 Backroads is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, with money by the vote of the people November 4th, 2008. Well, I'm D. Fafaro. I'm from Pinewood, Minnesota. My name is Lenore Sims, and I play fiddle and mandolin and viola for the group. And I'm April Larson. I'm from just south of Bagley, and I work in Bemidji. And we met many years ago at a music convention when we were all music teachers. And our band, I would say, it's about trying different styles and different kinds of music. And we've been playing together for 20, well, if I, yeah, 22 years. Well, we started out because we were all interested in Celtic music. And we met at the Music Educators Association, meeting down in the cities. And we just all kind of started talking about, oh, well, we like this kind of, you know, we really like Celtic music. Oh, I do, too, you know. And April said, oh, I've got lots of instruments. And we just started, we just started meeting weekly. Then from there, we've kind of expanded into other genres, too. So we do some Cajun, some bluegrass. We write some of our own stuff. We have done classical. We don't do a lot of it, but we like it. We do world folk all time, and just some contemporary things from other cultures. This next song, it's a love song that I wrote for my husband. He loves, no he hates country music. So I wrote him a country song. It actually did start out as a joke, and it just kept going. Rain drops and sun make a ring together. They help life to grow. We are influenced by other music. I just went on a trip to the Baltic Sea, and we were influenced by some Norwegian fiddler. Anytime we hear something, it's like, okay, I'm going to bring this to Kaylee. We just really listen to a lot of music, go to a lot of performances, hang out with some people who also really like music. And whenever we travel, we get to hear even more music like Tango in Argentina. And YouTube is a really big bonus because it gives us access to musicians in other countries who have been doing this for a while, and it's very exciting to find things that we like. Origins of different words. And he would often quote Shakespeare, quote in Shakespeare that he loved. And so I wrote this little waltz called Travel. We play more just to get together because we just like making music. And so we get together about once a week and just play music. We do travel, but it's not like the top thing on our agenda. We kind of like to just make music together, and if we see some place that looks like it would be a fun place to play, we go and play there. This next song is another song that I wrote for all the other little loves in my life. And all the little children that people make absolute fools of themselves when they try to make them smile. So this song is called When You Smile. When my world is falling down You keep me from losing ground A better world is what I am You can chase the grey away Make everything on earth okay It's with you I long to stay Smile, cause when you smile The world seems brighter when you Smile, my heart feels lighter with each smile Our bond grows tighter when you smile I would be a fool Break every little rule for you I just want to let you know That there's no place that I Will keep searching high and low for you Cause when you smile The world seems brighter when you Smile, my heart feels lighter with each smile Our bond grows tighter when you smile Cause when you smile The world seems brighter when you Smile, my heart feels lighter with each smile Our bond grows tighter when you smile When I see your smiling face No one else could take your place It's you smile I long to stay We've all grown a lot musically. I think we're also much more comfortable just being able to play off each other and, okay, you take it, you know, almost like a jazz type thing. We're just more comfortable with it. And I think what we originally got together, I think we all thought we were just doing Irish music, Celtic music, and we started out in the Celtic genre very strongly. And that has changed dramatically, I think, in the last number of years. So we do more world music. April speaks Spanish beautifully and has done some Spanish songs and French songs. So we've been able to maybe advance and try out different genres as well. And when we first got together, we didn't even know D. Sing. For a number of months, she just did percussion and then started singing. And it was like, oh wow! So we have changed over the number of years and just exploring different genres. Very fun. And April keeps getting more instruments, so that's really fun. And more songs that I want us to do. Like it's just unending and I haven't written a rap song yet and I think that would be really fun. Oh dear. You ourselves doing music in our lives, well of course music is like as important as air to us. But whether we actually go on a big stage or not, I mean for me anyway personally it's not that relevant. But if I can keep performing music and keep growing my ability to become a better musician and give better music, for me that's what it's about. We have met for 20 years now on a weekly basis. And I think this has just been an amazing journey for the three of us. Through music we have been in each other's lives in different capacities. We've been together on this journey and music has tied our three lives together in so many ways. And again I think you're right April, it's whether we're on stage or whether we're just playing in the basement of my house it's great to be together, it's great to express ourselves through music and hopefully we can share it with others as well. That's our love too. But I think it's different than going out on a stage and doing this as a job I think it takes on a different feel. It's I think more relaxing at least for me it is. Yeah it's more of a love, just a love of music and it's a good way to communicate with other people. I tend to be kind of shy and when I play music I don't have to worry about the shyness. It just you know the music says it all. And just to spread the muse around we just enjoy doing that and it can be a small venue or a large venue it doesn't really matter. And I think at the base of it too is this big curiosity like what is going to happen when we learn this song what's going to happen when we do this or when we go to a concert somewhere it's a great curiosity. This is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money by the vote of the people November 4th 2008. If you enjoy watching Backroads Online please consider making a tax-deductible donation at lptv.org.