Hello Friends – Carl and my Online Music Classes start Nov 6th – yay! Adv-Beg Fiddle, Int. Fiddle, Int Mandolin, Int Back-up Guitar will be offered. Each 6 week class meets once a week. The classes are fun and we look forward to sharing a lot of great tunes, tips and music! Here’s the scoop:
Adv-Beg / Early-Int Fiddle (Taught by Erynn) Saturdays: 11am -12pm ET Nov 6th – Dec 11th, 2021
Intermediate Old-Time Fiddle (Taught by Erynn) Saturdays: 3:30pm – 4:30pm ET Nov 6th – Dec 11th, 2021
Intermediate Guitar Back-Up (Taught by Carl) Saturdays: 1pm – 2pm ET Nov 6th – Dec 11th, 2021
Intermediate + Mandolin (Taught by Carl) Tuesdays: 7pm-8pm ET Nov 9th – Dec 7th and Wed, Dec 15th, 2021 (no class Dec 14)
Each group class meets online for an hour a week for 6 weeks on Zoom. Videos of all classes will be recorded and archived so you can miss a class and watch later if you’d like to. Some people in far-flung time zones like to take the class entirely by video. Pdfs of Fiddle music & Mandolin/Guitar music / tab will be provided. Participants are given access to a class folder of all the music/tab/video links. You can download all class videos/music/tab onto your own computer for review. Cost per 6 session class is $75-$125 (sliding scale: pay what you can). Canadian’s can pay the same prices in CAD (Canuck special J). We’ll learn good technique, old-time style, great tunes and some interesting background on some of our favorite, traditional players! We’ll also strive to have fun and create a sense of community in these group classes because everyone needs that right now and we enjoy it too!
To register just tell us what class you’d like to join by emailing info@dittyville.com and make your payment via paypal, venmo or check. paypal.me/dittyville www.venmo.com/dittyville Please share the class news with music friends. If you have any questions feel free to drop us a line at info@dittyville.com Hope you can join us for some more, great, Old-Time Music! Carl Jones & Erynn Marshall www.Dittyville.com
We hope this letter finds you well and that you have been able to enjoy many days of the summer so far even if it is another unusual one. We continue to feel grateful for increased vaccinations, things opening up more, a return to our first in-person camps/gigs again and for seeing more friends and loved ones. Every day counts more now than ever before.
Carl and I have some news! We are moving to Hillsville, Virginia (25 minutes from Galax, VA) where we have bought an old Victorian farmhouse (built in 1900 but very updated). We’re staying in the beautiful, Blue Ridge Mountains with amazing traditional music and cool temperatures. The house is lovely but no one enjoys moving. Wish us luck! We are packing a lot of boxes these days…
Online Music Camp: SGOnline:
Want to enjoy an online fiddle camp from the comfort of your own home? I’ll be teaching adv-beg fiddle at Swannanoa Old-Time Week (called SGOnline this year) July 18-23, 2021. Carl is teaching intermediate clawhammer banjo and int+-adv mandolin. You can take 3 classes (there are many great teachers and classes to choose from!) and you should check them all out. If you are busy you have a whole month to catch up on any classes you miss. You can also participate in online jams led by great old-time musicians, join in the virtual Old-Time Social Open Mic (or just listen) and enjoy the gala staff concert (killer line-up! …all the OT staff). All that and there’s even happy-hour hang-outs every day where you can just socialize with friends and have the beverage of your choice. There’s still time to sign up but you should do it soon. Check it out at: https://swangathering.com/catalog/ot/classes/
Other upcoming events we’ll be at in person (woot!):
Sept 5 – 10 – John C Campbell Folk School (Brasstown, NC).
Oct 27 – 31 – Augusta October Old-Time Week (Elkins, WV).
Carl and I will be starting up our online classes again once things settle down in the fall. We’ll be sure to let you know.
