Category: archived

When someone asks me how long I have played the violin, I tell them about seventy years. But that’s not true. That includes about forty-five years that I didn’t play at all. About twenty years ago I started playing again, this time the fiddle and not the violin. Much of what I had learned as a kid came back to me, but then I had to learn all those tunes. Learning to play the fiddle (or violin) is really a life-long process; one never arrives at the final destination, but it is the journey that makes it worthwhile.
Continue reading “FIDDLE MUSINGS, by Stewart Hendrickson”

The Pacific Northwest Folklore Society has produced a distinctive series of live music concerts at Couth Buzzard Books since May, 2010. The last concert on Sunday, June 9, with Claudia Schmidt is an example of what we do best: a renown performer in a small intimate space – fifty-two people that Sunday – at the same level allowing maximum interaction between the performer and audience, pure acoustic sound with no obtrusive electronics, and all for a very affordable donation. With the generosity of Theo Dezielak, owner of the Couth, we get a free venue along with refreshments and some friendly baristas to serve us. But we need to talk about the real cost of live music at the Couth and how best to sustain it. Continue reading “KEEP MUSIC LIVE AT THE COUTH, by Stewart Hendrickson”

The Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skykomish, Stilliguamish, Shoalwater, Columbia, Copalis, Clearwater, Kalaloch, Klickitat, Humptullips, Hamma Hamma, Hoh, Dosewallips, Dungeness, Puyallup, Pilchuck, Physt, Quillayutte, Queets, Grey Wolf, Yakima, Taholah, Tieton, Naches, Elwha, Raft, Moclips…  When I first moved to Washington I was amused by the recitation of rivers in weather reports of flooding. There ought to be a song there. In fact, there are several. Continue reading “THE RIVERS OF WASHINGTON, by Stewart Hendrickson”

Why Teach Music?
Music is a science
Music is mathematical
Music is a foreign language
Music is history
Music is a physical education
Music is all these things, but most of all music is art

That is Why We Teach Music:
Not because we expect you to major in music
Not because we expect you to play or sing all your life
Not so you can relax
Not so you can have fun
Not because we expect you to major in music
But so you will be human
So you will recognize beauty
So you will be sensitive
So you will be closer to an infinite beyond this world
So you will have something to cling to
So you will have more love, more compassion, more gentleness, more good–in short, more life.
Of what value will it be to make a prosperous living unless we know how to live?

That is Why We Teach Music!

Sometime in the late 1970s there was a student/faculty talent show at St. Olaf College where I taught chemistry. My colleague Dewayne Wee, a piano professor in the music department, and I decided to perform a song. We wanted to look very professional and appear musically cultured, so we dressed in formal tuxedos. Dwayne sat down at the grand piano, and I stood beside it and began to sing a beautiful love song: Continue reading “TOM LEHRER – Mathematician and Musical Satirist, by Stewart Hendrickson”

In 1966 I heard Lu Mitchell, a Dallas singer-songwriter, sing She’s Someone’s Grandmother (The Kugelsburg Bank), her song about a white-haired lady who over many years embezzled millions of dollars from a Texas bank (a true story). It had a lovely tune, which I suspected was not original, but I didn’t know its origin. A few years ago I heard a hammered dulcimer player play it as the traditional tune Bendemeer’s Stream. A little research on the Internet revealed that Thomas Moore (1779-1852) wrote lyrics for this tune as Bendemeer’s Stream. But Moore borrowed the tune from an older Irish air.  Continue reading “BORROWED TUNES AND WORDS, by Stewart Hendrickson”