Round Window Radio, September 2017
Le Grande Gigue Simple / La Grondeuse Wilfred

I am just home from this year’s Valley of the Moon Fiddle Camp in Boulder Creek, California. I have now attended 3 of these camps with my daughter Lucia (a great young fiddler) and find these weeks to be absolutely transformative. Founded 34 years ago by the iconic Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser, Valley of the Moon has become a truly unparalleled magical event. The week is epic and impossible to capture in words, photos, or video. Yet in my exhaustion from the week here on the plane, I will try and capture a few of my thoughts and reflections.

Valley of the Moon is large (200+ people) and typically has 3 main fiddle teachers of diverse styles, be it Scotland, Sweden, Quebec, Spain, Brazil, Donegal, old time, etc. These teachers rotate every day to each of the main fiddle groups (called Moderate, Fast Down and Fast Up) teaching tunes by ear (i.e. no notation). At the end of the week, we perform a public concert in Santa Cruz, California with all the campers (100+ fiddles, ~40 cellos, ~40 guitars, piano, flutes, accordions, and one 5-string banjo) playing detailed arrangements of the tunes we learned that week. On Friday night we played about 14 new tunes, with melodies, harmony parts, chords, chopping rhythms, solos, drones and many other arrangement ideas tossed in. And these are not simple melodies. We learned a 4-part Norwegian tune in ⅞, a traditional Scottish march, a French musette from the 1920’s, alongside reels, strathspeys, airs, and more. Every camper is learning the same material for the upcoming concerts, therefore we hear these tunes from dawn till dusk and then at dawn again (from the all night jammers). It is a solid week of “living music” amongst the redwoods.

The difference between Scottish and Irish fiddling is as nuanced and detailed as between bluegrass and old time. Unmistakably different once you pause, listen, reflect, and study these differences. I have always been interested in how different folk traditions jam, how tunes segue, and how the pacing and flow of these jams work relative to my home base of bluegrass. Here in the Celtic tradition, most of these jams are without improvised solos, giving it a quite different vibe. Time is spent at many bluegrass jams waiting to take your solo or sing your song. At most of the Valley of the Moon jams, the musicians are gathered around a piano (or guitar) and everyone that knows the tune is playing along. Melodies are played 3-4 times through, and as powerful as two or three fiddles can be, imagine 30 playing a burning Scottish reel. It is a pleasure to the ears, a sight to behold, and a connection with a beautiful living tradition (something easily lost in this digital age).

At this point, I have both attended and taught at dozens of music camps. Yet the feeling of inspiration and community from Valley of the Moon in my bones (or in my chakras, as Alasdair might say) is cut from different cloth. I play music for my love of music, community, and exploration. I have found myself in unique situations or with colorful people from all over the world due to this path of music. For example, I have played bluegrass on stage in Borneo, jammed Gypsy jazz in a hotel lobby in St. Petersburg, Russia, had a band rehearsal where they only spoke Catalan, demonstrated bluegrass banjo on a shamisen to street musicians in Hiroshima, and countless more. The varied communities I have discovered and people I have befriended over the last 25 years is at once exhilarating and profound.

Additionally, as I continue to study music, I find new levels of listening both to live and recorded music and my own playing. I find new levels of arrangement or improvised moments that move me, and intriguing concepts that keep me inspired (e.g. read my No Depression review of the 2017 RockyGrass). Also, I am constantly hearing more in my mind’s ear that I am unable to reach on my instrument such as missing chord changes, sloppy execution, or poor timing. This too constantly reveals itself in both humbling and inspiring directions and keeps me digging deeper, striving further down the path towards greater understanding.

I recently heard the quote “Make music your religion.” These two sides of the same coin, the outward social journey of music and the inward journey towards deeper understanding are the path, and around each corner of this path reveals a new increasingly beautiful horizon.

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This month’s release comes from the teaching of Pascal Gemme at the 2016 Valley of the Moon. Adam and Jon both attended the camp and we totally dug these tunes. Pascal taught the Gigue one morning to the advanced class which I grabbed a recording on my phone to later transcribe. It is in 3 with a quirky yet brilliantly structure, at once challenging to grasp as a whole, yet feels like perfect linear sense once learned. The second tune we performed in the concert with Genticorum (Pascal’s fantastic Quebecois group), yet we took a few arrangement liberties. Adam added the traditional foot tapping as he fiddled, which is far easier without a 15lb banjo in your lap. I hope you enjoy these tunes as much as we did learning, playing and recording them.

Foot-tapping from this year’s VOM (Andre Brunet is an unstoppable force of music!)
www.instagram.com/p/BYUypaUAqNK/?taken-by=jakeschepps

Genticorum with Pascal Gemme (love this tune!)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRTusaqljW0