I wouldn’t call myself an expert on fiddle music. But other people probably would. I’ve been to the Wallowa County Old Time Fiddle Contest a bunch of times. Went to that Weiser fiddle festival once. And I heard Charlie Daniels talk on that song about fighting a bad guy with a fiddle. So, yeah. I guess I know a few things about fiddle music. Or fiddlin’, as us connoisseurs call it.

Just got back from a rafting trip called Music For Wild Places and I heard fiddling unlike anything my ear holes have had piped in before. These wilderness concert trips are the brainchildren of Kai Welch, who grew up over the hill in Cove, Oregon and used to work as a river guide in Hells Canyon. Kai went off and got real good at music so nowadays he lives in Nashville where he makes songs and travels around singing. And Kai thought, you know, what if we took boats down the river and stuffed great musicians in the raft for some shows in Mother Nature’s backyard. How would that be? Turns out Kai is onto something. These river canyons around here are some of my favorite venues, even for just sitting there at night listening to nothing but water going by. Filling up wild special places like these with music normally found in packed auditoriums is one of those deals where the whole shebang is greater than the sum of its parts.

Fiddle player Ross Holmes does something with either the strings or the bow – maybe both – that makes a fiddle sound like other instruments. Fancy instruments. His compadre Matt Menefee does the same thing with his banjo. I don’t know what manner of sorcery is at work here, but these guys make you tilt your head to the side and wonder how they do that. They announced one evening they were about to play a few classical music numbers. I began to stretch, because my natural instinct when confronted with classical music is flight. But somehow these two ran classical music through their banjo and fiddle and it came out real good. I don’t have an explanation. Some things are just mysteries and we have to accept it.

Matt and Ross play as the band ChessBoxer. Type that into your computing device and give them a listen for yourself. They’re touring with Bruce Hornsby these days. Ross has joined Hornsby’s band and before that played with some band from England called Mumford & Sons. Then look up Kai Welch. He’s been touring with Abigail Washburn all around the globe, including a performance on Prairie Home Companion, which, you know, is pretty cool.

These guys brought along sturdy instruments, packed inside waterproof bags for the trip down the river. Kai had a carbon fiber guitar borrowed from Big Kenny of the band Big & Rich, who will be playing the Pendleton Roundup this year without his carbon guitar.

The fiddle Ross brought along was made special for this sort of trip. Ross’s buddy Troy Gibson builds violins when he’s not on a commercial fishing boat in Alaska. Gibson had two weeks between fishing trips and decided to build a complete violin in that time, shaving down the build time partly by not shaving down parts of the instrument body. So it’s thicker than most. Sturdy. And he pulled it off. Finished the fiddle and handed it to his friend Ross, telling him he could have it if he’d take this instrument on adventures. So he did.

Now and then I see folks floating by on the river with headphones on, listening to music. That’s never really appealed to me. I like hearing chukars chuck and squeaking oarlocks. Not the most exciting tune but it gets in your head. If I did wear headphones, I’d probably queue up the recordings we made from this Music For Wild Places trip. Maybe mix in a little Charlie Trump, Charlie Daniels, some Mumford or even The Lone Ranger theme song, now that I’m a classical music aficionado.

Be interesting to see who Kai lines up next summer. I’m going to row fast so I get a good seat on the beach.

Jon Rombach is a local music expert and columnist for the Chieftain.