Donna Hébert in Havertown PA – Jane Rothfield’s house
• Venue: Fiddle lessons & workshop
• Country: US
• Admission: varied
• Age restrictions: All Ages
• Box office: 518-522-7445
• Notes: three days in Havertown PA at Jane Rothfield’s house. Lessons offered and a workshop Thursday evening.
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• Artist: Donna Hébert
• Date: 7 Jan 2010 - 14 Jan 2010
• Time: 8:00pm
• City: Donna Hébert in Central Florida Tour
• Venue: Ocala, Pinellas Park, Tampa/Orlando/Daytona/Fort Myers/Gainesville
• Country: US
• Age restrictions: All Ages
• Notes: Booking house and community concerts, school performances, workshops in French-Canadian & Celtic fiddling, Fiddling for Strings, DADGAD guitar, Celtic guitar accompaniment, Irish Gaelic songs and singing.
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• Artist: Donna Hébert
• Date: 18 Mar 2010
• Time: 8:00pm
• City: Donna Hébert in Jamaica Plain MA
• Venue: Heartbeat Collective house concert with Max Cohen
• Country: US
• Admission: $15
• Age restrictions: All Ages
• Box office: 617-522-3000
• Notes: Virtuoso French-Canadian and Celtic fiddling from Donna Hébert and stunning fingerstyle guitar solo and accompaniment from Max Cohen, plus songs from both in French and English.
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• Artist: Donna Hébert
• Date: 3 May 2010 - 5 May 2010
• Time: 12:00pm
• City: Donna Hébert in Saratoga NY
• Venue: Saratoga Public Schools
• Country: US
• Notes: Strings residency with Saratoga schools fiddle club
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• Artist: Mist Covered Mountains Celtic Ensemble
• Date: 16 Jun 2010
• Time: 8:00pm
• City: Mist Covered Mountains Celtic Ensemble in Albany NY
• Venue: WAMC 90.3 – Dancing on the Air with Jay Ungar and Molly Mason
• Country: US
• Admission: FREE
• Age restrictions: All Ages
• Box office: 518-465-5233 ext. 145
• Notes: Mist Covered Mountains – Donna Hébert, Max Cohen, Katherine First, Molly Hebert-Wilson – promo for Old Songs Festival appearance LISTEN LIVE: http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wamc/ppr/index.shtml
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• Artist: Groovemama
• Date: 25 Jun 2010 - 27 Jun 2010
• Time: 3:00pm
• City: Groovemama in Altamont NY
• Venue: Old Songs Festival – coaching the Great Groove Band of young musicians
• Country: US
• Admission: festival admission ticket
• Age restrictions: All Ages
• Box office: 518-765-2815
• Notes: Groovemama coaches the Great Groove young band to a main stage performance on Sunday. See the Fiddling Demystified channel on YouTube for clips of the band in 2009.
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• Artist: Old Songs Fiddle & Strings Youth Camp
• Date: 5 Jul 2010 - 9 Jul 2010
• Time: 9:00am
• City: Old Songs Fiddle & Strings Youth Camp in Voorheesville NY
• Venue: Old Songs Fiddle & Strings Youth Camp
• Address: Old Songs Community Center
• Venue phone: 518-765-2815
• Country: US
• Admission: call for details
• Age restrictions: All Ages
• Box office: 518-765-2815
• Notes: Old Songs Fiddle & Strings Camp for ages 6-18. Donna Hébert, Jane Rothfield and Max Cohen teach fiddle, banjo, guitar, songs, simple dances and drum rhythms using repertoire from Celtic and North American sources. Classes 9-4pm Mon-Fri., Thurs eve potluck, faculty concert
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• Artist: Groovemama
• Date: 20 Aug 2010 - 22 Aug 2010
• Time: 10:00am
• City: Groovemama in Schwenksville PA
• Venue: Philadelphia Folk Festival – coaching the Great Groove Band of youth musicians
• Country: US
• Admission: with festival admission
• Age restrictions: All Ages
• Notes: Groovemama (Donna, Max Cohen, Jane Rothfield, George Wilson, Stuart Kenney) coach up to 50 young musicians to a main-stage performance by Sunday afternoon. The kids learn tunes by ear and arrangements are worked out on the spot.
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participants | faculty | band music | summer camp | register | Old Songs slideshow with music | 08 Summer Camp: Jaybird on YouTube

