Story by Perry Stoner, Statewide Correspondent


"You're A and your E. "
"That's easy."
"This one and this one at the same time. There you go."
"I'm just amazed at his progress really cause you know he's at that age, he could be quite scattered but when he is concentrating on a lesson, it may not be for 30 minutes in a row but you get three or five minutes and the kid is so totally there, that's all you need."
" Try this. Here's the first part."
"Try it. Try it, Billy."
[Connie Welter, Billy's mother]" He didn't even know how to hold the bow. He could barely pick it up. He has learned to manipulate his fingers a little bit with some different notes. It's amazing. He is definitely learning, progressing along. Okay, great. It's your mom's turn now. Play loud."
[Connie] "I always wanted to play the fiddle when I was a little girl and I think I started probably four or five years ago. I was pregnant. Then after I had my son, I quit. We just got started probably three months ago maybe, got back again with my son together. I'd like to be able to play with Billy so that we could play melody and some chords together and maybe do some singing together."
"What else are you preparing for the contest? Either a horn pipe or a reel."
"A horn pipe or a reel, what would they be, hoedowns?"
"Yes."
"Okay. There's always "The Miller." "
"Yeah. Freeze. See where your bow is in relationship with the bridge? It's in a country far far away. You'll have more substance. Move it closer. ""Yes."
[Mary Woodruff, Omaha] "When I was about 8 or 9 years old, I put down my violin and I said nope, not going to play anymore.About six months later I went up to my mom and I said I wanted to play country western music so they found me a fiddle teacher. The reason why I chose fiddle music is because I got so tired of classical music. It was pretty boring to me and I wanted something new, something exciting, something fun. I thought it was pretty neat that there was someone who lived in a school even if it was abandoned."
[Debby Greenblatt, music teacher] "We were living in north Omaha. We just wanted more space. We saw the building and I knew that this was it. It's ten times the inside space that we had before. We give concerts here. We have school groups coming in for workshops so it's just been great." "Welcome to our second annual schoolhouse fiddling bee."
"I'm going to start off with "Turkey in the Straw"."
[Debby] "When I got into the fiddle contest scene and they'd always be really fun mostly because of the people you were playing with as opposed to whatever prizes you were getting. So there's a lot of camaraderie and a lot of silliness. One of the things that is so inherent in fiddling is the two strings at once thing. You balance the hair on two strings, pull your arm in such a way that the plane stays the same. And then you get both strings."
[Mary]" The fiddle has a lower bridge and it's flatter so it's easier to do double stops and classical has a more curved or rounder bridge and it's a little bit higher. I felt I did okay. I could have done better. I should have practiced more. But I think I did all right, not too bad."
[Connie] "It was an initiation into performing. It's really different when you get up here. I can play it perfect at home and then I get in front of somebody like a crowd of people and it's a different mindset. But I liked it. Once I got into it, it was enjoyable. It's a different ball game when you are up in front of people. It's a real team effort between me and my son and I think it helps us to bond closer. If I do it, he'll do it."
[Billy] "Oh, I love to play my fiddle, yes, I do, yes, I do. Oh, I love to play my fiddle, yes, I do, yes, I do."
[Connie] "You know, I wasn't sure. I was a little afraid he might freeze up on me but he didn't seem shy at all."
[Debby] "He did great. He did great. He won the singing. There was the chance that he would just come and hide in the bathroom and not do it at all so I thought it was really great that he did it. And he enjoyed it."
[applause].".. I don't think it's dying. It seems to be spreading around. A lot of times I'll get students who will be -- who will start out with a classical approach and they'll just get a little bit burned out with some of the possible seriousness of it."
[Mary] "Most of the kids I know who play instruments just do classical and don't do much fiddle music and most of them don't enjoy what they do."
[Debby] "The fiddle stuff it's much easier to find the humor and the playfulness. It's more like a game rather than an organized sport. The fiddle stuff is more basic, it's of the people. Also the instrument itself, the early developments were to accompany dance so there's the feeling of locomotion that is there. I would always use the word fiddle just so the fiddle players don't ostracize me for using the riddling violin. Also if you use a word like fiddle and you are in front of snooty people, you would probably not want to talk with them a lot anyway so you are better off using the word fiddle and you weed out those guys right away."
"I was deprived as a kid and never learned to polka when at last I finally did, suddenly I awoka."

" Every day since then until the day I croaka, my whole life I will try to do the Avoca polka. "
"The best story comes from Wilbur Foss in Yankton, South Dakota who was a left-handed fiddle player and he says: a violin is culture and a fiddle is agriculture, and that's really the difference."

Captioning by Nebraska Captioning Center, Lincoln, Nebraska .