the fiddler of dooney

damn... if only you would have asked me one day earlier.. now I spent it all for... for... for... sh.. don´t remember yesterday.. one of those blackout-days.. and dude, where is my car?

I always visit the Musikmesse in Frankfurt. Few years ago I tested a new electric violin, used some distorsion and picked a blues when a guy tipped on my shoulder and said to me: "not bad" it was Chris Rea Where else can something like that happen to you?

When I play with my band, we leave the cases on the stage behind the amps and we allways have an eye on the stage when we pause. When I play with an orchestra on a stage we leave the cases beside the stage where we can see it (and the audience can´t) but in a classic concert I have never seen anybody on the stage who is not allowed to. The only place where I would never leave an instrument during a concert is in my car.

hi.. I´m not a new member, but I´ve been away for a while. There are many new names on this board and some that I remember. I´m not as my nickname may suggest a fiddler, I´m more a classic player and sometimes a rock-player (I play the electric violin in a band). I´m 29 and played the violin for about 20 years but I´m a really bad player for I was allways lazy when I should have been practicing.. anyway with some effects and a big amp I haven´t heard anyone say anything bad about my play... (if the amp is turned on there just IS nothing else that I can hear). What else about me? Ah, yes.. sometimes my posts are funny to read for my english is not perfect. I live in germany and work as an AD with an advertising agency. My nickname is the title of a poem by William Butler Yeats, for I love english poetry.

I like to play in the night or in the morning, I really think my play is better in the morning. When do you play best? Does something likea "best time" for recordings exist?

Everytime I play out of tune I just say: "I´m not playing out of tune. That´s my STYLE!" So I never play wrong when I´m allowed to play freestyle. ...poor style.. isn´t it?

When I started to play in public I thought not of busking. I was much to shy to believe that anyone could like it much. It was just a little foolish play on the violin, accompanied by my friend with his guitar. We used to play on a lonely place in front of a castle. There were not many people who could here us and we played just for ourselves. Sometimes we did get good reactions from the people. One time a school-class passed us. They were on a trip to different castles. When the kids saw us, they came and started to dance to our music. That was a great moment for me. We started with busking as a practice in public. We didn´t care for the money. People were never annoyed by our play.

No, I think I moved it to fast to do any other harm to it.

No, it was not because of the music... I had a gig last night and we played "sweet dreams", which has a very agressive touch when our band plays it. Accidently I moved my bow over a torch when I sang. Now my bowhair is sooty and I don´t know how to clean it. With water?

I don´t think that musicians on the street are some kind of beggars. As long as someone has to give something, he is no beggar. Musicians give the music and they give a good atmosphere (depends on how good they are). Yesterday I played in the city of Heidelberg. There are special places where it is allowed to play for one hour, then you have to find another place. All of these places were full of musicians and so my band and I(retort bass, guitar, violin&voice) used a place where it was forbidden. But no one cared. We play old rock songs and we really can be loud (our bass-player makes a very good show when he holds his instrument like a guitar and starts to jump around like Angus Young). My band was not sure what to do when the police came, so I told them to stop with their play when I stop to sing. ..well it was the first time that we played in such a big city.. so I was nervous and I closed my eyes to concentrate on the music. No one could see my closed eyes because of my dark glasses. We were playing really good and so I opened my eyes just in the moment when I screamed "Wild thing!" and in front of me stood two officers... For a moment I became even more nervous, but as I went on to sing they threw some change in my case and went away. Another nice thing happened when we took a break. A group of american tourists came and one of them looked at the bass and said: "this is my instrument" We had a very nice and short jazz-jam-session, then we started to play "o, when the saints go marching in" and the whole group was singing with me. We had a lot of fun. We didn´t earn as much as we expected but we earned much more than the classical musicians that used the places where it was allowed to play.

My friend Meili is the best!! He can play until the strings are redhot. [This message has been edited by the fiddler of dooney (edited 05-07-2001).]

And I´m the only.. ahh,... uhh... hmmmmm, well... ahh... DA*N I´M SO USUAL! [This message has been edited by the fiddler of dooney (edited 05-07-2001).]

