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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Thanksgiving Day (3.3 MB)

Vietnam-era veteran Donna Hébert is a fiddler and teacher from Amherst, Massachusetts. One of her students, Cynthia Thomas, wrote a beautiful melody called the Thanksgiving Waltz. Donna added lyrics this fall about the hopes and fears of families with members serving in the military. Recorded with guitarist Max Cohen, Donna sings and plays fiddle.

 

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 

Learn to play with French-Canadian swing and make your bow dance to the syncopated rhythms! Donna has received six NEA-sponsored Master/ Apprenticeship awards in Franco-American fiddling from New England arts councils.

Seven tunes, style, rhythm and playing lessons, hints and stories

• Reel de Rémi
• Les guenilles
• Isidore's Reel
• Fireside Reel
• Growling Old Man & Grumbling Old Woman
• Glise à Sherbrooke
• Un canadien errant

AVAILABLE 12/15/07 - ORDER BLANK

Donna Hébert has been invited to present French-Canadian fiddling and teaching methods at the American String Teachers' Conference in Albuquerque in Feb. 2008. This led to a 10-day tour of Albuquerque, Phoenix and Tucson.

Donna, Jane Rothfield and guitarist Max Cohen are playing dance, workshop and concert dates (in the calendar, below) in Albuquerque, Tucson and Phoenix from Feb. 28 through March 9.

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

Donna Hébert, Max Cohen, Jane Rothfield, George Wilson recording with Dr. Fred at Dufay Digital.

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

All three weeks are held at the air-conditioned Old Songs Inc. headquarters in the village of Voorheesville NY, about 20 minutes west of Albany.

Contact Old Songs to register for all three weeks of camp.

LIMITED TO 30 CAMPERS EACH WEEK

REGISTRATION OPENS 1/15/08 DEADLINE 6/1/08

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

WEEK 2: July 14-18 - Fiddle & Strings Camp for novice adults with Donna Hébert, Jane Rothfield, George Wilson and Max Cohen.

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.

Renata Bratt (left) and Donna Hébert at Mark O'Connor 2006 San Diego Strings Conference, where they met and performed together. 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.