More good news! Old-Time Sweethearts featuring 12 old-time music couples from across the country (and produced by Rachel Eddy and myself) was glowingly reviewed and featured in the Old-Time News (a UK publication) and we even made the cover! The new, 2021 release is available from www.Dittyville.com and Bandcamp.
p.s. Catch us on Patreon
Carl and I also continue to provide teaching videos, music, tab, recipes, free album downloads, performance videos, songwriting tips & more on Patreon. If you sign up at the $6 (lesson videos) or $10 level (videos & sheet music/tab) you also get all the tunes we taught monthly for the last 14 months! You can check out what we offer at: https://www.patreon.com/dittyville
We look forward to seeing many of you this summer. If we miss you we hope we get to see you soon. May you and yours enjoy all that these warmer months have to offer. Thanks as always for your support of our music and be safe.
Today is the official release of Old-time Sweethearts! Next is the BIG EVENT that will bring us all together, our Sweethearts Online Release Concert featuring twenty musicians from the project in one show!! Mark your calendars for Sunday, May 2nd, at 7pm ET. Let’s party!!
Performances by:
Betse Ellis & Clarke Wyatt
Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer
Judy Hyman & Jeff Claus
Elizabeth LaPrelle & Brian Dolphin
Bruce Molsky & Audrey Molsky
Andrew Small & Ashlee Watkins
Tricia Spencer & Howard Rains
AJ Srubas & Rina Rossi
Erynn Marshall & Carl Jones
Rachel Eddy & Em Hammond
Old-Time Sweethearts Release Concert! Online Sunday, May 2 at 7pm ET (4pm Pacific Time). (Tix are $15 or only $10 if you order or have ordered a copy of OTS):Tickets available here:https://buytickets.at/dittyvilleYou can purchase the Old-time Sweethearts when you get a concert ticket, at www.dittyville.com or from Bandcamp here: Old-Time Sweethearts digital copies at BandcampWe’re thankful to the musicians, our supporters who pre-ordered and the DJs who are already spinning the tunes! Hope to see you at the show!cheers, Erynn and Rachel
The pandemic has been hard on all of us. The only thing many of us musicians knew what to do after our tours, concerts and livelihoods were disrupted for this long was to dive back deep into the music itself (possibly a form of escapism). In this space so much art creation and inner growth has been taking place. A desire grew for many artists to reach out and help others. We long to bring beauty back into this world we cherish and connect with loved ones. Music is the way of our hearts, hands and voices.
Here is an example of an amazing silver lining of this turbulent time. During a small but very special, socially-distanced jam session last summer, the idea for Old-Time Sweethearts was born. The music was sounding so fine between the three musical couples that were present and it felt so good to be making live music again. This moment sparked Rachel Eddy and myself, (producers and friends), along with our music/life partners Emily Hammond and Carl Jones, to team up with 10 other musical couples to make Old-Time Sweethearts – a unique 2 volume set of recordings. Here is all the info about our labor-of-love project we are so happy to bring to you!
Old-Time Sweethearts is an exciting collection of music from sweethearts—couples steeped in the genre who offer new glimpses into what they create together. The musical contributions of each couple showcase unique collaborations made possible only by years of making music together. Featuring players from across the United States, this two-volume set reveals an array of tradition-inspired music made with love. Each CD in this collection includes a baker’s dozen of tunes and songs.
Pre-orders for Old-Time Sweethearts start Feb 14th. CDs will be mailed out in early April 2021. For a limited time get our special pre-order price of $25 USD for both volumes. Digital download release on Bandcamp is March 5, 2021! If you want to make an international order, use credit cards or snail mail us a check email us info@dittyville.com. We’ll be glad to assist. This entire project was made during the pandemic and we appreciate your support. Everybody needs a little old-time music love right now! We hope you enjoy Old-Time Sweethearts.
Sincerely, Erynn
Old-Time Sweethearts
Volume 1:
Betse Ellis and Clarke Wyatt
Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer
Judy Hyman and Jeff Claus
Elizabeth LaPrelle and Brian Dolphin
Earl White and Adrienne Davis
Erynn Marshall and Carl Jones
Rachel Eddy and Emily Hammond
Old-Time Sweethearts
Volume 2:
Jesse Milnes and Emily Miller
Bruce Molsky and Audrey Molsky
Andrew Small and Ashlee Watkins
AJ Srubas and Rina Rossi
Tricia Spencer and Howard Rains
Erynn Marshall and Carl Jones
Rachel Eddy and Emily Hammond
Please visit our store page on this website to order. Thank you!
