Making Ripples: post-corporate adventures in Floyd County Virginia

Only in Floyd - music with your groceries

John Houston's Sweet Providence Farm Market & Bakery in Floyd, Virginia, offers fine live music along with locally raised meats and produce.

Martin Scudder and Bernie Coveney entertained a group of fans yesterday on the timber frame verandah overlooking Route 221 far below.

Martin's red violin sounds like no other and makes a perfect counterpart to Bernie's inspired guitar stylings.

Bernie has recently recorded his new CD, Whispering Pines and Martin had copies of his new CD on hand, Chapter IX Stepping Forward.

Rumor has it that they are recording a new CD together. It should be quite popular. Bernie and Martin are pros and they make great music.

Sweet Providence Farm is presenting live music every Saturday afternoon all through the summer. Check their website for a schedule of performers.

Doing what you love may require another way to pay the bills

 Doug Thompson's article, Opinions Vary, about Floyd musicians applies equally well to artists and artisans all over the world.

He points out that Floyd, Virginia, is not a town where those who do what they love can always make a living out of that love. Most artists, musicians, craftsmen, etc., have other jobs or resources to pay the bills. Those day jobs or deep pockets allow them to do what they love and let other things pay the bills.

I say this is not unique to Floyd. It is a worldwide phenomena.

Being a fantastic musician or a highly skilled artist is no guarantee that you can use that skill to keep food on the table. You have to be able to attract paying customers and you have to be willing to do what those customers need and want before they will pay you for your services.

One of the things you will learn early on is that there is no entitlement in a free market. Nobody owes you a living.  You must make people want to pay for your products or services and that takes more than artistic skill.

Does this begin to sound like work? It IS work and it takes a great deal of good business sense to generate income on a regular basis.

So, if there is something you really enjoy doing, but it doesn't pay well, then you need to find out what it will take to make a living doing what you are doing.

If you can't see your way to making a living in the near future, then you need to take on additional work doing something that people will pay for.

If you are doing something that you really enjoy and it has the possibility of generating an income that you can support your family on, then it is worth all of the effort that you have to put into it to get really good at it. Most people I know who have their own business are working more than 50 hours a week, but they would not consider any other career to be a satisfactory alternative.

Running a small business successfully is a real challenge. It can also provide incredible job satisfaction even when you are still learning the ropes.

Just don't expect people to give you money. You need to figure out how to earn it by doing things people need and want. This is true whether you are a musician, an artist, or a craftsperson.

Indianapolis bluegrass musicians enjoy Floyd sunshine and hospitality

Mark Conway and Craig Stinson were entertaining us in downtown Floyd, Virginia today because they had read in a book that if you came to Virginia, you had to visit Floyd.

They are just two more of the many musicians that have been drawn to Floyd from all over the world to perform for the receptive audiences that can be found here. The streets of Floyd are definitely not paved with gold, but Floydians have good hearts and they appreciate good music.

Floyd did not disappoint them as they found a ready audience on the newly constructed South Locust sidewalk. Customers of the Floyd Country Store were enjoying their ice cream treats to the toe-tapping bluegrass music when I stopped to interview them.

Popular local musician Bernie Coveney made them feel right at home when he stopped by for a brief discussion of their music and of the musicians they knew.

Conway and Stinson plan on being in town for a few days and hope to join in the Friday Night Jamboree jam sessions at the Floyd Country Store.

These young musicians are personable and I found their  music appealing. I will buy a copy of their CD "Legal Grass" before they move on.

You can learn more about them from their MYSpace page Legal Grass

UPDATE:

On Friday night, Mark and Craig were jamming with local musicians in the alley next to the Floyd Country Store. This was just one of several sessions they joined .

It should be noted that there were many visiting musicians this particular night. I counted at least 40 musicians playing on the sidewalks of Floyd and probably half of them were from out of the county.

The Leningrad Cowboys - nothing succeeds like excess

Finland's answers to the Blues Brothers are still alive and rocking today.

