Reviews from a few of my many beta-readers, who each looked at 10-20 pages of the manuscript:
“Huzzah huzzah! Beautifully done, clearly written, and elegantly presented. Congratulations on this huge achievement. I especially enjoy all the photos and stories of musicians and dance leaders. It creates a wonderful sense of community, as well as of living tradition. I love, too, that you tell people to seek out recordings by Zorn medal fiddlers in these traditions.” —composer, teacher, and Grammy-nominated fiddler Andrea Hoag
“What excellent work you’ve done. I appreciate the selection of tunes you’ve included. They are definitely some of my favorites, but not necessarily the most common tunes played at dances and Scandi jams. As an introduction for non-Scandinavians, I think you provide much more valuable information than is available elsewhere in English.” — Patrice George, fiddler and co-founder of New York Spelmanslag (NYC’s Scandinavian fiddle club)
“The entire body of work—from the meticulous research and presentation of regional style and history, to the beautifully crafted albums—is a treasure.” —fiddler and violin teacher Catherine Sloboda
“I found the historical and cultural information so interesting! All the research you’ve done to combine the photos and backstories with the music makes this so much more than a book of great tunes.” —fiddler Sara Hiebert Burch
“The book is wonderful! And beautifully written. You know everything and then some. This is a life’s work. I wish I’d had it when I began but I will have it now. I hope it gets lots of distribution and becomes a book Nordic fiddlers and harpa-players must have.” —nyckelharpist Catharine O’Neill
“How lovely to read all this, so full of detail. I marvel that you could have sorted out what goes on musically in all those small geographic areas—decades of work, no doubt.” —fiddler and teacher Anne Lederman
“You know so much about your topic! The CD3 [Gammaldans] section was wonderful.” —contra dance caller and musician David Smukler
“In general, this is fascinating, information-packed and well written. It shows your personal affection for the music and the people, while also communicating a lot of technical data and history. This is quite a project you've taken on—the scale is impressive. My hat is off to you for doing such a beautiful job of pulling this all together in the first place and then laying it out so professionally and attractively on the page.” —journalist/editor Bill Chaisson
“It seems like an impressively thorough work—tons of info packed into just the few pages I've seen. I especially love having lots of boxes of contextual info and photos, and you've got some super-fun photo selections. Sometimes I think, ‘Oh yes, that is great supporting detail for people to know,’ and once in a while I think, "Oh, really?! Cool!” —fiddler, nyckelharpist and teacher lydia ievins
“What nice tunes! It’s quite the undertaking. Very interesting. Can't wait to buy the finished book, and happy to participate in bringing it to the world!” —nyckelharpist Sheila Morris
“Thanks again for letting me have an advance peek at your book! I see it will be both enjoyable and very informative.” —fiddler Lise Nau
