Max Cohen, Lui Collins and I loved working together for Jane’s show, so we formed a band called 3 ravens! Ravens seem to flock around me, even roosting in my yard. And of course, Max and I wrote Raven’s Wing for my Dad’s memorial (I play the tune in the video below). It’s karma – I even reset the The Three Ravens Child Ballad last spring for fun. It’s a thrill to be working with Lui again; our harmonies give me the shivers! Shows in March in Amherst MA and Nelson NH get the trio off to a good start. Adding Molly Hebert-Wilson on bass and vocals, 3 ravens also collaborates with poet Jane Yolen on the poetry and music show The Infinite Dark.
My Fiddling Demystified for Strings book is in it’s tenth year of publication and it’s satisfying to hear it’s still relevant. A recent customer review said:
“The book and CD are GREAT!!! The book is pretty wonderful on its own … nice collection of tunes and everything meticulously transcribed and explained in the text … great job! The CDs, though, are what really blew me away. The way that you explain not only the tunes but the ornamentations and other techniques that really give the tunes their character is, at least in my experience, unique, amazing and sooooo incredibly valuable!! I figured this book/CD would be good but the whole package is even better. What an incredible gift you’ve given to anyone who aspires to play the instrument … and even to those of us who don’t, but want to know how to fold fiddlistic ornaments and other techniques into our playing!! This is really a treasure trove and you can bet that I’ll be recommending it everywhere in the circles I travel in. There is a tremendous amount of value from this … way beyond the price. The package really is about as close to an in-person lesson as the print/ CD medium will allow. You should be amazingly proud of yourself and YES … please … get busy on volume two. I’ll be your very first customer!!!” Oct 2016, Wayne Fugate, mandolin player, musical cast of “Bright Star” on Broadway.