Fiddling with Keith

(Nimue)

In my twenties, the violin was my primary instrument, but a cat-related shoulder injury left me unable to get my arm in the right position. For years I had no one to play with, so there was little incentive to push myself. Further adding to that, my violin had developed a fatal problem and on the last round of fixing I was told that if that didn’t sort it, then it probably wasn’t sortable. The back kept coming off, and did so again, to my great distress.

About two years ago, Keith inspired me to take up the viola again. The larger body made it more feasible to hold. As a consequence of that, my body grew stronger and more flexible, then last winter I realised I could get my hand around a violin again. A friend sold me his unplayed electric violin, and I got to work.

On two of these videos, I have the violin. I’m not all the way back to what I could do in the past, but progress is steady. Keith is great to work with – these are all original songs of his. There’s something about the way he writes that absolutely lends itself to violin accompaniment. There’s always an element of improvisation in how he performs, which keeps me on my toes and means that every pass at a song involves deep focus and interaction, which I love. it’s a joy collaborating with him.

In these videos, we were in the studio at Radio Winchcombe for the folk, roots and acoustic show.

This first song is inspired by fairy folklore and is rather faster than we normally do it!

This is an older song of Keith’s – one of those singer-songwriter unrequited love songs.

This one was written during the winter about two years ago, for the Hopeless, Maine project. It’s about Annamarie Nightshade, who is a witch. Originally Keith intended it for the Ominous Folk, as at that point he wasn’t singing much in front of people. Now he’s out and about with music, this is usually in the set

My current fiddle goal is to get to the point where I can record some of my favourite O’Carolan tunes.