Great Groove Band at Old Songs 2006 (Roger Mock photo)

The 2009 Great Groove Band at Old Songs Festival had 45 young people between the ages of 7 and 17 performing on the main stage on Sunday. Singing and playing, they performed the traditional Scottish song and tune “Mairi’s Wedding, the Appalachian Old-Time song and tune “Sail Away Ladies,” and the South African song “Wimoweh/The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

The Albany NY Times-Union compared the band’s supportive and welcoming musical experience to the popular media-driven “American Idol” and quoted band member, 11-year old Darius Irani, in a June 28, 2009 story: “Here we vote people in.”

The Great Groove Band of school-age musicians is a three day participatory program at Old Songs Festivalof Music and Dance (June 26-28-NY) and thePhiladelphia Folk Festival (Aug 14-16-PA) and in 2009, growing a new Groove Band at the Champlain Valley Folk Festival (Aug 1-2-VT).

The Great Groove Bands at the Old Songs Festival and the Philadelphia Folk Festival have been successful from their start. The Old Songs band rolled into its 10th year and the Philly Folk Fest band had a great third year. In 2009 we add a third group at the Champlain Valley Folk Festival. Groovemama members Max, George and Donna are there already to play in the Beaudoin Legacy at Champlain. Working with Vermont fiddle teacher Sarah Hotchkiss, they’ll tailor the Great Groove Band program for a Saturday concert at Champlain.

April Verch with a chorus line of steppers at Old Songs 2008

What is the Great Groove Band?

The Great Groove Band makes fiddle and folk music accessible to young people who sing or play a (mostly) stringed instrument. The 2008 bands included fiddlers, guitarists, bass players, drummers, pianists, flutists and more. At Old Songs in 2008, fiddler and stepdancer April Verch taught a tune and a simple stepdance combination.

Since 2000, the Great Groove Band has provided an opportunity for school-age players (ages 6-18) attending the festivals with their parents or friends. They use their playing skills and learn about fiddle and folk music. Founded and directed by Amherst, Massachusetts fiddler, performer and educator Donna Hébert , bands average 30-35 participants a year at each festival. Eager participants join the band for the weekend, rehearsing intensively for three days before a main-stage performance on Sunday.

These festivals rely on our great volunteer staff who skillfully shepherd the group, tuning instruments and helping kids get organized. 2008 volunteers included Judy Harvey, Mary Beth Boyle, Colleen Holroyd, Hope Greitzer, Daniel Boucher, Pam Gonyer, Nate Ouellette and saxophonist Julie Sorcek. This year at Champlain Valley Festival, Montpelier string teacher Sarah Hotchkiss is teaching Friday and Saturday with Donna, George Wilson and Max Cohen.

Sectional rehearsals address the students’ differing skill levels and are used to teach arrangements. As well as the big band, the group breaks into smaller ensembles of more skilled musicians for the Sunday performance.

Who plays in the band?

Some Groove Band members are in their tenth year with the group, and it’s the high point of their summer. Seventeen-year-old Albany area fiddler Colleen Holroyd says,

“The Great Groove Band has shown me how to play, perform, and pass it on, opening windows and doors of opportunity.”

Says her mother, Nancy Holroyd,

“Not only is Colleen learning to make the kind of music that she loves, she’s learning to pass it on at her after-school traditional strings program. Particularly valuable is the Groove Band experience of turning a tune into a performance.”