Fall is here and although times are still unsteady we strive to thrive. Carl and I hope you are all safe and finding ways to stay busy with activities you enjoy and keep your spirits up this Autumn. We try to do that here at Dittyville and are grateful for the many small pleasures of our 1st summer here in southwest Virginia not spent on tour. The garden was bountiful and canning batches of our own salsa, sauce, pears, peaches and hot sauce filled us with a sense of accomplishment. We will enjoy taste of summer in our jars of veg and fruit this winter and we’ve given some away too. Plus, we’ve had a few, small jams with friends outside here or within a couple hours drive. These gatherings meant so much more now that they’re so rare.
Music for Kids: Carl and I work part-time for Alleghany JAM (Junior Appalachian Musicians) program which just started up again. All the kids get private lessons this year (mostly online) and the teachers and staff made a tune & songbook book for the children which we’re really proud of. It includes heritage musician bios that teach kids about traditional musicians in the area…pretty cool.
Livestream Concert! Carl and I are going to give a concert of our original tunes and songs live on facebook and youtube on SAT, September 26th at 2pm EST (11am Pacific time or 7pm UK time). Here’s a link to our new facebook artist page where it will happen: https://www.facebook.com/Dittyville Please save the date and tune in!
New Caps – We ordered some Dittyville caps in some cool new colors! You can pick one up yourself in the Dittyville store on this website!
Online Music Classes start in one week! Our summer classes were a blast so we’re offering fall classes for Fiddle, Guitar & Clawhammer Banjo. We’re offering the $75 Corona special again. You get six 1 hour music classes on zoom (they’re fun group workshops) plus we provide fiddle sheet music (beginners get music with fingerings) from me or banjo tab/ guitar chord charts/exercise sheets from Carl if you take his classes. The best part is each lesson is recorded on zoom and stays up for a week after each class so you can watch it anytime if you were busy the day of the lesson or you can download the lesson on your hardrive to keep. Here’s the schedule:
Erynn’s Intermediate Fiddle Class A – 11am EST Sundays: Sept 20 to Oct 25
Erynn’s Intermediate Fiddle Class B – 1pm EST Sundays: Sept 20 to Oct 25
Erynn’s Adv-Beg/Early-Int Fiddle Class – 7pm EST Tuesdays: Sept 22 to Oct 27
Carl’s intermediate+ guitar class – 3:30pm Sundays: Sept 20 – Oct 25
Carl’s intermediate clawhammer banjo 7pm EST Mondays: Sept 21 – Oct 26
Patreon Video Lessons: We love being on Patreon. We teach a tune a month on fiddle/mando/guitar/banjo and providing songwriting tips, recipes, music, tab, lesson videos and more for $3, $6 or $10 a month! Check out all the music goodies we offer here: https://www.patreon.com/dittyville
Well that’s our fall update. Thanks for stopping by. These days it’s good to have a way to find refuge, (health breaks), from the stress of the pandemic, politics, fighting for what we believe in, or upheaval in the natural world. Here’s to brighter, safer days ahead. It’s good to remember when we play music or engage in any form of art we live in the moment… free from worry and strife. Music is very precious right now…
Hello Friends (aka shelter-in-place buddies!), April 14, 2020
Thanks for coming by for an online visit. Hope you and yours stay safe and healthy during these pandemic times. Carl and I are managing ok and have been home for a month after we finished our last music camp in Port Allen, Louisiana. We were grateful to get in a visit with Carl’s daughter Kelli Jones in Lafayette before flying home and like you all, self isolating…hunkering down.
