I have begun a new winter project, and one that has nothing (overtly) to do with writing or reading. I have decided to study a handful of Carter Family songs, singing alone and playing leads and accompaniment on an instrument that I have not mastered: the mandolin. Although a mandolin is tuned like a violin, its double strings, frets, resonance, and picking requirements make it a very different beast. I find the instrument quite frustrating, actually, but in an interesting way. It forces me to roughen and simplify what, on the violin, would be suave and complex. And because suave and complex are exactly wrong for Carter Family songs, I have hopes of learning something new about myself as an interpreter.

The first song under study is "Wildwood Flower." Perhaps you would like to listen to the Carter Family's version.