Old Songs Festival director Andy Spence is an enthusiastic supporter of the Great Groove Band, observing that,

“Fiddle tunes provide an opportunity for the players to share the thrill of making music with friends, playing for dancing and just for fun! In the relaxed atmosphere of the Festival, Groove Band members keep the traditions alive, meet new friends from distant places, and begin the process of passing the music on.”

Who are the teachers?

The Great Groove Band depends on the efforts of Groovemama members Max Cohen, teaching guitar, rhythm, vocal and instrumental arranging; Stuart Kenney (Rodney Miller Band, Tidal Wave, Dance Flurry Big Band) teaching bass and banjo; fiddlers George Wilson (Whippersnappers, Fennig’s All-Stars, Beaudoin Legacy) and Donna Hébert (Chanterelle, The Beaudoin Legacy, Fiddling Demystified) teaching teens and improvisation while fiddler Jane Rothfield (Jane’s Gang, Atlantic Bridge) takes on the youngest and newest players, aided by our skilled interns. Jane and crew transform the youngest from shy newbies to band members in three days! Parents and music teachers also volunteer their assistance in getting the large group in tune, moving throughout the group to help wherever necessary. Sarah Hotchkiss of Woodbury Strings is co-teaching the Great Groove Band at Champlain Valley Festival.

What music do we play together?

The repertoire ranges from Amazing Grace to Norwegian waltzes to Irish jigs and Scottish marches and French-Canadian, New England and Appalachian reels and songs. Each group is assessed by the coaches, who teach tunes, chords, rhythms and lyrics on the spot, by ear. In 2008 at Philly, we heard one girl tootling “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” on a recorder and turned that into one of our songs, with vocalists, lead, harmony and rhythm parts. It’s never the same program and it’s always fun!

Summer camp week at Old Songs Community Center

Those wanting to continue the Great Groove Band experience can come to the first of four Fiddle & Strings Day Camp Weeks. Week I (July 6-10) is for ages 6-18 at Old Songs in Voorheesville NY. Later weeks (July 13-17 for adult novice-intermediate players) and Fiddling Demystified for Strings (July 27-31) provide a similar experience for adults. In 2009 we add a fourth week of French-Canadian music and song. We’re calling it French Accent Week. Check the 2009 camp website or email Andy Spence (andy (at) oldsongs (dot) org) at Old Songs to inquire or register for any of the camp weeks. Teachers George Wilson, Donna Hébert, Max Cohen and Jane Rothfield will use curriculum from the Groove Band book and students will kick up their heels for a camp concert. 2008 Week I campers are on YouTube – check it out!

REGISTER FOR THE GREAT GROOVE BAND

2008 was our ninth year at Old Songs Festival and we hope you can join us next year for our tenth! Tickets are available at the Old Songs Festival website. For more information about our program, or to register any musician for the Great Groove Dance Band at the next Old Songs Festival, the Champlain Valley Folk Festival and the Philadelphia Folk Festival, please contact Donna Hébert. Be sure to let us know:

• Your instrument
• Skill level/how long played
• Have you been in the band before?
• Parent e-mail address
• Music reader or not?
• Have book/CD already?

See you at the 200 Old Songs, Champlain Valley and Philadelphia Folk Festivals – Groove on!

Contact Donna Hebert to register (info AT fiddlingdemystified DOT com) once you’ve got your festival tickets, ordered from:

OLD SONGS FESTIVAL June 2-28, 2009 www.oldsongs.org

CHAMPLAIN VALLEY FOLK FESTIVAL – August 1-2, 2009 www.cvfest.org

PHILADELPHIA FOLK FESTIVAL August 14-16, 2009 www.folkfest.org

We fiddlers speak a lot of learning by ear. But what about our other senses? What about sight, sound and very important for the musician but often overlooked in favor of hearing, the sense of touch?

I have a new student, a chiropractor who’s never played a instrument and is learning the fiddle as an adult. I am challenged to break down and analyze movement in order to build on her knowledge of the body. For the first time in teaching, I am putting touch before hearing, separating it in fact from the sound being made by putting it first. So, will her sound be influenced from the first by touch, and if so, how? We’ll have to wait and see how things develop.

