I Made It To My First Hall of Fame!!!

I got a message today letting me know that I have made it to Berklee College of Music's String Department Hall of Fame.

http://berklee.edu/departments/strings-hall-of-fame.html

WHAT THE!?!?! REALLY!?!?!?! (grinning ear to ear) Shhhh.... Don't tell them that I wasn't actually in the string department at Berklee - I was a voice major. I DID take classes in the string department!!!

You know what is funny? Berklee is where my confidence was destroyed on fiddle. Before college, I had ALWAYS gotten my foot in the door with things for being the "fiddle player that could sing". It's how I originally booked the Opryland gig as a kid. But I auditioned for Singer's Showcase at Berklee - the most prestigious and highly competitive show for the vocalist. The first 3 semesters, I didn't make it. I went in to talk to the judges and watch my audition tape. Want to know what they said? "STOP PLAYING THE FIDDLE. It's hurting your auditions."

I made it every semester after that and never played fiddle in the audition again.

Blessings sure can come in major disguise. That one specific moment - being told NOT to play fiddle - was where I FINALLY took myself seriously as a singer. Before that I never felt like a singer. I did, but I didn't. When I finally made showcase without my fiddle, I knew I was truly a singer and didn't need a "gimmick" to get me in the door.

It took me a while to build up my confidence again on the fiddle. I FINALLY feel like I am starting to get there again and think of myself as a double agent. Fiddle Player/ Singer. One is not dependent upon the other. It's a good feeling. I continue to learn more about my voice and my playing each day - especially on that fiddle. One might say I LOVE the PEACE I finally feel with my FIDDLE. *wink wink*

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

Little Nat Fiddlin Pic

This was posted on facebook today from a friend. :)

Thanks Bryan!!! Bryan's mom - Mrs. Bone, used to ask me to come in and play violin and perform for her 4th grade class. :) I was working at Opryland at the time... and I jumped at the chance to perform for anyone who would listen.

So here I am... 4th or 5th grade, myself :)



Check out those stirrup pants. That was the hotness!

Peace. Love. And Itty Bitty Fiddles.
~natalie

My New Baby Girl

Ain't she a beaut??



I can't wait to test her out in a show. She's a custom made - sparkly white, FIVE string (which is a new one for me!), solid body, Sabre, Wood Violin! Wood Violins are some of the best in the electric violin world. I LOVE the way she sounds. I played her for a while today in my living room and drove Cinnamon nuts.
I'm a pretty big snob when it comes to electric violins - no one makes them to LOOK like a violin. And it drives me crazy. But if she's not gonna look like a violin body... well... then this is the next best thing! I think she's beautiful! She might have to get a counterpart pretty soon. We'll see.


Peace. Love. New Electric Fiddle.
~natalie

I Bought A FIDDLE!

Tonight made me feel like all this hard work we've been putting in is WORKING.

It wasn't that anything was extra special about the night. But we've never played in Raleigh, before. Ever. Yet we had a HUGE crowd at the show, and I had lots of people say that they googled me before they came to see what my music was like. And they must have liked what they saw online because they came!!!

It's just amazing. It's usually pretty tough to get people out when we play in a new city... understandably. I hope we get to come back. Because it was awesome.

My friend, Natalie, came out! She went to Berklee, too :) We both lived on the 4th floor of the dorms our first year at school - only 3 rooms of girls on the whole floor out of 50 rooms. And there were TWO Natalie's :)


Guess what else?

I BOUGHT A FIDDLE TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The best electric fiddle shop in the country is located in Durham, NC! Seriously. I've been waiting to go for over a year. You'd think, Nashville, right? And in Nashville there's The Violin Shop which is the best in the world for acoustic violins. But I have been wanting to try a bunch of different lines of fiddles for a while, now. And FINALLY today, and the Electric Violin Shop I got to try everything I have been wanting to play! YAY! And I actually bought one! I ordered a custom violin from Mark Wood a couple months ago, so I'm waiting on that one to come in, too. But today I bought a beautiful black Skyinbow. I loved the sound. And honestly, it is the only one I would have walked out of there with. I am very picky about the electric's still LOOKING like a fiddle. I don't like the cut away designs. I really want it to LOOK like a fiddle. It's VERY different from what I am used to. But I am pumped about working with it and my sparkle white Mark Wood Sabre that is coming in!

