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 Maine
Fiddlecamp is about playing music and learning tunes, and being
able to play and enjoy those tunes with other people whatever
your level of experience or ability. Before camp, each camper
receives access to the year's collection of tunes that are posted
on Tunes page on our Web site. The collection
includes a variety of tunes chosen by MFC staff members and played
by them in the audio files (downloadable mp3 format). Also included
are sheet music of the tunes in pdf format. Learning some or all
of these tunes is a great way for campers to expand their repertoire.
It also assures that when we arrive at camp there will be at least
some tunes that we will know in common.
The emphasis at camp is on learning tunes the traditional way—by
ear. So campers are encouraged to listen to the tunes on line
and, if they wish, to download them into a computer or portable
music player, to learn the tunes that way, using the sheet music
only as an aid, if necessary. This is to warm you up for camp
and, as it says above, and to make sure there are some tunes we
will know in common for jam sessions if we want. In general, the
tunes you learn in classes at camp will be additional tunes, not
part of the Web site collection.
 Campers
are grouped by the ability they indicate on their registration
form into classes, each named for a bird. Each group has
a home "nest" and during June weekend camp different
instructors rotate through the nests..
At the June and August week camps, each class has a primary teacher
that they meet with for one workshop each day plus a review period
in the afternoon, while different instructors rotate through the
nests during second period of the morning. At both camps there
is time in the schedule for specialty
workshops that campers may choose independently.
 Maine
Fiddle Camp is an outdoor Maine summer camp experience. Campers
stay in basic rustic cabins without electricity or in their own
tents. Youths stay in cabins but may stay in tents with their
families if they wish. We have shared men’s and women’s
hot water showers and toilets and handy porta-potties. Eating
is outdoors under a tent, and classes are mostly outdoors under
canopies. Summer days in Maine can be hot or cool, and nights
might be hot but are more generally cool or sometimes even cold.
Come prepared or anything. And
yes - there are mosquitos. But there are loons, too, and when
we're lucky they make their own beautiful music at night.
 Good
music and good food are elegantly combined at camp, with meals
and snacks planned and prepared by Second Breakfast
and a cadre of volunteers who take time out from music to help
in the kitchen. Fiddle Camp is like that - many things happen
because someone pitches in and helps out, does it or makes it
happen.
 Afternoons
also have time for non-musical fun, including swimming with lifeguards
in True's pond. In 2007, when a breach in the dam lowered the
water level, swimmers rode a bus to nearby Lake Saint George State
Park. But it all comes back to music, so in the evenings, there
are concerts, dances, coffeehouses and variety shows by both staff
and campers, all under the big tent, as well as jams for various
levels and sometimes other activities in the dining hall.
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