The first lessons are about integrating the instrument into her body. What is too hard a hold and how much is a grip and how much is simply the bow resting on the string? How hard should she grab the fiddle? And what else should call it besides grabbing? At what angle does the instrument fit easily under her chin? We’re filming each lesson to provide her with an archive of what it needs to look like so she can use it as a learning aid when I’m not there.

Then there is the language used to describe her movements. I draw from Alexander Technique thinking, using passive descriptions such as ‘weight’ rather than ‘pushing,’ or ‘pressure’ when talking about using the bow. We adapt her body to the instrument and bow in the most non-interfering way, which is essentially the most efficient. Tension is the enemy here, sought out and released passively by non-verbal cues when found and isolated. Softly, softly, we move in tiny steps toward an ease that will ideally grow into a complete comfort between her, the fiddle and the bow.

All this comes before we even talk about making music. Without her willingness to take on this kinesthetic and scientific approach and her patience with the learning experience, our work wouldn’t be possible. Her intellectual curiosity about the process and for the music yet to come is as deep as mine is as a fiddle pedagogue to explore the possibilities inherent in teaching a gifted and intuitive chiropractor to fiddle.

Now I realize this sounds like the ultimate in music nerd-dom to some folks, but this is how I define FUN!

Donna Hébert
Amherst MA

• Artist: Donna Hébert
• Date: 9 Apr 2009
• Time: 9:00pm
• City: Donna Hébert in Montreal, Quebec
• Venue: Veillée bénéfice de “SANS TEMPS danse”
• Country: CA
• Age restrictions: All Ages
• Box office: 5145224571
• Notes: La Place À Côté 4572 Papineau Montreal Quebec
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Dear friends and fiddling fans, February and March have been very busy. In Feburary, I began recording in Québec for a new French-Canadian fiddling CD, “Grooviolon,” produced by Pascal Gemme of Genticorum. Pascal and I met last summer at Champlain Valley and American Folk Festivals and found ourselves kindred musical spirits. Our collaboration has been immense fun and a great inspiration! Working with Pascal, guitarist Max Cohen, fiddler André Brunet, pianist Rachel Aucoin, accordéonist Sabin Jacques, choreographer and stepdancer Marie-Soleil Pilette, bassman Stuart Kenney and percussionist Matt Kenney, we have almost completed the project, which is due for a June release. Playing with these fabulous musicans has allowed me to mine the depths of my Franco heritage. Very satisfying! Begun in 2004 in Québec at Dénis Fréchette’s Studio Chemin No. 4, my Grooviolon CD is dedicated to Dénis, who passed away last June. The last track is a duet – just my voice and Dénis’ piano. The sad irony is that the lyric for ”A Place Called Beautiful” was shaped from the words of friend Martha Pellerin in her last week of life. Dénis’ spacious piano speaks a poignant farewell for not only Martha, but himself. Pascal, Marie-Soleil, Jeremiah and Genticorum guitarist Yann Falquet also join us for the new French Accent Camp (Week IV, Aug 17-21) at Old Songs Community Center in Voorheesville NY, just west of Albany. Fiddle & Strings (Week I, July 6-10), is for ages 6-18. I’m teaching this and Novice Adults (Week II, July 13-17), with Jane Rothfield and Max Cohen. (Week III, July 27-31), is Fiddling Demystified for Strings, with me, Renata Bratt and Max Cohen teaching. March 26-27, I’ll be at the Massachusetts String Teacher’s Conference in Boston, sharing a sales table with fellow teacher and publisher Julie Lyonn Lieberman. I’m promoting my Fiddling Demystified instructional series for string teachers. March 28, Old Songs in Voorheesville NY hosts a three-fiddler concert with me, Jane Rothfield and George Wilson, accompanied by guitarist Allan Carr and pianist Selma Kaplan. Jane and George will bring their banjos along and I’m sure there will be a song or two. I’ll include a few sets from my new CD and we’ll harmonize for each other – should be a BLAST! You’ll hear tunes from New England, Cape Breton, Québec, Scotland, Ireland, and the Appalachian fiddle and banjo tradition. Tickets are available at Old Songs Community Center. In early April I travel again to Montreal. This time I’m coming up to play for Marie-Soleil Pilette’s Sans Temps Dance Troupe Benefit April 9. We’re also scheduling a photo shoot with Dana Whittle and leaving plenty of time for jamming! Coming up in April is a three day tour to Maine with guitarist Max Cohen. Three concerts and two fiddle and guitar workshops take our duo from Orono to Bowdoin, Hampden and finally Gorham. Download a PDF of the tour flyer and pass it on to your Maine friends who love French-Canadian fiddling and great fingerstyle guitar! Donna and Max have a duo pagewith more about their work together. Friday April 17 – UMaine, Orono, 1-4 pm, FREE -  Buchanan Alumni House, McIntire Room. Sponsored by Franco-American Centre,lisa_michaud@umit.maine.edu Friday April 17 – Bowdoin, 8 pm $15 – Pam Weeks’ house concert,pam@pamweeks.com Sat. April 18 - - Bowdoin, 1-4 pm $25 ($35 for both concert/workshop) – fiddle/guitar workshop -pam@pamweeks.com Sat. April 18 – Hampden – 8 pm $15 – house concert - lizmarcotte@aol.com Sun. April 19 – 61 Middle Rd. Gorham,2 pm $20 – Jonathan Cooper’s Acoustic Artisans – fiddle/guitar workshop,jcooper@maine.rr.com Hope to see you at a fiddling event or perhaps at one of our summer camp weeks. à la prochaîne . . . Donna Hébert March 2009

