Free sheet music and music lessons for street musicians
. . .the birth of a freeskool !!?.
in the summer i '96 i travelled to Paris and left this country for the first time. also it was the first time in my life that i was actually moved to intoxication and delerium by music...in the paris metro changing trains on my way to some art museum..a 7 piece gypsy string band. i let me friends go ahead and i spent the next couple hours in awe...i stumbled back to the hostel...i remember feeling like i had just been skooled...i'd never seen or heard anything like that...this is one of the greatest events in the history of the world right here under paris..but the world didn't care..they all walked around it..looked annoyed. i was confused, but ecstatic.
i got back home...i grew up outside of asheville..i had new eyes and ears for the old mountain music that i heard growing up and that i used to walk around. finally after a couple years of thinking about it i bought a violin. i tried to play it..i'd pick it up from time to time and try to read sheet music...(i didn't have any players around me to learn from)..i'd get frustrated with the sheet music and give up. i hung my fiddle on the wall..it was pretty there..i dusted it occasionally.
then i started to see buskers in asheville all the time...banjo & fiddle groups..i saw how people would stop to listen and take something with them when they left. for some reason when you hear those old songs in the street the words or the melodies are infused and potent like when they were born. i saw the potential that street music had to affect social change. the deadman street orchestra came through playing familiar tunes. i saw that music break through to people. folks wondered what it was like for those kids and they daydreamed about making a break...some of them followed through.
so i picked up my fiddle a couple months ago and i sat down and looked at this songbook and learned to read sheet music. (thanks to tim and sparrow for her virtual advice) with the help of a couple travelling bands that have come through town(savannah) over the summer i now can say that i play the fiddle. i've also found a couple other folks in town to learn some songs with..which is of unmeasureable importance when learning to play. we play at the farmers' market here that we also put together. i guess you could call it the beginnings of the savannah freeskool music project...when we're all qualified enough and have enough instruments we're going to start rounding up neighborhood kids and give them something to do..since this damned city's too busy building their little police state to do anything beneficial...as i'm sure it is where you are too.
ok..back to practice
i got back home...i grew up outside of asheville..i had new eyes and ears for the old mountain music that i heard growing up and that i used to walk around. finally after a couple years of thinking about it i bought a violin. i tried to play it..i'd pick it up from time to time and try to read sheet music...(i didn't have any players around me to learn from)..i'd get frustrated with the sheet music and give up. i hung my fiddle on the wall..it was pretty there..i dusted it occasionally.
then i started to see buskers in asheville all the time...banjo & fiddle groups..i saw how people would stop to listen and take something with them when they left. for some reason when you hear those old songs in the street the words or the melodies are infused and potent like when they were born. i saw the potential that street music had to affect social change. the deadman street orchestra came through playing familiar tunes. i saw that music break through to people. folks wondered what it was like for those kids and they daydreamed about making a break...some of them followed through.
so i picked up my fiddle a couple months ago and i sat down and looked at this songbook and learned to read sheet music. (thanks to tim and sparrow for her virtual advice) with the help of a couple travelling bands that have come through town(savannah) over the summer i now can say that i play the fiddle. i've also found a couple other folks in town to learn some songs with..which is of unmeasureable importance when learning to play. we play at the farmers' market here that we also put together. i guess you could call it the beginnings of the savannah freeskool music project...when we're all qualified enough and have enough instruments we're going to start rounding up neighborhood kids and give them something to do..since this damned city's too busy building their little police state to do anything beneficial...as i'm sure it is where you are too.
ok..back to practice
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