We were lucky to catch up with The Lowly Faluters recently and have shared our conversation below.

The Lowly Faluters, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

We both grew up attending and learning to play in Texas Style fiddle contests. We also enjoy learning about and discussing history, so when we started playing together we naturally started digging into the roots of the music we grew up playing by learning more about the styles from which it evolved over 100 years ago. We’ve gone on a personal and musically inspiring journey learning from the communities and musical nuances in Traditional Celtic, Appalachian Old Time, Western Swing and Jazz, and formed our own style as The Lowly Faluters by playing tunes or using aspects from each of these styles in our sound.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

We’re Katie and Ryan Elmore. We met in 2019, started jamming together, formed The Lowly Faluters, and then we married in 2024. Both of us started out as fiddle players as kids, but once Ryan started playing guitar, that became his primary focus. Katie’s kept playing the fiddle and has now become the President of the Texas Old Time Fiddlers Association, which serves to promote and preserve the historic tradition of Texas Style fiddling. Katie and Ryan both contribute to this goal personally by teaching private music students, specializing in Texas Style, and supporting fiddle contests that showcase this unique style of music.

As the Lowly Faluters, we perform a variety of different styles including Western Swing, Celtic, Country, Jazz/Swing, and of course Texas Style, at various types of shows. Most often we play at private event or festivals but we’re currently working a musical theatre gig in a live production of “Always… Patsy Cline” at the Plaza Theatre Company in Cleburne, TX, which is quite a fun change of pace. We’ve also just started working on our first album together in our home studio which will include some traditional tunes and some originals.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

The best thing anyone can do to support artists is to buy their art and be willing to pay a fair price for their services. Local artists contribute so much to their communities, honing their skills for years to provide meaningful experiences through their work, and often passing down their craft to the next generation. Learning a craft takes a lot of discipline, focus, drive, and willingness to persevere. It’s a great life lesson for kids to learn: that practice is required to get better at just about everything. Art benefits everyone. It evokes empathy, creates meaning and purpose, and gives us an outlet to express emotions that we might not know how to talk about otherwise. Giving people, kids especially, the room to be creative and learn about art is essential to the health of our society.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

I think art is often undervalued because some people might assume that the art looks easy simply because the artist is making it look easy to do. The appearance of effortlessness that a musician or artist has achieved actually takes an incredible amount of work and practice over the course of years. The more you practice, the better, but we tell our students that it would be better to practice 10 minutes a day instead of an hour once a week. The consistency of practice is what provides progress. And even then, there is an art to practicing. Playing a passage of music over and over won’t make it any better or different unless there is a specific goal in mind on what to change and how to change it. Learning an instrument is no small feat and can sometimes take years just to get to an intermediate level. The price paid for a gig is more than just the hours booked, it’s also the thousands of hours of work it took to get to that level of playing.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thelowlyfaluters.com
• Instagram: @thelowlyfaluters
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thelowlyfaluters
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thelowlyfaluters4319
• Other: https://thelowlyfaluters.bandcamp.com/