Spring/Fall Tours Sales Specials Fiddle Events French Accent Camp plus three more summer camp weeks at Old Songs! Photo left 3/5/09 – with Chanterelle in the schools. Photos of the Québec recording sessions below by Donna Hébert & Liz Marcotte. View of the St. Lawrence from Rachel and Sabin’s window. We recorded at their home, which fronts on the north shore of the island in Montréal (and is actually for sale!).  Max Cohen in front a music staff and G clef. This was one of many ice sculptures we saw in St. Côme. Can you sing Brrrrrrrrrrr? Pascal Gemme in locomotion at Studio de la Côte Jaune, St. Côme – feet, hands, floor! Sabin Jacques (accordéon) and Mark Busic (engineer) take a break between sessions. Rachel Aucoin is lost in the music. Playing with her and Sabin brought me right to the heart of my French-Canadian heritage. Bliss! Mark Busic engineered the first sessions in 2004 at Studio Chemin No. 4 and I’m so pleased he is able to finish the project with me now.   Max and I edit tracks at Rusty Annis’s Shoestring Studio in Belchertown MA.

Annie Cameron’s Jig

What happens when you’re not paying attention? When it’s a piece of music, a simple slip like misreading the key signature can uncover a whole new interpretation of the melody and the harmony underpinning it. A little key change and suddenly it’s a whole new tune! 

Reading through the William Marshall Collection, I found this little slip jig and in error, I started playing it in B minor instead of it’s original Bb major. When I realized my mistake and corrected it, I thought, “Hmmmm . . . I might like the minor version better!”

So here is my minor update of a major slip jig (9/8) called Miss Ann Cameron of Balvenie. Try it out and then go back to your tunebooks and play some of those major tunes as minors instead. Who knows what you’ll find?

PDF Download of tune | mp3 of Finale transcription

Donna Hébert – Feb. 8, 2009

by Donna Hébert

(“Why I Play Franco-American Fiddle Music,” reprinted from Le forum, Franco American Centre, UMaine/Orono: June 1998

As I ponder what the music I play means to me, I know that, having heard my mother’s music and seen her family’s musical house parties as a child, I would not feel settled or satisfied until I had made it a large part of my adult life.

