Author Archives: gunnarsalyer

 Hey y’all! Today I have the honor of interviewing The Family Sowell! Welcome y’all! For those who don’t know you, can you tell us a bit about yourselves?  We are an acoustic band from Knoxville, Tennessee.  Our band consists of us six siblings—Jacob on banjo, Joshua on guitar, Naomi on bass, Abby on mandolin, John-MarkContinue reading “In conversation with The Family Sowell!”

So I’m going to argue that yes, live music is vital to community flourishing, and I’ll try to outline why I think so. Now, with the lockdown and everything, obviously all live performances have been canceled… or have they? I noticed one of the first things that happened when large gatherings were banned was thatContinue reading “In light of recent events, is live music vital for community flourishing?”

So to start off, sorry I haven’t been posting much lately, I’ve been really lazy about my online presence for a few months, but I’m trying to get better about it. Also I started this blog basically as a personal journal for when I couldn’t verbalize my thoughts to another person. So I’m not gonnaContinue reading “Excuses vs Reasons: what’s the difference?”

Hey y’all, I haven’t written anything on here in a while because I’ve been pretty busy trying to….. actually I don’t know. I’ve just not been writing for a couple months and I’m going to blame travel for my literary procrastination. On to the subject at hand! I’ve been meaning to write something about thisContinue reading “Musicians: Expectations and false humility”

Hey guys, today I’m really excited to be interviewing Jake Stogdill!Jake, for those who don’t know you, can you tell us a bit about yourself?  Howdy Gunnar,  Thanks for reaching out.  This will probably be a short interview because there’s not much beneath the surface of “Jake Stogdill,” haha.  Plus, I always feel weird talkingContinue reading “In conversation with Jake Stogdill”

Hi guys, today I’m excited to be interviewing Alani Sugar! Welcome Alani, for those who don’t know you, can you tell us a bit about yourself?   Hi, my name is Alani Sugar, I am an 18 year old bluegrass fiddle player and I’m from Maryland (Baltimore area).  I’ve been playing fiddle for about 9 years. SoContinue reading “An interview with Alani Sugar”

Here’s a classic Scottish new year song, Auld Lang Syne. And here’s Ashokan Farewell, which is a wonderful tune usually played at fiddle camps as the last tune of the camp, so I thought it an appropriate last tune of the year: I hope you all have a great new year, enjoy the rest ofContinue reading “Happy New Year y’all!”

https://m.soundcloud.com/user-609577945/midnight-firefly I wrote this tune the other day while playing clawhammer banjo to put myself to sleep, and I saw a firefly flying around my room and decided to write a tune for it. The midnight part is easy to figure out lol. I’ve posted a couple videos of this on YouTube, but none withContinue reading “My new original tune: Midnight Firefly”

So here’s all the Christmas music videos I made this year! Oh Come all ye Faithful: Deck the Halls: Away in a Manger: Silent Night: What Child is This/Romanza: Oh Come Emmanuel: Ballad of St. Anne’s Reel: And saved the best for last, here’s an overseas duet we did of Away in a Manger: HopeContinue reading “Merry Christmas y’all!”

So, this collab was completely online, and done through banjobenclark.com the arrangements are also from banjo Ben Clark. Here’s the post at banjobenclark.com https://banjobenclark.com/forum/t/away-in-a-manger-mandolin-guitar-duet/10023/47 So, she asked me if I would learn this for an online collaboration, and of course I couldn’t turn down a fun request like that, so I said totally! So IContinue reading “Check out this Christmas song duet we did!”