The pandemic is awful and cruel to be sure but many silver linings appear to be coming out of the abrupt changes to our lifestyles. There seems to be a shift in the consciousness to realizing the importance of simple living and the “little things” in life that now appear to be the important things after all: communicating with people we care about, helping neighbors, thinking local and globally, planting gardens, being compassionate, home cooking, looking after pets, caring about the earth, going for walks and trying to live healthy lives. It’s as if we are all re-balancing and tuning in with what really matters and mother earth is getting a rest from some of the negative effects of industry (less air pollution) and that all seems good. Also – it’s inspiring to see the respect and gratitude rightfully bestowed upon health workers and the countless others working essential services who are risking their lives so that many of us may stay home. Thank you!! There is less interest in unhelpful political rants/ ego posturing and more appreciation for learning, facts, scientific research. There is a blooming of beautiful, kind humanity in the midst of disaster. There is much to be grateful for all around. We are still connected to others and it is good to be reminded we are all in this together and to keep hope alive. Our ancestors surmounted huge challenges and we can too.
On a lighter note, Carl and I hope many of you are finding ways to fill the well of creativity while staying at home. It is exciting to think of all the exploration going on now. Books being written, music being composed and played, artworks unfolding in brilliant colors. People are being adventurous, trying new things, breaking out of the norm, being innovative, thinking outside the box, becoming more self-sufficient, and finding joy in spite of ourselves as legendary songwriter John Prine would say. Outlook is everything. Perhaps we should think of this time as a gift of time for our own self-discovery or personal creativity?
In our own little home-world we’re spring cleaning, gardening (garlic, onions, potatoes, lettuce, radishes, collards planted so far), have seedlings on the windowsill, baked sourdough, made yoghurt, homemade granola and old-fashioned lye soap. I’m also really excited to make pasta from scratch for the first time (I love to cook). We’re doing yardwork, home improvement projects, and spoiling the cats. Seems like there is a whole back-to-the-land movement burgeoning and that’s pretty cool.
Carl and I are making some music too and hope you are as well. There will be a lot of better musicians when this pandemic slows down because so many are practicing their fiddles, banjos and guitars or taking up hurdy-gurdy (one of our friends did at least lol) and learning new tunes & songs. There has been more demand for us teaching online lessons for which we are grateful since all of our tours and concerts have been cancelled for the time being and only more of the same expected for summer. We have started a Patreon page and are providing video lessons on fiddle, guitar, banjo and mandolin there plus sheet music, tab, guitar chord charts, a tune-of-the-month plus other performance videos, “songwriter’s corner” musings from Carl, recipes from old-time musicians and other fun stuff. Check it out at Patreon.com by searching for our names or Dittyville which is also our website (www.dittyville.com) where we have CDs and our Instructional DVDs on sale big time. Our digital albums are available on Bandcamp, CD Baby and itunes. Patreon subscriptions are only $3, $6 or $10 a month and provide many hours of instruction (quite a deal!) and you can get a digital download of our new CD Old Tin (or any one of our other recordings) for free just for signing up. One can un-subscribe at any time too so you might want to try it out. We’re offering one-on-one Skype or Zoom lessons for a reduced rate ($40 instead of $50per hr or 2 for $75) to provide technique pointers to bring your playing to the next level. We’d love to help and you’d be helping us too stay alive as artists. Thanks! For those affected by Covid 19 we’re putting free videos on our YouTube channel, uplifting posts on facebook and if you know someone who is feeling low our out of work let us know (email us at info@dittyville.com) and we’ll send them a free digital download of our new album Old Tin in the hopes it will brighten their day.
‘Til the next time we meet online or in person we wish you and your families good health. Stay in and stay safe. The good times are not all passed and gone. They can happen at home, online and there are more good times down the road when we get past this…and we will.
The new recording by Old Tin Erynn Marshall & Carl Jones is coming January 1, 2020!