Peggy and her Range Riders - ca. 1939

My mother’s French immigrant family is very musical. While they gave up their language to assimilate and avoid discrimination, the music remained as a viable outlet for culture. Five of my her seven siblings played, as did both my maternal grandparents – fiddle, accordion, guitar, mandolin. My mother sang and played the tenor banjo in bands in the thirties and forties, with her sister.  Their strict father fetched her and her sister, Theresa, home from Boston because, “nice girls didn’t go live in the city and become musicians.” They were good pickers too, and did a lot of harmony yodeling in their act. I recall my mom trying to teach me to yodel before my voice ever broke! She played tunes on the banjo, as well as backing up songs.

So, as a child, while I didn’t play “Franco-American music,” I listened and learned technique and other musical skills. At 22, I was re-introduced to fiddle music through Dudley Laufman’s Canterbury Country Dance Orchestra, and what should I find but a re-creation (on a larger scale – not the kitchen but a town hall) of my grandmother’s kitchen soirées. I was hooked. About a third of the tunes had French names, but it wasn’t quite what I remembered.

Louis Beaudoin - 1976

Then, after a year or so of sitting in at Dudley’s dances, I travelled to Barre, Vermont to see a fiddle contest at the invitation of my mother’s cousin, Clem Myers, who founded the Northeast Fiddlers’ Association. Well when I walked in, they were setting up for a band to play. When Louis Beaudoin of Burlington, VT sat down on the stage, started clogging with his feet and began to play with members of his family, I was transported back to my grandmother’s kitchen junkets. I knew what I wanted. And I was beginning to know who I was.

Later that year, at the French Club in Waltham, MA, I met Gerry Robichaud, an Acadian fiddler from Waltham MA, who’d come to the “Boston States” from Moncton, New Brunswick in the sixties. I heard some of my uncle’s fiddling in Gerry’s playing, which had a smoother, more rolling sound than Louis’ Québécois swing. I wanted both sounds. The Acadian and the Québécois sounds made me happy, made me feel “at home” in the music. They excited me. I loved Irish and Scottish music, and New England dance tunes, but the French music made me grin like a fool, and I wanted to play it with the swing, the rhythms that came so naturally to Louis Beaudoin. With the French tunes, I was home.

I loved Louis and Gerry as people and as musicians. Both the Beaudoin and Robichaud families welcomed me into their homes. In fact, it was like going as a child to visit on Sunday, which we’d always done. We’d go take a ride and drop in on a relative. Sometimes there would be music, always someone would be playing whist or gin rummy. Everyone brought food and news and shared both. So, woven in with the food and the visits with members of the Beaudoin family each time I was there (Louis had five daughters!) was the most incredible music. “Hey Donna, you know this one?” he’d say, and be off on another great tune. I’d scramble to put down my food and drink, grab my fiddle and try to follow him.

Seated foot-clogging

Sometimes all I got was the rhythm of the tune as I tried to follow him through a crooked patch with extra beats. Other times I was able to play along with him in his incredibly danceable groove. What a gift that was, to be carried along by Louis’ rhythms, with his brother, Willie Beaudoin on guitar and daughter Lisa on feet and piano. Like a tidal wave, it carried me farther into the heart of the music than I ever could have come by myself. And suddenly, instead of looking at the music from the outside, I was playing from inside where all the music really was. It was as though, in an instant, I had gone from looking at a tree to being the tree. My world was forever changed.

I came back to Louis Beaudoin’s soirées whenever I could until his death. And by then, I had also recorded an album for Alcazar with Gerry Robichaud, his brother Bobby Robichaud, and Tony Parkes. Working with Gerry to prepare for this album gave me a lot of time to watch and listen to him play. His groove was different, smoother, a little faster. And his tunes were terrific! So, after a year and a half of playing with Gerry every week, his style had begun to creep into mine, which was fine by me. It’s still there in my playing, as is “le swing” that I got from Louis Beaudoin, and that old fiddling sound that I first heard in my grandmother’s kitchen.

