Greetings!
Any fiddle players in the San Jose, California, area that would like to hook up with an uilleann piper and guitarist to play some gigs?
Traditional Irish music for the most part.
Please contact me if you would be interested.
Cheers! Richard
A better title for this thread would have been
“Any Fiddle Players in San Jose?”
Did I hear someone asking me to play “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” on the fiddle? OK, but don’t say I didn’t warn you beforehand.
Lyrics
The good news is that I am not posting an audio clip of my playing.
Doug,
Once while going through airport security a very apologetic security guard promised me she’d be extremely careful as she inspected (in my presence) my “way of earning a living” (fiddle).
I got the impression she’d been lectured to many a time by many of the professional musicians whose contents of instrument cases she’d been told to inspect.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her not only was I not a professional musician,
that my fiddle playing still stunk big time,
and (like Jack Benny’s violin) if my fiddle wasn’t a Stratovarious I was “out 50 bucks”.
It was then that it came into my head that I could record a Cd of me playing fiddle as I did then, package it rather professional looking, and pass it out freely to any airport or airline personel who seemed to at least try to treat me like some big shot recording star.
Once they’d returned home and put the Cd in their Cd player that thrill would be turned into amusement (practical joke value) of course.
An idea might be to post a note on the bulletin board at Scott Cao Violins in Campbell- It’s on Winchester between Hamilton and Campbell. Another place that I think has a board is Kamimoto Strings in Japantown …I think it’s on N. 4th St.
I’ve been away from SJ for a few years but the Santa Clara County fiddlers Association used to have open jams once a month at Hoover Middle school Auditorium- it’s near the Rose Garden in SJ- but check it out for dates and in case the location has been changed. It might be a place to make a connection or get ideas on doing so.
I think I went to that one a couple times. As I recall, it was mostly bluegrass. That would have been in the early 90’s.
That’s true and you’d expect it to be. Still it might be another place to go to see if you could, if not connect maybe get some ideas on doing so.
Probably the better ideas would be the bulletin boards or even ask Dale at Scott Cao if he has any ideas.
That’s quite true, but there’s nothing he can do about it now, unless he wants to hit the “edit” button and change it, and that would probably take effort.
Consider it done.
Well… I am not too lazy, just too busy. But, I have edited the title per Walden’s kind suggestion.
Finding a good Irish fiddler seems to be amazingly difficult in the Bay Area. Well, anyway, one that wants to do some gigs. Seems to be less of them around than uilleann pipers even.
Anyway, I really appreciate all the advice and I will continue my search.
Maybe I can draw a classical violinist to the dark side and convince them to play folksy music 
Richard