We are so excited with how the music came out and hope you will enjoy all the songs and tunes too! It’s a blend of traditional stringband numbers and some of our new tunes and songs too. Very special guests Bob Carlin, Sarah Kate Morgan and Joe Dejarnette. Debbie Adams did a stellar job of the design complete with the CD looking totally like a metal can lid. You can pre-order Old Tin, (named after a beautiful song of Carl’s), here on this site and we will ship to you the first week in January. 16 tracks of our best musical efforts will be on your doorstep to help you kick off 2020. Digital downloads, (including hi-fi options), are also available at Bandcamp and CD Baby and come with a pdf of the complete liner notes. We give our all to each recording and are are proud of Old Tin and so glad we now get to share this music with the world. Thanks for supporting our music folks. We couldn’t do it without you. Warmly, Erynn and Carl
Nature is in full splendor, the garden is growing, we can sip iced tea on the porch in a rocker, play tunes at a campsite while the river rolls by, and the fireflies have returned! Summer beckons us all with her outstretched, green, leafy arms. The rolling mountains of the Blue Ridge are many shades of pastel like a water color painting. Each day we are grateful for so much beauty around us.
I write this update as I almost always do…from the car. I’m so grateful that I can read and write while traveling. Car-sickness or sea-sickness has never had a grasp on me. Carl and I were on a boat last year that lost one of two engines (a log got caught in the engine) and we all bounced two and fro, rolling in the waves, until we eventually made it to our destination. Not all the passengers looked happy when we got to land, (some looked a little green), but I was content. It was like being rocked to sleep in a hammock.
This summer, like many others, we will traverse many roads to great music camps and festivals in the south-eastern USA. This week we are teaching a guitar class at John C Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC and it’s been big fun. Next we are looking forward to teaching/playing at the Mount Airy Old-Time Retreat during the Mount Airy Old-Time & Bluegrass Fiddlers Convention June 5-7, then Kaufman Kamp Acoustic Week June 9-14 (Maryville, TN), Wheatland Camp June 16-19 (Michigan), Cowan Creek Mountain Music School (just Erynn) June 23-28 (Whitesburg, KY), Swannanoa Fiddle Week (just Erynn), June 30-5 (NC), Swannanoa Traditional Song Week (just Carl) July 8th(NC), Swannanoa Old-Time Week July 22-26 (Swannanoa, NC). Plus we’ll be going to festivals in Elk Creek, VA, Galax, VA and Clifftop, WV! Hope to see many of our music friends at these wonderful events! There is still room at many of them if you decide to be spontaneous and join the fun.
Other news… this year we both helped out with the Alleghany JAM Program. This is such a good cause…a non-profit that helps children learn traditional music afterschool in Sparta, NC. The kids just wrapped up the spring semester with a great concert and they sure are inspiring! Alleghany JAM is hosting a couple Coffeehouses this summer with an open mic hour and featured performer. Plus we are having a three-day kids music camp July 17-19 that includes the kids playing the opening set of music to kick off the Alleghany Fiddlers Convention. They really sound good!
We appreciate you stopping by to visit our website and we thank all our friends and fans for your support of our music projects. Carl and I hope you all get time to savor summer and hear or play lots of music too! Hope to see you all down the road soon.
Warmly, Erynn and Carl
Fall Rambles, September 16, 2018
Today is a stormy day here in Galax, Virginia and storm Florence is giving us a deluge of rain! We hope all of you are safe and sound. Carl and I were supposed to play a festival in Norfolk, VA but it was cancelled so we are enjoying a quiet day at home. I brought in our fresh herbs before the rains and hung them to dry. They smell beautiful and aromatic. Then I made a big batch of fresh pesto and did some baking. Carl made his signature dish Tamale Pie (it’s awesome) so I guess this storm is inspiring us to cook a lot. We’ve also been catching up by organizing fall tours and putting up our schedule on www.Dittyville.comWe’ve been doing some singing/picking tunes and I finally have a chance to write you a fall update!
We love fall. It’s our favorite season but still it’s is tough to say goodbye to summer after it’s golden curtain call. We enjoyed all those music festivals, jams with friends and 8 fabulous fiddle camps! The fresh garden veggies wind-up around the same time the camps end but we might get a few more leafy greens. Still the season was so sweet and we have a lot of great memories. Hope you do too!
