This is me being curious here, partly as an ordinary, posting member of this site, and partly as Mod. I play flute, and there’s plenty of talk about them on this site and also everywhere else on the net it seems.
But I also play fiddle. Where do people go to talk about playing that, and other stringed instruments? I mean, I know there’s a “Fiddle Forum” but I really didn’t find it worked for me, and didn’t have the sort of normal, friendly to and fro of question, advice, discussion that we get here, and elsewhere, for flute, say. There’s the occasional thread on the session.org, but again it doesn’t really seem the same. And there isn’t too much around here either - about the same sort of level as over there, it seems to me.
Are stringy people just different? Don’t need discussion? Don’t need advice? Don’t want to talk amongst themselves? All of these could be true, I guess …
String players in general don’t talk a bunch online for whatever reason. I’ve asked myself why many times, but have never found a good answer. Probably the most active forum is violinist.com, but good luck talking fiddle stuff there. Fiddlehangout.com is active, but is heavily populated by American styles. I’m probably the only Irish fiddler there, and find precious little to say anymore. There used to be a really good, intelligent luthier there who gave great advice, but he stopped showing up. Maestronet is mainly a hangout for makers and sellers; little talk from musicians’ side. Unless something new pops up, I think that is everything I know of.
Yes, I keep hearing about Mandolin Café. But, for fiddle, there’s nothing that suits me at all! I might just pop over to Mandolin Café. I mean, I used to be pretty good at mandolin some years ago. Gave it up because it was wrecking my fingers. That, and I got frustrated with the tuning issues. Now, there’s a surprise!
I’ve been casting about these Internets for over a decade - asking this same question, and generally raking up as much muck as I could…why, when you’re not busy playing, or listening, there’s but one thing to do..
My pickle: not many places to chat about scottish harp. I play fretted strings and fiddle and box too, so I hang around the main sites like sesh, M cafe, melnet, et al…but mostly just annoy folks about stuff no one’s interested in (the harp forum has maybe three others - it’s just like going to a violin site hoping to find chat about hardingfele or Shetland tunes.. )
cat- Do you know about the Virtual Harp Circle and/or Wire Harp lists on yahoo? Those–along with the Celtic Harp group on Facebook-- are where I go to talk harps. Several clarsach players contribute, and all 3 groups are friendly (a lovely change after I was in a couple other forums that were… well… kind of snooty…).
You’d be welcome if you’re interested!
Check out mandolincafe.com and type in strings in the search box. You might also type in fiddle/violin strings. Or, there is a room for strings and accessories so you could post your interest of fiddle strings and see what replies you receive.
Hmmm … By “talk strings” I meant to refer to discussion of things to do with stringed instruments in general, and more especially fiddle. It’s not just the strings that you buy to fit on them that I’m interested in. In fact, I’m not very interested in those, as I know what strings I like, and have been very happy with them for some years now.
But there’s nowhere nice - that I can find - to talk about the use of stringed instruments, especially fiddle, in ITM. You’d think there would be.
Yeah … I’ve tried both of those in the past. I guess they’re OK. They’re not the equivalent of what we’ve got here for whistle, flute and pipes, though. there’s lots of jazz and stuff, that I’m not interested in. Maybe I’m being too picky …
Thank you Allison. Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to figure out that yahoo stuff…and I don’t do FB - although I occasionally read the wire harp FB pages.
I do not need the help these days, but in the past I used Meastronet a lot. Yes it is a classical group but for, and here forgive my CS terminology. low level skill issues, there is none better. Such as ‘scratchy bow’, control of dynamics, better posture, the best teaching practices - tends to be Dr. Suzuki’s method; instrument quality, set up, bridge placement, sound post placement, string height, fine tuners/yes/no, and basically everything to do with the Violin, or if you prefer the Fiddle.
It’s not primarily about stringed instruments, and certainly not primarily about fiddle. The other issue I find now is that the people who could play, who used to post there, don’t any more. Please let’s not get into specific individuals, though.
Absolutely spot on! Indeed there is nothing on that site any more of interest to enthusiasts. All of the focus today is virtual, Facebook, YouTube, and the updated ABC site and far better for tunes.
As for sessions, today’s are a pale shadow to the initial burst back in 90’s and 00s. I don’t bother with them these days… rather socialize on FB or here.
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