So what does all this say about the music that I play and what it means to me? Well, I have chosen to make fiddle music, and particularly Franco-American fiddle music – its performance, documentation and transmission through teaching – my life’s work. And if this music is so essential to the lives of so many – myself, Josée Vachon, Gerry Robichaud, Joe Cormier, Louis Beaudoin, and so many others, then it is indeed vibrantly alive. The fact that young people are learning about their Franco-American cultural heritage through music, and that they are as excited about the songs, tunes and dances as I was then and still am now, reassures me that our culture lives.

UPDATED 1/27/09 . . .

Beaudoin Legacy 2008 concert CD: Une bonne soirée

Now, for three years since 2006, I’ve been playing music again with the Beaudoin family! Louis’ music has come full circle as I teach Louis’ grandson Glenn Bombardier his grandfather’s tunes. I’ve also connected them with other folks like Daniel Boucher and George Wilson, which led to us forming The Beaudoin Legacy group. And now Glenn is passing the music on to his niece. We even performed at the Lowell and American Folk Festivals and are involved in Vermont’s Quadricentennial celebrations with Québec.

Louis and Julie are both gone now. We lost Julie recently when she passed away while visiting the Grand Canyon in April 2008. We have a wonderful recording of her last performance with us on March 29, 2008 at the Blackstone River Theatre in Cumberland RI (click CD cover for more information). Their great grandchildren are learning the tunes and dances and songs of their heritage, drumming with spoons, learning new instruments and dance steps. And so the circle is unbroken!

© 1998, 2001, 2002, 2009 Donna Hébert

Printed June 1998 in Le Forum, The Franco American Center, University of Maine at Orono

Play more music every day!

As someone who teaches and facilitates music for others on a daily basis, it’s important to look at my own music with the same critical ear and eye. A friend once asked me, “you teach a lot, but how much do you practice?” A thought-provoking question, this changed my musical landscape and brought true practice back into it.

What is practicing?

Practicing is just focused playing – you’re jamming alone with an agenda.

Choose one piece or medley to work on for each session; don’t spread yourself too thin. You might like to keep a music diary, noting the date, what you worked on, any insights and further goals for that piece. Please remember to be nice to yourself. No shame, no blame! Keep it fun and you’ll learn a lot more.

When working on something for performance or recording, I deconstruct the tune, listening to myself play the component parts, the transitions, the pitches, the tricky passages, the underlying rhythms as well as the shifts or ornaments, listening for where to put dynamics and variations. Sometimes they are all in need of help and it’s hard to know where to start first.

Rhythm is usually a good place to begin, making sure I’m locking into a groove as I play, nailing the beat each time in the same place to create a repetitive rhythm. Once that seems stable, I can listen to phrasing and pitches, flipping back and forth, listening to how a note sounds, then to how a whole phrase of notes sound. When I’m satisfied with that part, I can refocus, now on the transitions between phrases that make the tune flow smoothly into the next section.

Next I work on is the ornamentation and dynamics. Both are style-specific, like rhythm and the placement of the beat (in front of, in the middle of or behind the downbeat). Ornaments are often a combination of right and left hand movements, but some are played with only one hand or the other. It helps to identify and learn these style markers and ornaments in a particular style you might be drawn to – it makes you sound much more authentic and “in the groove” in that style.

The last part of the puzzle is finding variations. When you are able to tweak the rhythm, melody and ornaments into variations, that’s when you really KNOW the tune. Usually it comes faster when you learn the tune by ear or are OFF the page. It doesn’t have to be big variations to do the trick. Swapping out one ornament for another will often work, as will replacing an even “One-and-two-and One-and-two-and” rhythm with a syncopated 3-3-2 rhythm like “One-two-three, One-two-three, One-two”.  These syncopated rhythmic variations are my favorite!

