Good morning fiddlers!

Been away for awhile now, and happy to be back Those of you who have chatted with me in the past may notice that my ID has changed from Catmccall to Sofia Leo. It's a long story but rest assured I'm still the same person. Let's just pretend the last five years went by in the blink of an eye, k?

Had my first formal "in person" fiddle lesson last night and it reignited my love for fiddling. I've never played in such a large group before (6 students plus the instructor) and it was amazing!

All but one of us has some experience with the fiddle. One student is a piano teacher and you can bet she picked up the song by ear faster than any of us - I envy her ability! Another student brought her daughter's fiddle that hasn't seen the light of day in 16 years - she'd never actually held it with the intent to play until last night. The rest of us are somewhere in between.

It's an old-time fiddle class and we are learning by ear, which has always been difficult for me because I'm a "rules" thinker - I like to have the sheet music so I know for sure what the notes are supposed to be because I've never learned to trust my ear. My fingers fumble around for the note and soon I'm behind because I can't let the note I missed go by without a lot of over-thinking. Improvisation is impossible at this point. I'm determined to get my fiddling back on track, though, and learning to play by ear is so important I couldn't let this class go by without at least giving it a try.

As for the fiddles I've posted about here, Life interfere and they were laid aside when my world exploded. They're always in the back of my mind and now I finally have a space to set up a workbench where I'll be able to finish what I started. I'll add to the threads as soon as Varnish Season arrives in my part of Oregon

So, hey! to those I've talked to before and thank you to everyone who contributes to this forum - I have a lot of catch-up reading to do!

P.S. if you're still here, Scott, Ruby will be getting a final coat of varnish as soon as weather permits and she's still yours if you're still interested