A North Dakota Old Time Fiddler's Page

This is the page of an Old Time Fiddler from North Dakota. It is intended to be a resource for Old Time Musicians and enthusiasts in and around North Dakota. The Fiddle-ND Mailing List is open to all interested parties for the discussion of all things Fiddling. Please subscribe for regular use. This not a heavy traffic list. Non subscriber posts are moderated to avoid abuse. The Fiddle-ND Archive is available for browsing.

Interest in fiddling appears to be world wide. To see where our visitors are from, and have your location (as shown above) automatically added to the list, click the List button.

This web site is intended to provide material of interest to Fiddlers, particularly those in North Dakota. We will attempt to include as much useful and educational material as we can. This means we are always looking for suggestions, articles, or whatever you can contribute. To encourage participation by non-fiddling Old Time musicians we have added The Fiddle Backers Page. Again, the quality of this page will depend on how many good ideas you feed me so be sure to make suggestions and contributions. If you are looking for something that is no longer here you might find it in our old stories page.

What is blogging and podcasting and how do I use it?

Events Coverage
Images and other coverage of area events can be found here. Please share with us your photos and memories. Meanwhile, check it out!

Prairie Public TV has North Dakota musicians on Saturday nights, 10:00 to 11:00 PM. A Minot Old Time Stringband, "Erik Olson and Friends" will be on November 11th at 10:00 PM. This group includes Erik on fiddle, Myron Dammen on Guitar, Selmer Moen on Mandolin, and Rod Renaud on electric bass. This promises to be very good. You won't want to miss it.


Bonanzaville Old Time Family Jam Each Saturday 1 to 5 PM. mp3s of the jam are now available.

John Lardinois has provided this list of fiddle contests with personal comments.

What is Old-time Music? by Mike Seeger

The language of fiddle is learned by listening (Mabel Vogt Interview) by Heather Frye

Advise on selecting an instrument from Claire Givens.

Wonder what that old string is? Try the Quinn Violins String Identifier.

Need staff paper? Check out these Printable images.

Looking to expand your repetoire or to enhance your ability to learn by listening? The Old Time Music Ring is sponsored by a site called Hetzler's Fakebook which is wonderful for this. This site provides Old Time Music as midi files as well as transcriptions. Along with this they provide a link to vanBasco's Midi Karaoke Player. This is freeware midi player that allows you to play the midi's from Hetzler's Fakebook (and others) at any speed you choose, and to play only the parts you choose (eg fiddle, viola, guitar, ...). It will also transpose to other keys. The power of this is incredible, and I would like to thank Mike Kennelly for making me see this. The Roots of American Fiddle Music site makes available many mp3's of 78 RPM recordings of Old Time Fiddlers from the early 1900's that can be slowed down using the freeware Winamp mp3 player or other mp3 players. Speed control without pitch change can also be accomplished for a regular music CD using software CD players such as Roni Music's Slow Downer or Reed Kotler's Transkriber or , my personal favorite, foobar2000 which works with mp3's, CD's, ogg's and most others.

The Northern California Bluegrass Society Has a web page to report lost or stolen instruments. Such instruments should be reported to this web page and purchasers will then be able to consult it before buying. This is a great service that will only work if people use it, so please do.

Calander of Events

We will list any events we know of that are of interest to North Dakota Fiddlers. If you know of any that are not yet here please inform us via the mailing list. Our listing of events from previous years can be found here.