With their extreme hair styles, bizarre glasses and pointy shoes, the Finnish rock group, the Leningrad Cowboys make a splendid contrast to the Red Army Choir as they performed together recently in a rousing rendition of "Sweet Home Alabama" to the enthusiastic applause of Russian teen-agers.

This is a seriously off-the-wall group and if you are into truly bizarre musicians, you may enjoy this video. I definitely want a pair of the glasses they are wearing.

Like the Blues Brothers, the Leningrad Cowboys are a product of a movie, in this case, "Leningrad Cowboys Go America", in which the world's worst polka band comes to America to find fame and fortune. Their dead-pan humor and relentless pursuit of success at all costs made them a cult favorite for all 10 of us who watched the movie.

Now the group is world renown. If you Google "Leningrad Cowboys images", you will find hundreds of images from their CDs and concert tours.

Thanks to old friend Gunter Leonhart for the link to http://www.tothepointnews.com/content/view/3114/85/  and to gonza.techno for the image.

UPDATE: Sippican Cottage, another woodworker/blogger has posted more performances by the Leningrad Cowboys. Visit his site for two fine videos.

House Concerts and 21st Century Touring

In response to my last post, Fran Snyder, a singer-songwriter based in Lawrence, KS, sent me a link to his website ConcertsInYourHome.com which is a resource for musicians and house concert hosts alike.

He also has a blog, house concerts and 21st century touring where he discusses the growing "house concert" movement  which creates meaningful and financially rewarding opportunities for artists and which brings neighborhoods and music lovers together in a common cause.

The music industry is changing and the old business models need to be re-examined if musicians are to thrive in a world where labels no longer control distribution and the economics of playing noisy clubs for tips is increasingly less rewarding.

Perhaps musicians can take a lesson from writers who have turned to self publishing in order to reach audiences and have successfully bypassed the traditional publishing industry and its insider network. Very few get rich, but most of the writers I know who have done this have managed to sell books and generate some income.

More and more musicians seem to be self publishing also, but what if they really got behind a grassroots effort to augment their income with performances in house concert venues?

One musician friend feels that playing for tips is demeaning for a professional musician. How about working for donations?  Working for a living always involves having to make choices and being able to draw an audience.

Providing background music in a club means that you are always interrupting someone's conversation. If you are good enough to command the attention of the crowd and willing to overlook the screamers in the front table, you may pull in enough tips and applause to make the day worth while.

How about setting up a few house concerts with congenial hosts?  Donations are understood to be the price of entry and you get an attentive audience. Your only problem as an entertainer is drawing a crowd through reputation and promotional activity.

I would be interested in hearing if there is a down side to house concerts from the musician's standpoint.

Let's have some discussion on the 21st Century touring model.

House Concerts are a time for coming together

It was a fine way of starting off the new year. People from all over Floyd County were greeting friends and making new ones at Mac and Jenny Traynham's farmhouse in Willis.

Mac and Jenny were hosting a house concert by the Hushpuppies, a Greensboro, NC, old-time music revival band.

It was an evening to remember, a full house of music lovers, lively tunes, and a bountiful spread of pot-luck refreshments.

The Hushpuppies entertained the packed house with old-time and gospel music they have learned from elderly fiddle and banjo players throughout the South. All four musicians sing and play several instruments. They are talented and likable entertainers.

From left to right in the photo, they are Molly Stouten, Jon Newlin, Amy Davis, and Steve Terrill. You can find out more about them and their music here.

They have a refreshing naturalness about them and they manage to integrate tunes from many sources into a style that is very much their own. From rousing dance tunes to wry musical commentaries on life, this talented quartet held the audience spellbound from their opening notes to the final flourish.

They shared the histories of the songs and told us about the musicians they had learned them from. They also invited the audience to sing along with them and there were many who joined in on the old time songs. People were happily singing along to tunes I had never heard before!

