Fiddlin’ Around

Envision Fest time is rolling around again, and most of us here in Dominical are happy for the diversion and happy to witness the folks attending the fest’s commitment to global and spiritual ideals and progress. Over the years I have met many young people with lofty goals who came

Hallelujah brothers and sisters—we have survived another trip around the sun, so HAPPY NEW YEAR to us all! Despite global uncertainty, intolerance and animosity, the manipulation of information, wildfires, floods, earthquakes and personal frustrations, a bunch of us are still here! What we need to do now is to notice

Welcome to all you travelers who have shown the good judgement and the necessary spirit of adventure to visit this beautiful and diverse part of the world! December, and the holiday season in general, is a fine time to be here. The rains will have subsided, everything is still green

Horses and music have been the two most consistently wonderful and important and therapeutic things in my life. When I was a kid my parents scrimped to pay for violin lessons and the expenses for the beautiful mare my Dad indulgently bought me, but they wouldn’t let me gallop away

A wonderful and inspiring young man told me recently that MUSIC had saved his life—and that he could not live without hearing and playing classical music. Wow. I thought that was quite a statement to make, especially once I learned a bit about his circumstances and how he has gotten

There have been so many beautiful days here lately in our little corner of the planet that it’s prompted me to think about weather, and of course, how it relates to music. The sunsets are spectacular, the critters and birds are super active and the rains aren’t intimidating yet. When

It makes me happy to play music, either as a soloist or with a band, and to realize that real, live people are actually listening! Seeing your musical choices and decisions connect with or move someone emotionally is a beautiful thing. I know there are fine musicians who don’t want

Usually at some point in my articles I nag you folks to get out and listen to real people playing music together, and there are good reasons for my nagging! Now of course this is partly self-serving, as I play around here a lot and I totally prefer to play

You can tune a guitar. You can play a tune on it. Some people can ‘carry’ a tune. Some people couldn’t sing in tune if their life depended on it. You can tune an instrument with ‘perfect pitch’ or with ‘relative pitch’. There are tuning forks and electronic tuners. What

Nowadays it’s not really politically correct to sing or write songs about drinking or getting drunk. And I get it — booze can wreck peoples’ lives, and it is at the root of many sad stories. But here’s the deal — even though people love to sing, most folks won’t

To the intrepid and adventurous travelers who have found their way to our lovely and diverse little part of the planet, welcome! This is a great time of the year to be in the southern zone of Costa Rica. It is officially the dry season, but Mother Nature is a

At the stroke of midnight on December 31st I’ll bet many of you were enthusiastically singing along to the song Auld Lang Syne. Some of you with lampshades or goofy hats on your head. Or with your optimistic arms around someone else besides your significant other. Many of you hadn’t

There’s a big ‘ole country music guy from Clover Bottom, Kentucky who nowadays owns and operates a fishing boat in Quepos and plays guitar and sings at a few venues around town. He’s got a quick and genuine smile, a beautiful and powerful voice and he’s written songs that literally

In the music world, funny is good. Funny is important. Funny is probably more useful and definitely more interesting than profound. I love songwriters who can make us laugh at our paltry little problems, or who can bring perspective to what we think are huge issues, or who can describe

Music lovers and certainly most musicians, whether they are singers or sidemen or drummers, love and value our songwriters. I give them all respect and thank them for educating us and for telling our stories and history. And for giving me something to play along to… They enunciate the dreams