Transcript

File: macdonaldfaber-oh-foundingfiddlerssociety_M.mp3

Speakers:

FM – Rev. Faber MacDonald

FM I simply got the inspiration or the idea one day that it might be a good idea to bring the fiddlers together, to bring together as many fiddlers as we could find that we knew played at one time or another, who were still playing. Then we preceeded to contact the fiddlers that we knew and set a date, called a meeting. And at the first meeting there was about thirty fiddlers showed up. But what was interesting about that first meeting was that they were enthusiastic about the idea of coming together, supporting one another, learning to play in groups. But the other thing that struck me was how they wanted to make sure that everybody they knew would be invited. We started, as I said, with about thirty names, but they multiplied that by about three times; the ones that we invited knew others that we didn't know about. So we had a second meeting and at that meeting, it was now getting late in the fall, the first meeting was held sometime in September, that second meeting the decision was taken to try to find ways to learn to read music. The principle: if we’re going to play in a group way, there had to be some kind of basis or common ground, so that for instance when they would come into the group to play Lord MacDonald's Reel, each wouldn't be playing it his own style. So it was important to get that firmly agreed to. So they – I was amazed at how they agreed to that, and began to seek out ways, seek out resources to help them learn to read music, learn about the music.