Mamma Rocks

We just made it home!!! What a beautiful weekend in PCB. But more on that later. :)

I'm not sure how many of you see the comments on my blog, but one of my favorite parts of writing this daily blog has become checking it the next day to see what Farm Boy and others have said :)

Farm Boy probably has one of the most creative and fascinating brains I have encountered. I don't know how he comes up with this stuff, but it always makes me smile! Yesterday, he commented on another comment ... and I wanted to elaborate.

He talked about my mamma being a writer, and he doesn't even know how MUCH of a writer she is!

Facts about Mamma:

She's a beautiful singer.

She plays piano and violin, as well :)

I learned to sing harmonies by singing along with her to oldies (especially Beach Boys songs) in the car.

She wrote for a television show called "I-40 Paradise" - it was a really cute show that I believe aired on TNN and in very TNN fashion - there was always a performance included on the show.

She's had short stories published in magazines.

She wrote jokes for Hee-Haw. Now, if you ask her about this, she will completely down-play it and say that she's not sure if any of her jokes ever aired. But I don't care. The fact that she submitted jokes to Hee-Haw is just about the coolest thing ever.

She love love LOVES word games and puzzles. She's always been way into puzzle sweepstakes and won a number of times. Her favorites are the ones where each letter in the alphabet is assigned a point, and then you are given what looks like a blank crossword puzzle. You fill in the puzzle, and the person who gets the most points wins. Sounds a LOT easier than it is. There are no clues.... so basically... any word (in whatever specified dictionary) works... so there are millions of combinations that you could use. :)

Oh and yeah, she's a retired dental hygienist. So all of that other stuff she did in her spare time while also raising 4 children.

Mamma inspired so much creativity in me and was the most encouraging and supportive person of anything I ever wanted to do.

Mamma Rocks.

This is one of my favorite pics of my sister, Stephanie, Mamma, and me:


Peace. Love. Fiddle.

Texas to "almost Canada" trip

We played at MSU in Wichita Falls, Texas on Saturday for their family day!!! They had a mechanical bull, games, face painting, all kinds of fun things to do!!!! It was so hot, my bow broke!!! That's never happened before. The hair on my bow loosened so much, I couldn't play with it! I was a little paniced the first song, cause I wasn't sure how in the WORLD I was gonna play the rest of the show..... I mean, I could have cut my own hair off and fashioned together some kind of bow.... but that would have taken at least an hour and a half and it was only an hour-long show. Luckily I had a spare that I completely forgot about in my case. Whew. Pat on the back for that one!



And I have to thank Tiffany for the pics! (I just stole them off facebook where she posted them!)



We left a scorching hot Texas on Sunday and our next show is 1,306 miles away in Marquette Michigan which is almost all the way to Canada! We are currently in a hotel room in Appleton, WI and my sunburn from Texas is quickly fading into windburn up here. It is COLD. I mean, not really - I'm a wuss... but it's all relative. :) I am looking forward to going back to Marquette, though. It is such a beautiful, quaint little downtown. We'll play at Upfront & Company on Wed and Thurs nights. They have GREAT food and a really fun stage and dance floor. Oh, we'll be doing the line dance :)

James' Aunt Deana noticed that we would be driving right through Iowa City on our way to Marquette and offered to provide a little room and board for us, which we GLADLY took her up on!!!!
We drove 16 1/2 hours the first day to get to Iowa City (took longer than normal because of the interstate traffic at 11pm... go figure) We definitely got some good footage for the next Tour Diary of our ridiculous attempts at guitar hero. I got booed off the stage trying to play "Devil Went Down to Geaorgia" but it's ok. I took out my aggression by boxing James on the Wii. :)

And wow. Home cooked food. MMMMMM. So good. Thanks for everything Aunt Deana!

Peace, Love, Fiddle Y'all.