Meet “Springer” from Fiddlerman’s “Fiddle Talk” forum

• Please begin by telling us anything you would like to about yourself. Age, place of birth, residence, etc.
Well for starters I’m 60 years old now and live in a small town in central North Carolina. I have lived here for almost 35 years now but still call Bristol TN home. I was a military brat for about 6 years until my Mom put her foot down and my father got out of the USAF, the I enlisted in the Air Force during the Vietnam war and got out after 4 years 3 months, then I went to college at ETSU in Johnson City TN. After that I got a job with Western Electric.

• What made you decide to play the violin?
I started playing because I figured if my father could start playing at age 80 I could try playing too.

• How long have you been playing the violin?
I have been playing since just after Christmas of 2011.

• How often do you play? How long are your practice sessions?
I try to play about half an hour a day each day. Some times I make it some times I don’t.

• In your opinion, what’s your proficiency on the violin?
I’m a fairly bad beginner.

• Your greatest personal experience with playing?
Getting pretty good at playing “Boil Em Cabbage Down”.

• What other instruments do you play?
I used to play Sax almost 20 years ago and tried to play flute once for a while.

• What does music mean to you?
Music is just for fun, I don’t like taking it serious.

• What or who has been your greatest influence?
Not much of anything.

• What are your goals for playing violin? Short and long.
I only really play for myself and I just want to be able to play a few things pretty well.

• What type of violin training?
Like many others just Fiddlerman and my internet wanderings.

• How do you warm up?
I just start playing and do some scales.

• What is your favorite type of music?
Anything but Rap.

• What is your favorite piece of music? Why?
most anything from the sixties and seventies.

• What are your 2 favorite things to do other than playing violin?
I like to fly high power rockets and do a little shooting.

• Do you come from a musical family? If so please tell us about them.
Can’t say that anyone in my family really plays anything. My father gave up on the Violin.

• Are you a member of any orchestra?
Not a member and don’t plan on being one.

• Do you ever perform publicly?
NO!

• What do you work with?
My hands.

• Would you please share with us information about your violin and bow and if you have several please tell us about them as well.
I started out with a Cecilo CVN 500 which I still really like. The second one is a Viola that I can’t play because I can’t reach the notes with my short fingers. Then I bought a VSO from China which has beautiful burl/birds eye maple back and sides. When I got it it was totally unplayable – the strings touched the fingerboard and the fingerboard was bowed in the middle. These were two separate problems which I have been working on. At least now I can play it but it is still not very good. The last Violin I bought was at a fiddlers convention a few miles from the house. It is a German Violin with out a name of any kind. Just this past weekend I brought home my 3/4 German Violin that I loaned my Father. It NEEDS new strings very bad. I will need to get some from FM.com soon. I can’t believe that I have so many instruments already. I bought the 3/4 16 or 17 years ago just to hang on the wall.