Fiddle | Betty Vornbrock | Intermediate/Advanced | Period 3 | Week 3 (July 20-24, 2026)
Using tunes and styles from various mountain fiddlers, our class will explore rhythm and phrasing through different approaches in bowing. How DO they get that sound? Listening is key, and some more complex or crooked tunes will provide experience in untangling their mysteries. Do you have a tune that is giving you fits? Bring it with you – maybe you can whip it into shape! My goal is for you to leave with more ideas and skills to add to your fiddling.
My sources will include the folks I was fortunate to spend time with – Wilson Douglas, Sarah Singleton, Melvin Wine (WV); J.P. Fraley, Paul David Smith, Clyde Davenport (KY): each of whom told us to “pass it on”! And others before my time, such as Edn Hammons, Ed Haley (WV/KY); Taylor Kimble, Luther Davis, Emmett Lundy (Blue Ridge); and other regional fiddlers.
Check out more about Betty’s class below!
About the Instructor
Betty Vornbrock is an accomplished fiddler in several different traditional styles. Her first love is that of the Appalachian Mountains, and has focused on the tunes of West Virginia, Kentucky, and the Blue Ridge since the late ’70’s. Her classes concentrate on the diversity of these regions and players to help students develop their own sound. For the most part her Old-Time influences include West Virginia fiddlers Wilson Douglas, Melvin Wine, Sarah Singleton, and Burl and Edn Hammons; Kentucky fiddlers J.P. Fraley, Ed Haley, Clyde Davenport, and Snake Chapman; and, close to her home in Virginia’s Blue Ridge, Taylor Kimble, Ralph Blizard, G.B. Grayson, Tommy Jarrell, Emmett Lundy, and Henry Reed. From one-day workshops to week-long fiddle classes, Betty has enjoyed teaching at private homes, Augusta Heritage Workshops, Cowan Creek Mountain Music Week, Blue Ridge Old Time Music Week (Mars Hill), and Chestnut Creek
School of the Arts. She also teaches private lessons, and has been on the Board and faculty of a valued after-school program in Galax, VA – Junior Appalachian Musicians (JAM).
In 2018 Betty was a featured Master Fiddler at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, Port Townsend, WA. Betty and her band, the Reed Island Rounders, hit the festival circuit each summer, and have taken honors at Galax, Mount Airy, Clifftop, Glenville, Fiddler’s Grove, and many of the other fiddlers’ conventions. They have toured the UK & Ireland, and as guests of the FOAOTMAD Festival in England multiple years. The band loves to play for squaredances and contras, festivals, and house concerts. The Rounders have produced 4 CDs as a band; Betty joined J.P. Fraley on their twin fiddle CD “Side by Side”, and she has a few collaborations with others over the years.