Hello, all! It's Ashley once again, reporting back after a full week of fiddle learning. I have been part of the in-person Kansas City session on Thursday nights, but also decided it wouldn't hurt for me to take advantage of the Zero to Fiddling course we launched this week. It feels like this two-pronged approach is going to give me the best chance of getting... proficient? We'll see how it pans out for me.

The biggest success moment of my week came in the in-person class, where we focused on bow technique. It seems to be pretty common knowledge among string players that perfecting this part of the playing process is extremely important, but also deceptively challenging. I learned about the "frog" and how my little pinky finger is pretty much the muscle of the whole situation. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of the clumsiness my fingers felt the first time I learned how to hold chop sticks. Getting the right pressure in the right places and letting the balance of it all work in my f...

Ashley here. I don't know that I've officially introduced myself, but I've worked in the background at Drunken Fiddles for a few months, helping with content and other various tasks. While my work doesn't directly require expertise in fiddling, Laurel thought I should try my hand at it - partly so I'd understand what it's really like to start and partly because she thought it would be fun. And so my journey began! She helped me track down an instrument and got me enrolled in the latest session in Kansas City. Class officially kicked off last night, so I thought I'd report back about how that went. 

A Blast from the Past
While I've never played a stringed instrument before, I have some musical background - from playing piano, flute, and singing. As the lesson kicked off, I could feel my brain reactivating the parts of itself that stored information like "what are the names of the notes?" and "I think that's a quarter note". These portions have been largely dormant for many, many years, ...

We've all packed up and boarded our (very delayed) flights home, so it feels like the perfect time to look back on the incredible time we spent together in Quebec City. 

This is the 4th international retreat Drunken Fiddles has hosted and it feels like they just get better and better each time. It's hard to recreate the magic that happens when people are able to step out of their day-to-day lives and connect over a shared love of music. What a gift that we can do this together! 

The Monastery
This year, our group gathered at Le Monastère des Augustines in the heart of Quebec City. This unique property was founded nearly *400* years ago by three nuns sent to the new territory by France to establish a religious center and hospital. We had the pleasure of playing most of our sessions in the vault of the building, which had served as an extension of the hospital over the years - especially in times of war. Rumors of potentially supernatural activity in the space were perhaps confirmed whe...

Look out! The Drunken Fiddles team has officially landed in Quebec City and we're so excited to kick off our 2026 conference tomorrow. Over the course of the next week, we're going to be digging deep into the Quebecois music tradition, bringing in several local expert instructors. Make sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok in order to get all the latest updates. Stay tuned!