A couple ribbons of note from this summer of fiddle conventions and good times. Carl won 2ndplace in banjo and Erynn got 5th in fiddle at the prestigious Clifftop Festival (WV), and our pick-up band Mountain Holler (Erynn & Eddie Bond on fiddles, Carl on mandolin, Eric Hill – banjo, Bonnie Bond – bass and Dennis Hall – guitar) won 1stplace Stringband at the Old Fiddlers Convention in Galax, VA. What a blast!
Looking ahead this fall Carl and I are back to teaching lessons and workshops, playing the Virginia State Fair in Doswell, a wedding, a couple of shows with the Galax Bogtrotters Stringband which will be big fun) plus doing a month long tour of England in November!! Erynn is teaching two weekend of fiddle workshops for the FOAOTMAD organization in the UK (Friends of American Old-Time Music and Dance). Plus – a big shout out to Eddie Bond from the Galax Bogtrotters and New Ballards Branch Bogtrotters who won the NEA award this year. We’re so proud of him!
2019 Summer Music Camps & Festivals are already on our minds. Here’s some we’ve just been hired for: John C Campbell Winter Dance Week (North Carolina Dec 26-31), 8thof January OT Music Weekend (Tennessee Jan 10-12), John C Campbell Fiddle Class (North Carolina Feb 3-9), Bellingham Folk Festival (Washington Jan 25-27), Old Pal Festival (Texas: Mar 21-23), Mandolin Camp North (Carl: Massachusetts Apr 12-14), Kaufman Acoustic Kamp (Tennessee June 9-15), Swannanoa Old-Time Week (North Carolina July 21-27). We’re already looking forward to these and many are already letting folks sign-up!
Fall is time when we get to learn new music, compose songs or tunes, get back to our overdue book projects, and even start thinking about some recording again! We’re dreaming of digging around our storage and digitizing some field recordings we made many years ago. Summer is always too busy for these kind of projects but the fall is full of creative possibility.
Hope you all too find time to make music and be creative this fall! If you would like a lesson to help you get inspired and move forward in your music drop us a line at info@dittyville.com Fall schedules can be busy but be sure to make some time for enjoying this beautiful season. We know once storm Flo passes we’ll be doing the same!
Thank you for stopping by and visiting Dittyville!
Summer festival and camp season is here! Carl and I will be teaching at several great music camps from now through fall. In June we will both teach at the first Mount Airy Old-Time Music Retreat – a camp that takes place in Veterans’ Park and runs concurrently with the Mount Airy Old-Time & Bluegrass Fiddlers Convention. Should be fun! Then Erynn is off to teach the fiddle track at Midwest Banjo Camp in Michigan and we both teach at Kaufman Kamp in Maryville TN – a stellar time.
Later in June Erynn heads to Cowan Creek Mountain Music School in Kentucky.
The highlight of July of course is Swannanoa Old-Time Week and there is still space in some of the classes. Carl is teaching mandolin & guitar. Erynn is teaching fiddle-from-scratch so if you’ve always wanted to learn now is the time to start. No experience necessary! In August we are excited to heading to British Columbia, Canada to teach at two of our favorite camps: Sunshine Coast and Saltspring Island Fiddleworks! Then we plan to take a wilderness excursion and visit the Haida Gwaii islands. It has been on Erynn’s bucket list for 20 years with gorgeous landscapes a-plenty with cultural tours and totems by the Haida First Peoples.
Tune into our Concert Window online workshops (fiddle, banjo, mando, guitar) that we are giving once a month on www.concertwindow.com You can watch from the comfort of your own home and they are cheap – minimum donation $10. They were so much fun this winter we decided to keep them going through the summer months too.
When we get a few free moments we are starting to work on an original tune book (Erynn) and a mandolin instructional book (Carl). We are slow but getting there J
Hope we will see many of you at these camps or at our favorite old-time music festivals in Mount Airy, NC, Elk Creek, VA, Clifftop, WV, and of course Galax, VA! We’ are also opening for the Kruger Bros. at the Blue Ridge Music Center (June), playing the Mountains of Music Homecoming (The Crooked Road, VA) and returning to play the Doswell State Fair (VA). Come join us at one or more of these great events.
Take care and hope you have a great musical summer!
