You made theory feel like a fun puzzle, a tool that would open new doors to enjoying playing music with others. That’s huge, because it moves people past thinking “theory is going to be hard, or boring, and won’t relate to what I want to play anyway.” Then, you had us immediately apply it – so important! People can use the information to start doing stuff that sounds good, even if they haven’t yet processed the concepts they just heard.” — Susan Conger, music teacher and participant, 2014 Smith College workshop: “The Art of Groove”
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.” — Darol Anger, Berklee string professor, in his foreword to Donna’s “Fiddling Demystified for Strings”
My Fiddling Demystified for Strings book is in it’s tenth year of publication and it’s satisfying to hear it’s still relevant. A recent customer review said:
The book and CD are GREAT!!! The book is pretty wonderful on its own … nice collection of tunes and everything meticulously transcribed and explained in the text … great job! The CDs, though, are what really blew me away. The way that you explain not only the tunes but the ornamentations and other techniques that really give the tunes their character is, at least in my experience, unique, amazing and sooooo incredibly valuable!! I figured this book/CD would be good but the whole package is even better. What an incredible gift you’ve given to anyone who aspires to play the instrument … and even to those of us who don’t, but want to know how to fold fiddlistic ornaments and other techniques into our playing!! This is really a treasure trove and you can bet that I’ll be recommending it everywhere in the circles I travel in. There is a tremendous amount of value from this … way beyond the price. The package really is about as close to an in-person lesson as the print/ CD medium will allow. You should be amazingly proud of yourself and YES … please … get busy on volume two. I’ll be your very first customer!!!” Oct 2016, Wayne Fugate, mandolin player, musical cast of “Bright Star” on Broadway.