with Ben Wetherbee

Source recordings! They’re often scratchy, funky, and frequently intimidating to learn from! But with a little work and some deep listening, they can be an incredible and indispensable learning tool. In this workshop we’ll talk about tips for learning and growing from these recordings and we’ll listen to a recording and go through the process of learning parts of it on the fiddle together. This workshop will be geared towards intermediate fiddlers with some tunes in their repertoire. Folks who are new to learning by ear are welcome!

We’ll be playing in Cross G (from the lowest string to the highest, that’s GDGD, with the A and E strings both tuned down a whole step to G and D). If you want to tune your fiddle to GDGD before the workshop, that would be easiest, though I’ll give folks a moment to tune in the workshop too!

Ben Wetherbee is a fiddler, singer, and multi-instrumentalist from Boston, currently based in Western Massachusetts. Growing up in a musical family with his mom, Ruth Rappaport, his earliest musical memories are of fiddlers playing all night long. Inspired by the fiddling he heard at parties, dances, bars, and festivals, Ben was soon “taken” by the fiddle, learning both from older sources and modern players. Now, he plays in a duo with Ruth, in a contra dance band, and as a solo act, mixing original songs, tunes, and experimental music.