House concerts are becoming an increasingly popular venue for musicians and audiences alike. House concerts are hosted by fans in someone's house or private space. Donations are requested and go directly to the performers. CD sales are an important part of the evening for performers and the audience alike.

Everyone benefits. The audience gets to hear music performed in an intimate environment and can actually chat with the performers on a personal basis. In a house concert, the musicians get an attentive audience that is there to hear the music and they find house concerts to be more financially rewarding than playing cafes.

If you would like to find out more about house concerts, perhaps to put on one of your own, talk to Mac and Jenny Traynham or Google "house concerts". There is a lot more information available on this do-it-yourself concert phenomena.

Complaining to music - now a worldwide phenomenon

Complaining to music  is a performance art with a growing audience. Lyrical and funny, these choirs captivate listeners with lyrics that strike to the heart of our everyday lives.

If you listen to these choirs perform in their own languages and read the English subtitles, you will see an amazing commonality of complaints. We seem to have the same dreams and we are frustrated in trying to achieve them, even if it is only trying to live a quiet life and be loved.

It all got started by Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen in Helsinki. They discussed the possibility of transforming the huge energy people put into complaining into something powerful like music. They have created an amazing outpouring of creativity in many different countries.

I wrote an article about this last November, but now they've gone worldwide. Everything you ever wanted to know about Complaints Choirs, including how to organize one can be found on this site. There are now 10 operational Complaints Choirs and the number keeps on growing.

I think the Hamburg Complaints Choir is one of the most enjoyable, although the Complaints Choir of the Poikkilaakson Elementary School is a close second. 

Even the Mayor of Bodø in Northern Norway is performing with their Complaints Choir! Check out his ceremonial necklace.

The St Petersburg Choir is truly the saddest, although their singers have their bright and cheerful moments as you can see in the picture at the beginning of this article.

Complaints Choirs are currently forming in London, Pittsburgh, Juneau, Gabriola Island off Vancouver Island, and at Penn State University.

Tired of not being heard? Form a Complaints Choir and get on YouTube!

Floyd Country Store Reopens in Style

Late night preparations

Woody Crenshaw and a large group of contractors and friends worked many long hours to complete the renovation of the Floyd Country Store in time for the February 2nd Friday Night Jamboree.

Woody took great care to build the addition using materials and construction techniques that matched the original structure.

He added at least 30 feet to the back of the old Country Store to make room for a new dance floor and stage and he matched the antique embossed  tin ceiling panels so well that you have to look very carefully to see where the old panels leave off and the new panels begin.

I dropped in during the last frantic days to admire the controlled chaos that Woody was keeping under control while still managing to run his lighting company and preside over the 'Round the Mountain Artisan Network.

Even with his cell phone ringing constantly and workmen coming up to check on final details, Woody Crenshaw was the soul of hospitality. I was invited to share in the food brought in for the construction and sound check crews.

I grabbed a cup of soup and watched old friends Bernie Coveney, Abe Goorsky, Michael Kovicks, and Chris Luster play for the sound check of the newly-constructed dance hall.

Woody had installed a brand new sound system and had brought in Stage Sound from Roanoke to manage the sound check and set the system up for use.

Watching these professionals set up seven microphones and two monitor speakers was a revelation. It took only minutes for them to adjust the sound system so the bright empty room was producing clean sound, free from undesired noise and reverberations.

Once the mikes were set up,  the musicians began playing to complete the sound check and Liz Stone took advantage of the new dance floor and performed the very first dance steps in the new Floyd Country Store.

I came by late that night on my way home and workmen were still painting and putting up shelving. Woody vowed that the store would reopen on February 2nd, even if there were a few things that still needed to be completed.

It was all worth it! The reopening came off on schedule!

On Friday night, our friends Mac and Jenny Mac Traynham opened the evening by playing a round of Gospel tunes to a packed house. The new sound system carried the music throughout the store even over the excited chatter of hundreds of patrons.

