Winter Dreaming

What am I thinking about as I practice today?  What am I showing the kids to get them excited about their practice?  Why bother anyway?
The answer to all of these questions:  Summer music events 
That's how we got started doing this in the first place.  We attended our first bluegrass festival on a whim with two very small children.  It was a blast!  At the time, none of us played instruments.

This is a picture from our second year at Smoked Country Jam.  We brought friends!

When we got home, Gus ran a garden hose to his backyard playground.  It was his cord.  He proceeded to MC and perform his own bluegrass festival on his ukulele.    
The next year we brought friends, and added another festival, Remington Ride.  There is so much inspiration at festivals!  Not just music on the stage, but music everywhere:  around every campfire, at instrument workshops, backstage, onstage.

 

We set a goal of being able to play a couple songs around the campfire the next year.  I don't think we accomplished the goal, but the kids did.
The next year we finally picked up some instruments and by the end of the summer were able to play a couple songs around the campfire.
We've kept on going to festivals.   At the festivals last year we all went to jams and instrument specific clinics, and played around the campfire a whole lot. 

If you're lucky you run into the Hillbilly Gypsies Backstage

In addition to festivals, we attend some great music camps, but I'll save those for another post.  For today, I'm just remembering the festivals we've been too, and checking out web pages for some that we've never been too....and dreaming summer music dreams.