Usually the learning chronology is:

1. Rhythm – Learn bowings FIRST – they create rhythm and underpin the tune and style. Play a downbeat or offbeat accent. Place beat directly on, in front of, or after the beat, creating swing (or not) this way. Accent off-beats in 2/4 dance tunes. Jigs accent the downbeat (ONE-two-three TWO-two-three. Marches accent the one as well (ONE-two-three-four). Most waltzes accent the one and three (ONE-two-THREE, ONE-two-THREE), while Cajun waltzes accent the two (one-TWO-three, one-TWO-three).

2. Melody/Pitch - Play slowly to hear individual notes. Take none for granted. Listen to each one singly and as part of a phrase – it needs to fit both ways. Play scales and arpeggios in the tune’s key to refresh your pitch memory.

3. Phrasing & voicing – Phrasing is how rhythm is created with bowing and slurs. Change voicings by using fourth finger instead of open strings or single-string shifts instead of string changes, especially in slow tunes. Slur across the beat to create a forward-moving dance groove and a subtle form of syncopation.

4. Transitions – How phrases begin and end defines the flow of a tune. First and second endings often vary in the transition back into the phrase or forward into the next one. These subtle transition variations can cue experienced contradancers to what’s coming next.

5. Ornamentation – This adds the patina of style. Make sure your rhythm is solid in the style before adding this layer. Each style has a characteristic set of ornaments that help to define it. Irish and Scottish share some ornaments, but how they are used rhythmically ends up as the style boundary. There are also universal ornaments like 3+1 bowing that sound a little different in each style because of underlying groove or rhythm changes.

6. Dynamics & tone- Use upbows to create dynamics; starting on an upbow creates an automatic volume increase for a phrase. Irish jigs use this technique a lot. You’ll notice that tone is down the list from where it would be in a classical practice routine. Rhythm trumps tone in fast dance tunes. Slow tunes are another thing altogether – tone really counts there. To play well at any speed, practice the whole thing slowly: ornaments, dynamics, variations and all, to make sure you really have it before jumping to performance speed.

7. Variations – This starts to happen when you really know the tune and get just slightly BORED with it! We’re playing new rhythms over the melody instead of rewriting a melody as in jazz. It’s a tweak, not a whole new composition. Start by moving the ornaments around through the melody and see where they can enhance a new part of the tune. Then try syncopating rhythms under a phrase over the chords, dividing the bar in thirds instead of in half: use a 3-3-2 rhythm instead of 1-2-1-2. I find these are the two easiest ways to create variations – and they’re FUN!

Which reminds me – gotta go practice play some music now . . .

Donna Hébert - 1/9/09

• Artist: Donna Hébert
• Date: 10 Feb 2010
• Time: 8:00pm
• City: Donna Hébert in Albany NY
• Venue: WAMC 90.3 – Dancing on the Air with Jay Ungar and Molly Mason
• Country: US
• Admission: FREE
• Notes: with Mist Covered Mountains – Donna Hébert, Max Cohen, Katherine First, Molly Hebert-Wilson – promo for 2/28 Amherst College concert
• Add to Google Calendar | Download iCal

Selkie woman - Arthur Rackham drawing

Waking early this Christmas morning, I am grateful for the small things. My daughter is asleep in her room. After yesterday’s rain, there will be no snow today, making our Christmas journey easier.

And at the moment, I’m in the grip of an interesting ‘earworm’. I can’t seem to shake the insistent progress of a particular fiddle tune in my head. It’s a funny, crooked, droney little thing called “Fisherman’s Song for Calling the Seals,” very Scottish indeed, appealing to my latent Celt. I learned it from an Ossian recording, “Seal’s Song”.

There are no seals to call here in Amherst, Massachusetts, but there’s something in the tune that calls to my blood. Closing my eyes, I’m in a boat off a lonely Scottish isle with a wee whistle between my lips blowing this tune to seals, hoping to see a few this Christmas Day. Fey lot, we fiddlers!

Since tunes are meant to be shared and it’s Christmas, it seemed like a nice present! Have fun opening it!