GREAT GROOVE BANDS

String wizard Darol Anger in his foreword to A Practical Guide for String Players:

"Donna gets it all right. I suspect that the general level of fiddle knowledge and playing will take a major uptick soon after [Fiddling Demystified] is published, just as other great music books such as Earl Scruggs’ original banjo book, O’Neill‘s great Irish fiddling reference and the infamous jazz Real Book influenced the course of musicians’ lives and work."

A Practical Guide for String Players

Table of Contents & Lesson List Sample lesson: Swallowtail Jig

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31 tunes from Donna Hébert's Fiddling Demystified for String Players, with Donna and friends playing medleys for listening and jamming along with. With most tracks recorded in stereo, this intimate CD makes you feel you are in the living room with the musicians as they play! Several tracks feature Chanterelle and several others were recorded at 2004 Groove Camp faculty concerts. This CD is the companion listen and jam-along CD for Fiddling Demystified for String Players, Vol. I.

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sample tracks - mp3s: A Jigger of Blues, Thanksgiving Waltz 

Donna, Jane and Max from Groovemama tour the Southwest

Donna Hébert has been invited to present French-Canadian fiddling tunes and teaching methods at the American String Teachers' Conference in Albuquerque in Feb. 2008. She will also lead jam sessions at the conference.

This invite has grown into a 10-day tour of Albuquerque, Phoenix and Tucson. Donna, Jane Rothfield and guitarist Max Cohen are playing dance, workshop and concert dates (see calendar dates below) in Albuquerque, Tempe, Tucson and Phoenix from Feb. 28 through March 9.

Dates include a fiddle workshop March 6 for the music education department at Arizona State in Tempe and a concert March 7 at Fiddlers' Dream Coffeehouse in Phoenix. Dances in Albuquerque, Phoenix and Tuscson finish the tour.

Please contact Donna about sponsoring a house concert or fiddle, banjo or guitar workshop.

  Donna Hébert, Max Cohen and Jane Rothfield

Fiddle & Strings and Fiddling Demystified Camps at Old Songs in Voorheesville NY

Donna is directing three fiddle day camp weeks in July 2008 - one for children, a second for novice-intermediate adults and a third for teachers and string players of intermediate and advanced skills.

All three weeks of camp are held 9-4 Mon-Fri. at the air-conditioned Old Songs Community Center in the village of Voorheesville NY, about 20 minutes west of Albany.

WEEK 1: July 7-11 - Fiddle & Strings Camp for ages 6-18 with Donna Hébert, Jane Rothfield, George Wilson and Max Cohen. Fiddle, banjo, guitar, bass, theory, keyboards, arranging.

WEEK 2: July 14-18 - Fiddle & Strings Camp for novice/intermediate adults with Donna Hébert, Jane Rothfield, George Wilson and Max Cohen. Fiddle, banjo, guitar, bass, theory, keyboards, arranging.

WEEK 3: July 28-Aug. 1 - Fiddling Demystified for Strings Camp for teachers, string players, fiddlers - intermediate to advanced with fiddler Donna Hébert, Alternative Styles cellist Renata Bratt and guitarist Max Cohen. Fiddle, cello, guitar, theory, arranging, transposing for strings, lesson plans.

Download a PDF of the camp brochure

LIMIT 30 CAMPERS EACH WEEK • DEADLINE 6/1/08

Contact Old Songs to to check on avaiable space for for all three weeks of camp

 Renata Bratt (left) and Donna Hébert at Mark O'Connor 2006 San Diego Strings Conference. 2007 Chair of ASTA's Alternative Styles Steering Committee with instructional materials on Mel Bay, Renata has also edited Donna's cello edition of Fiddling Demystified for Strings.

Burlington, VT's French-Canadian fiddle master Louis Beaudoin was a musical inspiration to many, including members of the Northeast Fiddlers Association, where he served as a fiddle contest judge and board member. His family band, "La Famille Beaudoin," was much honored, with recordings on Philo and performances at the Smithsonian, Wolf Trap and the Jimmy Carter Inaugural in 1976. After Louis' death in 1980 at age 59, many fiddlers he mentored took up his music and passed it on to the next generation.

One of those fiddlers mentored by Louis, teacher Donna Hébert, leads a hands-on workshop in South Burlington VT fom 2-5 pm on Sat. April 26 on "The Fiddling of Louis Beaudoin." Donna has transcribed and annotated thirty of Louis' tunes and will teach three of his most characteristic tunes, analyzing and demontrating Louis' mastery of syncopated French-Canadian rhythms.

Donna also discusses and demonstrates guitar progressions for Louis' tunes, reflecting the jazz guitar influence of his brother and lifelong accompanist, Wilfred Beaudoin. Beaudoin family members will demonstrate seated foot-tapping, "taper du pieds" or "podorhythmie."

The workshop, held at the home of one of the Beaudoin daughters, welcomes fiddle, viola, cello, bass, guitar, accordion, banjo, mandolin, flute and whistle players with at least intermediate playing skills. All tunes are taught by ear, with chords and sheet music available.