Fiddlin' around

Jul. 1—Chelsey Parker's musical journey began at the age of four with a family legacy — and a shoebox.

While she is from Richmond, Parker has performed at various venues across Kentucky and neighboring states, including packed bars and festivals.

Recently, she even appeared in a music video with the Lexington Lab Band.

According to Parker, the first months of her violin education began with exercises. She did not even hold a violin in that time. Instead, she started out practicing her standing and holding positions by holding a shoebox.

"You start with a shoe box, and you tie a roller to it," she explained. "It's kind of shaped like a violin. You take a ruler to the end, and then you use the wide part of a wire close higher as the bow. Then you draw your feet on a piece of cardboard or a big piece of paper."

She practiced like this for months, she recalled, also engaging in strengthening arm exercises as part of the program. Her parents also required her to practice daily until she was 16, which Parker openly admits could feel like a chore back then.

However, she recognizes the value of her developed skill and the closeness it has given her to her family roots.

Her father is a self-taught artist from Big Hill. He and his nine siblings are all music aficionados.

"They didn't really grow up with a lot of money, so they would just kind of sit around and play instruments. And they are really good at it. They had bands and would travel around to churches, even when they were young kids." she explained.

This led her father to play as a guest at Renfro Valley Entertainment Center, where he met Parker's mother, who was part of the house band at the time.

It was a love song from there.

It didn't take long for the couple to enroll their daughter in violin lessons. Parker disclosed that the violin was an elusive instrument on both sides of her family, as her mother and her sisters were trained on the piano before she also courted the banjo, and her father nor his siblings learned a variety of instruments, but not the violin.

She began performing when she was five and started taking paid gigs as a teenager. Over the years, Parker developed her own style, switching from classical violin to fiddling.

At that time, she learned the ropes locally from Wanda Barnett.

Did You Know?

The words fiddle and violin are two names for the same stringed instrument—fiddle is just an informal way of referring to the violin. In the context of classical music, it's typically called a violin.

"Classical gave me the foundation, and the technique, and all that stuff that I still have. I mean, it's just ingrained now. But it didn't give me the theory, because the Suzuki method doesn't necessarily teach you keys and the national number system. So I had to learn that stuff once I got to Wanda, which is a very, very beneficial thing to have when you're playing country music," Parker explained.

Her major influences are Jenee Fleenor, noted by Forbes as "one of the busiest fiddle players in Nashville," and Aubrey Haynie, a talented fiddler who made it big touring with big names as a teenager.

Now, Parker finds herself performing with her fiddle with various bands at a mix of venues.

Currently, she plays with Kyle Fields from Nashville, Carter New from Newport, Lexington Lab Band of Lexington, and from Sandy Hook, Kentucky's Moonlight Mile.

She has also worked on two recording projects: "Live from Appalachia Untold" and Tina Taylor's "Walking Away."

As for the future, in addition to working on her master's degree, her schedule has shows coming up in Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Parker expressed that her favorite part of performing is improvisation, so each performance has the potential to be a little different from the last.

Parker said, "I love not knowing what I'm going to play. Like I know what key we're in, and I know the general theme and melody of the song, but deciding in the moment what I'm going to play — that's my favorite thing to do."

And while continuously navigating the restless rhythm of life, Parker still makes time for what she feels is important — playing music with her family.