It was one of the busiest Friday Night Jamborees I have ever seen at the store. Woody manned the soda fountain when he wasn't being besieged by well-wishers. A troop of local cloggers in costumes took to the packed dance floor and performed while surrounded by dozens of other dancers.

It was a fine way to spend a very cold evening and we all had a great time. Mark your calendars. The Friday Night Jamboree is back and is better than ever!

Two for the Price of One

Last Friday, Gretchen and I broke away for a few hours and managed to catch Mac and Jenny Traynham playing at Oddfellas Cantina. They are fine performers and have been active in the performance and preservation of the music of Appalachia. We make it a point to hear them whenever we can.

Mac is a true professional. This particular night he was playing up a storm even though he was feeling poorly. But he brought along a young couple to play the second set and they did a great job.

Jackson Cunningham and Anya Hinkle played a set of high energy country music.

I was not able to find out much about Jackson other than he is a competent guitar player with a good singing voice.

But, like so many of the people we meet in Floyd, there is far more to Anya Hinkle than a violinist with a great country voice. An avid cyclist, she competed in NCCA road races while she was getting her Ph.D. at UC-Berkely. She is now a post-doctorate fellow in the Department of Biological Sciences at Virginia Tech.

I hope we have a chance to hear Hinkle and Cunningham again. Their performance was a nice follow-on to the Traynams.

Bernie Coveney - a special kind of guitar teacher

Bernie is a professional guitar player who shows his students how to let their music out so others can hear it.

He views his approach as a matter of teaching students how to play songs, not to rotely practice music. For example, in the first lesson he generally asks students what song they want to play. When the student identifies it, Bernie says, "Good! That's what we are going to learn!"

Bernie's approach to teaching the guitar produces extraordinary results. He taught one young boy a few Major 7 chords and showed him how to string verses together in his first lesson. The boy went home and by the time he came back for his second lesson, he had composed a song for his mother using the chords he had been taught. The boy's mother was in tears!

Bernie has learned that students want to play a song. They don't want to learn musical notation, theory, etc., they want to play. This is true for all of his students from the youngest to the oldest. Bernie gears his lesson to the student so the student is on a winning track from the very beginning.

As he puts it, he gets the student to the point where the music comes out and he just gets out of their way.

Bernie's simple explanation does not tell the full story. Bernie is a gentle and spiritual person who has a high level of awareness. He is very sensitive to the needs of his students and is very much aware when they are having difficulty or when they need to try their wings. If you have ever had the privilege of talking with Bernie, you know what I mean.

He tries to get his students to open their ears and identify what is happening in a song and to create their own notes from the very beginning. Bernie will take a tune and encourage a student to explore new ways to place a note and to play with time.

Some of Bernie's students have PhDs degrees in music. They come to Bernie because they have all the musical theory, but they cannot play. They can read music, but they have never learned to perform without sheet music in front of them. Bernie teaches his students how to play.

I think that Bernie is the ideal teacher to rehabilitate failed purposes in music. How many budding musicians despair of endless practice sessions of scales and chords and quit instead of playing the songs that inspired them to take up music in the first place?

Bernie's approach to teaching cuts to the chase immediately. If the student is willing to practice, he is working with tools that let him play songs from the very first lesson.

Bernie has years of experience writing and performing music and he rehearses for many hours every day. He can be heard several nights a week at different venues in Floyd, VA, playing original compositions, gypsy/jazz, bluegrass, blues, country and a little bit of rock 'n roll. He likes playing with people who stimulate him and says that Floyd has a lot of musicians who do that. There is an environment here that is good for the arts.

For guitar lessons or for a musical engagement, you can contact Bernie at (540) 651-4690 or email him at akarosa@swva.net. He does not have a website or a blog yet, but I am working on him to start one, because he has a lot of knowledge to share and more people should know about him.

If you have a lot of music bottled  up inside you, you need to talk to Bernie Coveney. He just might be able to help you. After interviewing him for this article, I wanted to start playing music again, something I haven't thought about for years.

Bernie has that effect on people.  :)