Chloe Campbell;;
Chloe Campbell learned about the fiddle when she tagged along with her brother.
“When I was a toddler, my brother started taking guitar lessons, and I would tag along and sit in the lobby with my mom. In Scott Gould’s little yellow School of Music that sat right off a Tennessee highway before it was destroyed by a drunk driver in the middle of the night, there were all different sizes of fiddles hanging on the wall, and I was enamored of them. I begged to learn how to play, and when I was 4, I was finally big enough to learn on a tiny quarter-size fiddle. Since then, I’ve been immersed in old-time and bluegrass music through local jams, family members, and fiddler’s conventions.
Chloe is homeschooled and participates in music in the community. At Exchange Place Historic Site in Kingsport, she plays in an old-time string band that replicates the music that would have been played at a farm in this region during the 1850s, and she has also had a few opportunities to play at Rocky Mount State Historic Site events. At Theatre Bristol she had the chance to play Christmas songs in“The Gift of the Magi,” and in September she was a part of the band in“The Mockingbird Sings,” a play about the Bristol Sessions.
She is sharing her love of the fiddle with kids through the JAM program at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, where she is one of the instructors.
“The program is such a wonderful way to make music more accessible to everyone. It allows me to have a chance to keep the music of our region alive by teaching it to the next generation, and the enthusiasm it is met with is inspiring. I’ve found a new appreciation for my instrument seeing how much the kids that I teach love learning and how dedicated they are,” she says.
While she’s teaching kids the fiddle, she’s trying to learn new instruments herself. She’s learning the mandolin. Her brother is teaching her to play the guitar, while she teaches him the fiddle.
“I have been heavily inspired by both of my fiddle teachers, the late Scott Gould and Ashley White. When I first began learning how to play the fiddle, I took lessons from Scott Gould at his Violin and Fiddle School of Music. Mr. Scott loved music and was completely self-taught. He hand wrote the music for all of the songs he taught and created his own method of teaching where he taught traditional methods of violin playing, but also taught old-time and bluegrass songs. He also encouraged me and my brother to play in a bluegrass competition in Hawkins County when we were very small, and it was one of my first major experiences with bluegrass music. After Mr. Scott passed away in 2017, I began taking lessons from Ashley White, and my violin playing became much more bluegrassy. Mrs. Ashley is an incredible local fiddle player, and she has taught me how to play in a much more expressive, and advanced way.
“One of my favorite parts of playing the fiddle is playing at fiddler’s conventions. The atmosphere is infectious, and the sheer joy of the music can be felt everywhere. Under every canopy and tent there are always people jamming, and you can’t go anywhere without hearing good music. It’s always exciting to receive an award, but the thrill of going up on stage and performing is just as wonderful. I used to think that I didn’t really enjoy playing in front of people, but at fiddler’s conventions I find myself looking for every opportunity I can find to get back up on the stage, and I’ve learned I really do love to perform.
“My favorite music to play is old-time and bluegrass. It’s full of so much soul, and there are no real rules. As long as you follow the chord progression of a song you can play almost anything you want, and it will still sound good. John VanArsdall, better known as Canjoe John, told me that he likes to call it ‘twinning and twining’ when two fiddles play together, but they don’t play the exact same notes or perfect harmony. They just play what’s in their hearts and stay in the right key and it ends up sounding even better than the standard melody,” she says.
She is the daughter of Tracy and Chris Campbell, Bristol, Tennessee. She is a homeschooled senior and is dual enrolled at King University.
