Layers’s fifty-nine comments

I built a copy of a Selmer oval-hole and it’s the main guitar I play. more…

I learned this tune from a John Carty Cd, but found that once I learned it, Cherish The Ladies, another similar old jig, was hard to play. It seemed that I could only know one or the other. more…

Just listen to John Carty’s fiddle and tenor banjo recordings if you want to hear some brilliant improvisations which don’t violate the basic integrity of the tune. more…

Like Screetch, I’m very fond of baroque music (Tartini and Bach in particular) and have had my fill of the emotional excesses of much Romantic-era music. more…

I play the fiddle in an eclectic ITM/American old-time session on the banks of the Mississippi River in Hannibal, Missouri. I’ve been playing these tunes for decades, while many of our players are beginners who rely upon chord-charts and sheet music. more…

I didn’t start to learn the fiddle until I was 27 years old. For the following 20 years I didn’t have the opportunity to play much with other musicians, living as I did in a remote rural community where acoustic music had pretty much died out. more…

I’ll second triplet’s recommendation of John Carty’s The Cat That Ate The Candle. Carty is a master of the subtle variation, both in melody and tone, while still remaining within the tradition. more…

I can pick up a tune at a session by ear but in order to remember it I usually find the ABC and generate a score. A very useful ear-training exercise is to take a tune you know well and play it in another key. more…

I second the recommendation of Kevin MacLeod. Wonderful playing, and stellar accompanimnet by Alec Finn. more…

I made my main fiddle, an unconventional first effort made from trees I cut from my land here in Missouri. It has an Eastern red cedar top and walnut back and sides. The fingerboard, pegs, and tailpiece are dogwood. more…