We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sarah Pirkle. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sarah below.

Alright, Sarah thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?

Right before the pandemic I was considering switching careers, looking into other skilled trades that I had been drawn to before I fell into getting paid to play music in my early 20’s. I didn’t get my paperwork in order to attend my 2nd year of nursing school, I took up playing the fiddle as I was working and saving $$ to go back to school, but music took over my life, I got a few paying students and it just grew from there.

By 2019 I was feeling the pressure of a woman getting older in our society in general added on top of natural performance anxiety. Also general burnout from the hustle, weariness from the financial strain. I was questioning the value of what I was doing to earn my living, to myself and to my students and listeners. What even was this thing I do?

Then the pandemic shut down all public music activities. My family really went deep in to our own bubble because my elderly parents had just reached the point of needing full time care, a duty I shared with my siblings. After just 2 weeks of trying to figure out what to do about money, I got set up to teach and perform online, mostly on Zoom, but on all the virtual platforms available, I put it out there on all my social networks, and quickly filled my schedule working from my home office.
I saw that I was providing sense of normalcy to the families and individuals (of all ages) that I was working with thru my laptop screen. This helped reinforce something I believed but had forgotten, practicing music is good for us, in the same way that physical exercise is good for us even if we aren’t pro atheletes.

The shutdown gave me no choice but to go deeper into my profession as a musician, and once again I stumbled into it, just like I did in my 20’s when I first picked up a fiddle. In 2021 I applied for and was granted a traditional master folk artist fellowship from SouthArts at the behest of one of my former students, and I was unexpectedly inducted into the East Tennessee Writers HOF songwriter category. I’m sure I’ll have another crisis of faith about my profession at some point in the future, but for now I am settled into playing and teaching as long as I can.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m a fiddle, a singer, and a songwriter. I teach people to play fiddle/banjo/mandolin/guitar. I’ve been singing since I drew my first breath, I’m pretty sure! When I was in my 20’s I spent a weekend listening to a Bill Monroe boxed cd set, fell in love with the sound of the fiddle, signed up for lessons, and it took over my life. After 8 months of lessons, my instructor Marty Kaufman was moving out of state and couldn’t find anyone to replace her for about 10 little kids she was teaching. She told me she thought I could do it, I sat in on her lessons for a couple of months. I started with those 10 students, pretty soon I had 20, I’ve kept a full schedule every since. I’m still in love with the fiddle, but it humbles me every time I pick it up. I call it the ‘screech plank” for a reason!

I’m very patient with my students, my strong suit is working with absolute beginners, of all ages. I’ve been teaching long enough now that I have former students who I taught as little kids are now parents and I teach their little kids. I’m a grand -teacher ;) Several people that I have taught are now professional musicians themselves.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

I’m not sure I completely understand NFT’s. Can’t you just screen shot them? The business end of it seems shady to me as well. I’m an analog person in a digital world, I guess. I use computers and the internet to teach and share this ancient art form that I practice, but in the end I’d rather hear (and feel) a person making real sound in a real room using only their human voices, hands, wood, and wire strings.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Connecting. Connecting a student with their own voice, connecting with an audience. Connecting with other musicians in the tunes. Connecting community together in a large space for various reasons, like to raise $$ for a neighbor in need or just to get our boogie on. Connecting to something eternal in the music that keeps carrying me along with it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jeffandsarahmusic.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarah_pirkle/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarah.pirkle.1/

Image Credits
Bill Foster, Charity Rutter