KindaScratchy said

EricBluegrassFiddle said
My goal is to play and record professionally or semi-professionally as a Bluegrass fiddler in a group. To sing and play the tunes and just hopefully bless people and if they are enjoying the music and are just able to have an hour or so escape from the rigors and stresses of their life and daily problems, then it was all worth it.

I'm a christian and I believe music is my main gift and I just want to use it to bless others and bring a little relief to their lives. Music is solace, and our escape from it all....and I know eall of you understand exactly what I'm talking about.

When I played mandolin and sang tenor in the past in a little group, we got invited once to a nursing home to play, this was in Titusville Florida near where I used to live. We played a few songs there and their was this gentlemen, bed-ridden had to be in his 90's who was from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia originally, that's what one of the nurses said. He had asked if he could hear an old standard "My Blue Ridge Mtn Home" so we sang it, and it really touched him he was in tears. He'd been living alone in that nursing home, wife died some years before and his kids barely see him.

Well after we left we found out that he had died about a week later...so I dunno, It's the things like that, maybe they seem like little things to some, but it's in those kind of moments that I'm thankful for my musical gift and it's of course as much therapy for me as (hopefully) it is for the folks that listen. So I want to learn to play the fiddle the best I can and get out there as soon as I'm ready and hopefully have more moments just like that.

Eric @EricBluegrassFiddle :

That's an incredibly touching story and it hits close to home for me. My dad, before he passed away in December, was in and out of nursing homes for rehab over the past two years, so I'm all too familiar with what it's like in places like that. For the patients, days can be very long. Anything that makes an hour or two more interesting and enjoyable is a worthwhile endeavor.

Since then, I've often thought that, if I can get better at playing and could find one or two other musicians to join me, I'd like to volunteer to play at nursing homes.

So, to find myself in a situation like you described would be my dream. There are lots of other things I'd like to do musically, but something like that would be most rewarding.

I work at a nursing home, and I can tell you that, even without a group, I'm sure they'd love to hear you. Call the local facilities and ask to talk to the activities director. Up here in the blue ridge mountains, fiddle is very popular, even more so with the elderly. And we nurses like to hear a few times while we work.