Squeaky fiddles and interpretive dance....a musical journey from Appalachia to Down Under

This is Frank blogging while mourning the end of my one week vacation.

Kudos to you if you can figure out what the heck this blog title is about......but we'll get there!

Some might and some might not know that for the last three years I have been compulsively obsessed with Old-time banjo and Old-time music in general. For those not familiar with the genre, accurate definitions would be: OT music: "Squeaky fiddle music from way back when", and OT banjo:"Follows the squeaky fiddle."

For reasons unbeknownst to me, the organizers of our departmental christmas party requested a few tunes during the festivities. At this point it was not entirely clear whether they were looking for a quick and brutal way to end the party and clear the place or whether they were foolishly considering serious entertainment. Turns out they were quite serious. I agreed to the task after recruiting Charley P., an accomplished fiddler, to join me in this endeavor to embarrass myself...he happily agreed.

The party started at noon and we waited a little while until everyone had had at least a couple of drinks to ease the pain, before playing a small selection of mostly appalachian fiddle tunes. Quite interesting experience: Roaring applause after the first two tunes, then the background noise level picked up to the point where we could barely hear our instruments....the novelty had waned and people got back to discussing more important issues such as how to not dry out the turkey this year and whether feathery fluffy pink slippers are the ideal gift for not-so-loved in-laws...but I digress.

Charley assures me that the same thing happens to him every time he plays at one of these parties...so I'll take his word for it. I was actually pretty pleased with the musical side of things and if you dare, you can listen to one of our tunes. The background noise illustrates how captivated our audience was at this time.......sigh!

Soldiers Joy

At home we were treated to Maddie in a super mood. It was already getting a little bit late and we were about to let her wind down before bath time when all of a sudden she announced that she was ready for some dancing. Ok, who are we to spoil the fun?
Before the dance we had to practice a bit for future photo ops:

Maddie, say "Cheese"

Then on to some warm up tickles:

Maddie says: "Mo' tickles"

And at last, the grand finale....Ladies and gentlemen hold your breath and enjoy interpretive dance moves accompanied by the Wiggles, Australia's kid's music sensation: