Schedule a Lesson
Due to the scheduling demands of creating video and audio content for the Academy, Jim’s schedule is limited in the students he can accommodate for private instruction. Based on the technical demands of properly teaching levels five and six, we have reserved Jim’s schedule for these students. Jim’s hourly rate for instruction is $ 70.00. We do have a highly qualified full staff on instructors teaching levels one through four. Your understanding of the time constraints in creating our content is appreciated.
Our discounted lessons are available to schedule for our paid subscribers.
Brief autobiography
I was born in Nashville, Tennessee on August 28, 1964 and lived outside Fairview, a little country town about twenty-five miles southwest of Nashville, until 1999 when my wife, Inge, and I moved to Flat Creek, just south of Shelbyville, Tennessee. I started fiddling at age ten and was fortunate to have some really strong music around me ever since I can remember. The local grassroots scene where I grew up was incredible, and some of the best professionals in Nashville lived in my neighborhood. Buddy Spicher and Hoot Hester were only a short piece away, and through them I not only met about every fiddle legend from the 1940s forward you can mention, but I also learned what kind of musical standards the word “professional” implies.
My dad, Jimmy, also played a huge role in my musical life. He was an excellent rhythm guitarist (as well as a state finger-style guitar champion), and we went to literally hundreds of fiddle contests together over the years. These competitions were enormously important to my development. I got to hang out with some of the best older players like J.T. Perkins, Benny Thomasson, Texas Shorty, Dick Barrett, and Frazier Moss, and I competed against and became good friends with the best fiddlers of my generation.
I had years of formal training and went to Berklee College of Music to study jazz theory, but I am really just an old-time fiddler at heart. The standard old tunes give me a feeling that few things can touch, and I want to give something back by sharing it with others. Toward this end, I have always devoted a part of my schedule to teaching private students since 1980, and I have had the honor to help out many talented young players (thirty-eight of my students have won national and/or state championships).
Inge is my musical partner now in many of my endeavors, and my life of music has been an incredible blessing.
About Jim:
Jim writes for Fiddler Magazine (for which he is regular columnist), Strings, Acoustic Guitar, and the Devil’s Box on a variety of topics related to fiddle and guitar and is featured in four Acoustic Guitar’s Private Lessons book/cd packages and the Strings Letter Press book Fiddle Traditions . He has three instructional fiddle videos with Homespun Tapes and five fiddle and one guitar instructional videos available from the Murphy Method/ Mel Bay Publishing, and he is a recording artist on his own Whippoorwill Records as well as Maple Street Music, Sugo, and Pinewood Music. He owns and operates Tennessee Studios, a professional recording and video studio that focuses on acoustic and roots music projects. He was presented the Outstanding Achievement Award by governor Ned Ray McWherter for his work in preserving the traditions of Tennessee, and he was chosen to be a master folk artist in the mentor program established by the Tennessee Arts Commission. He founded the Tennessee Fiddle Orchestra, an amateur community group, in 2007. Jim is also a composer who has received commissions from various regional and collegiate orchestras, and his Trinity Mass, a full liturgical mass was commissioned by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.
Jim garnered over 160 first prizes in folk music competitions in his contest years from the late 1970s until 2000 — some of the highlights include:
Tennessee State Fiddle Championship (5 times)
Alabama State Fiddle Championship (2 times)
Alabama State Mandolin Championship (2 times)
Alabama State String Band Championship
Alabama State Accompanist Champion
Kentucky State String Band Championship (4 times)
Berry C. Williams Trophy (2 times)
In the course of his career, Jim has worked with a wide array of folk, country, Celtic, rock, bluegrass, pop, classical, swing, western swing, and ethnic settings.
Artists with whom Jim has performed either on stage or in the recording studio include:
| Country Artists | Jazz Artists | Mandolinists |
| Vince Gill | Doug Jernigan | Tiny Moore |
| Ray Price | Bobby Garrett | Ronnie McCoury |
| Hank Thompson | Bob Hoban | Matt Fleener |
| Gary Morris | Sam Levine | Casy Campbell |
| Emmylou Harris | Jeff Kirk | Sierra Hull |
| Porter Wagoner | Paul Zonn | Roland White |
| Roy Acuff | The Time Jumpers | Boyd Deering |
| Jim Ed Brown | Don Aliquo | Mike Compton |
| Billy Grammer | Mike Dowling | Carl Tipton |
| Jeanne Pruett | Jamey Simmons | David McLaughlin |
| Jeannie C. Riley | Tom Reynolds | Butch Baldassari |
| Jean Shepard | Barry Mitterhoff | |
| Little Jimmy Dickens | Classical Artists | Brent Truitt |
| Brenda Lee | Ron Huff | Carl Jones |
| Angela Caset | Charlene Harb | |
| Eddie Reasoner | David Davidson | Fiddlers |
| The Kinleys | Wilma Jenson | Jay Unger |
| Dave Olney | Shelly Kurland Strings | Buddy Spicher |
| Mandy Barnett | Four Nations Ensemble | Fletcher Bright |
| Bernadette Tinney | Tennessee Repertory Theater | Matt Glaser |
| Walt Aldridge | Nashville Mandolin Ensemble | Paul Peabody |
| Gregg Brown | Murfreesboro Symphony Orchestra | Mark O’Connor |
| Tommy Allsup | University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Festival Orchestra | J.T. Perkins |
| Richard Bennett | Berry College Orchestra | Frazier Moss |
| Michael Rhodes | Daniel Carwile | |
| Craig Nelson | Celtic Artists | Mark Ralph |
| Pig Robbins | Seamus Egan | Randy Howard |
| Kenny Buttrey | Mick Moloney | Randy Pollard |
| Charlie McCoy | Brendan O’Regan | Luke & Jenny Ann Bulla |
| Terry McMillan | James Keane | Hoot Hester |
| Annie Selleck | John Williams | Charlie Acuff |
| Kathy Mattea | Willie Kelly | Craig Duncan |
| Dave Pomeroy | Glenn Duncan | |
| Hammered Dulcimer | Stuart Duncan | |
| Bluegrass Artists | Walt Michael | Aubrey Haynie |
| Wilma Lee Cooper | Alissa Jones | Jimmy Mattingly |
| Rarely Herd | Scott Miller | Sam Zygmuntowicz |
| Hiawasee Ridge | Andrea Zonn | |
| John Cowan | Banjoists | Mark Feldman |
| Claire Lynch | John Hartford | Justin Branum |
| Kathy Chiavola | Mike Snider | Matt Combs |
| Wayne Lewis | John McEuen | John Boulware |
| Chris Jones | Carl Jackson | Deanie Richardson |
| Jake Landers | Allison Brown | Andy Leftwich |
| Jerry Douglas | Larry McNeely | Dan Kelly |
| Ed Dye | Pete Wernick | Brian Wickland |
| Johnny Bellar | Butch Robbins | Brian Christianson |
| The New Tradition | Alan O’Bryant | Fred Carpenter |
| Special Consensus | Vic Jordan | April Verch |
| Roy Huskey | Tony Furtado | Erynn Marshall |
| Keith Little | Gary Davis | Kenny Jackson |
| The Nashville Jug Band | Leroy Troy | Jim Buchanan |
| Billy & Terry Smith | James McKinney | |
| Byron House | Pat Cloud | Guitarists |
| Buddy Wachter | Steve Kaufman | |
| Gospel Artists | Smokey Montgomery | Russ Barenburg |
| Amy Grant | Mark Schatz | David Grier |
| Connie Smith | Marty Lanham | Robert Bowlin |
| Phil Keaggy | Lynn Morris | Jack Jezzro |
| Gary Chapman | Murphy Henry | Red Volkaert |
| Joe Bias | John Hedgecoth | Paul Yandell |
| Dino | Charlie Cushman | Roy Curry |
| Scott Brown | Mark Barnett | Mel Deal |
| Brice Henderson | Tom Saffell | Fareed Haque |
| Stasis | Ronnie Stewart | Bill Mize |
| Tom Howard | John Balch | Pepino D’Agostino |
| Brown Bannister | Dave Macon III | Pete Huttlinger |
| Jim Holland | John Pell | |
| Pop Artists | Steve Baughman | Mark Howard |
| The Wineskins | Tracy Latham | Mike Henderson |
| Keith Moore | Ryan Kavanaugh | Jeff White |
| Garth Whitcombe | Hubert Davis | Bob Saxton |
| Mike Duncan | Earl Sneed | Charlie Collins |
| Michael Omartian | Kenny Frazier | |
| Steve Cropper | Folk Artists | Shane Adkins |
| Tom Roady | Jim Connor | Mike Whitehead |
| Dan Huff | Riders in the Sky | Cody Kilby |
| The Indigo Girls | Bill and Laurie Sky | Jim Hurst |
| Ricky Taylor and the Live Roots Ensemble | Andy Hatfield | |
| Jody Kruskal |
Jim’s television, radio, and film experience include:
Grand Ole Opry (WSM)
The Wild West (HBO)
Sue Mundy: Confederate She-Devil (The Documentary Channel)
Country Music Trails (webisodes)
Fly Fishing America Theme (ESPN)
Adam 12 (TNN)
The Discovery Channel
Riders Radio Theatre (NPR)
Tennessee Crossroads (PBS)
The Bob Braun Show (syndicated)
The Carl Tipton Show (Nashville)
Talk of the Town (Nashville)
Dugger Mountain Music Hall (PBS and the Heartland Network)
Let Your Feet Do the Talkin’ (The Documentary Channel)
Numerous jingles, including his themes for the Huntsville Women’s Hospital