I compose, but I never write my compositions down on paper.. I just have them in my head until I record them. At the moment I have an interesting project, but it will take some time... I try to play a piece just with violins.. accustic violins, electric violins, distorted violins, violins with all kind of effects.. Violins that are played in every possible way. What I try to do is to make it sound as if there were many differend kinds of instruments... I will tell you when I´ve finished the recordings.

Hi Journey, I´ve done some studio recordings with my violin and I had the same problem. But then I started to work with some walkman-headphones, those that you can plug into your ears and I found that this way I could easily play my violin as usual and hear both, my own play and the recording by adjusting position of the earplugs in my ears. I hope this can help you..

..had to bring up this topic again, I found another poem FIDDLER JONES THE EARTH keeps some vibration going There in your heart, and that is you. And if the people find you can fiddle, Why, fiddle you must, for all your life. What do you see, a harvest of clover? Or a meadow to walk through to the river? The wind’s in the corn; you rub your hands For beeves hereafter ready for market; Or else you hear the rustle of skirts Like the girls when dancing at Little Grove. To Cooney Potter a pillar of dust Or whirling leaves meant ruinous drouth; They looked to me like Red-Head Sammy Stepping it off, to “Toor-a-Loor.” How could I till my forty acres Not to speak of getting more, With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos Stirred in my brain by crows and robins And the creak of a wind-mill—only these? And I never started to plow in my life That some one did not stop in the road And take me away to a dance or picnic. I ended up with forty acres; I ended up with a broken fiddle— And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories, And not a single regret. Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950). Spoon River Anthology. 1916.

Do you know who has written the lyrics? I haven´t heard the song by now, but I know an ode to a butterfly that was written by William Woodsworth.

LET IT ROCK!!!

There is a tragic musical that´s called "dancer in the dark". One of the sadest movies I´ve ever seen. Full of sad songs. Gloomy Sunday was also played in one scene in the movie "Schindlers List" in a cafe. to bob kogut: I would not call it: to push someone over the edge... rather I would call it to accompany someone over the edge. I don´t think that a tune (without lyrics) can glorify suicide and I don´t think that the lyrics in the song "gloomy sunday" were written to encourage anybody to summit suicide. A song can´t make decisions for you. I would not like to miss one song/one movie that is so sad (in a beautiful way) that it moves me to tears without hurting me.

Troy-me-rye Troy me (not like me, but like the beginning of "meant") rye

In the original this song was called "Szomoru Vasarnap" which means "the song of the gloomy sunday" in german it is "Einsamer Sonntag" which means "Lonely Sunday" and in english it is "gloomy sunday" the first english version I know is from Billie Holiday but there are many different versions,... (I have heard more than 20 by now) I don´t know if the movie "gloomy sunday" is available in the U.S.A. but if it is, go and get it, it´s great. If you want to read more about the suicides that this song is connected to, just search on the web for it... you will find a lot of articles about the legend of this song.

Gloomy Sunday, also called "the overture to death" This song has been directly associated with the suicides of several hundreds of people. The girl the song was composed for took her life, also the composer (many years later). At first there were so many suicides that the police of Budapest (where it was written by Rezso Seress in 1933) decided to ban the song (for 40 years). BBC supressed the song and never played it again (for 60 years). ..among several other suicides, perhaps the strongest case was the one of an errand boy in Rome, who, having heard a beggar humming the tune, parked his cycle, walked over to the beggar, gave him all his money, and then sought his death in the waters beneath a nearby bridge. So I think this is one of the sadest tunes you can find.

weird..

I don´t think that it is too different from playing a 4-string fiddle. ...as nashville violins said, sometimes I miss the 5th string on my usual violin too.

Usually I use guitar-effect boxes. But there are many differences, some effects will only work if you pick the violin. One awsome effect that you can use with the violin (and wich has not been mentioned yet) is the octaver. When I used my new octaver together with the bass box of our bassist (800W) the earth began to move and some photos fell from our band-wall. I was even deeper than the bass.

thanks gnomie for your suggestion... but what do you americans have with this peanut butter? .. I don´t really like it.. and by the way: I don´t drink coffee. ..but of course, if I want sweets, there is vegan chocolate, vegan ice-cream, veganwhatever.... I don´t have problems to find something to eat.