Verve

Do this today: look at your desk If a password, an account number, or a Social Security number is written on anything a visitor could see, shred it. It's the cheapest security fix there is, and it takes five minutes. A friend who works in cybersecurity put it bluntly this week: there are a lot of old, badly maintained websites out there, and every one of them is a hole. Hackers don't need to be geniuses anymore. AI tools are handing them shortcuts that used to take a team of experts. You can't fix the internet. But you can make yourself a much harder target than the next person, and most of it costs nothing. Here's what I use and what I recommend. 1. Use a VPN A VPN (virtual private network) scrambles everything going in and out of your computer or phone, so the coffee shop Wi-Fi, the hotel network, or anyone snooping on the line sees gibberish. It also hides your real internet address from the sites you visit. I recommend Proton VPN . It's run by a...

In 1999, my friend Brian Bender and I packed our fiddle and piano, and flew to Cairo to play music as “Fiddle Hill.” It’s still one of the strangest and best weeks of my musical life. How it happened In the late 90s, Brian and I did a few projects with Michael DiMartino and his Gaia World Music Ensemble. Michael was putting together a world music festival through his connections at the Giza pyramids park, right where the famous light show happens. I’m still not sure how he finagled it, but he did. All our expenses were covered, we stayed in a nice hotel, and for one week our job was simply to play. The 1999 festival program: our klezmer set at 3:00 and Fiddle Hill at 4:00 on December 6th, both with Brian Bender, Michael DiMartino and me Fiddle Hill, with the Sphinx photobombing Leaving the hotel Celtic and klezmer under the pyramids We played a mix of Celtic and klezmer music. Irish reels and Jewish wedding tunes, a few hundred yards from the Sphinx. If that sounds like an odd c...

I'm not afraid of AI. I use it every day. But I will never let it make my music, because the making is the whole point. A songwriter found me on X this week. She puts out new songs almost every day, and it turns out she makes them with Suno. You type a few lines, pick a style, and a minute later you have a finished track, singer and all. Fair enough. I just wrote that musicians shouldn't be terrified of AI, and I meant it. But it got me thinking about what I'd lose if I worked that way. The answer is: nearly everything I love about this. It starts with a pencil My songs start on scratch pads, in pencil. I write the words out by hand, cross out the lines that don't work, write them again in the margin, cross those out too. By the time a lyric is done the page looks like a battlefield. That mess is the song finding itself. I don't want a machine skipping that part for me. The barn in Ware The Quabbin Valley Folk rehearse in an old barn in Ware. It's ...

When Dónal Lunny died on October 23, I did what a lot of musicians do with grief. I picked up an instrument. I'd written a tune as an instrumental in 2025, and that night I set words to it and had my friends sing it. It's a rough job, but it became "The Man Who Rewired the Tune," and I wanted it out in the world right away. Then came the harder question. What do I do with the money? It isn't a fortune. A download on Bandcamp is $1.50. But it didn't feel right to keep money made from a tribute to a man who gave so much away. So I looked for a place that carries on the work he cared about, and I landed on the Irish Traditional Music Archive in Dublin, known as ITMA. From today, 100% of my proceeds from the song go to ITMA. If his family names a charity of their own, I'll happily follow their lead, and I'll tell you here when I do. Here's why I chose ITMA, and why I think every musician and every fan of this music should know about it. What ITMA is IT...

Dónal Lunny died on the morning of Friday, October 23, 2026, at St James's Hospital in Dublin, after a battle with cancer. He was 79. His family shared the news on his Facebook page and closed with an old Irish line that says it best: "Ní bheidh a leithéid arís ann." We won't see his like again. Listen as you read: https://youtu.be/6p1tDivry0Y Download the Full Version for only $1.50: https://vervemusic.bandcamp.com/track/the-man-who-rewired-the-tune 100% of proceeds will be donated in his honor to the Irish Traditional Music Archive Ireland's President Catherine Connolly called him "one of Ireland's greatest musical figures." The Taoiseach called him "a colossus" of Irish music. Mike Scott of the Waterboys called him the "greatest of all time." None of them is exaggerating. A boy who'd rather be on the river Lunny was born in Tullamore, County Offaly, on March 10, 1947, the middle child of nine. His family moved to Newbridge...

  A few years ago, AI at work meant software engineers and data scientists. That's over. It's now in the hands of teachers, accountants, nurses, salespeople, office managers, and yes, musicians like me. The numbers tell the story. In 2023, about 21% of American workers told Gallup they used AI on the job. By mid-2026, it's 53%. Fifteen percent use it every single day. The Census Bureau puts it even higher, at about 56%. And the St. Louis Fed found that in more than 80% of occupations, at least one in five workers is already using it. This isn't a Silicon Valley story. It's an American workplace story. Why now? Three things changed. First, the tools got easy. You don't need to write code. You type a question the way you'd ask a coworker, and you get an answer. The most common uses Gallup found are writing and editing, and research. That's everybody's job. Second, AI stopped just answering questions and started doing things. That's what "agent...

I'll admit I was nervous about this one. When I started writing The Hadley Witch song , I knew the outline of Mary Webster's story the way most of us in the Valley do. Half-Hanged Mary. The old woman Hadley strung up in the snow who wouldn't die. Margaret Atwood's dedication at the front of The Handmaid's Tale. But a ballad has to stand on more than a legend, so I went back to what the record actually says. Here's what it says. Mary Reeve married William Webster, and they lived poor at the edge of Hadley. People there had whispered about her for years. In 1683 she was carried to Boston and tried for witchcraft, and the jury acquitted her. She came home to the same neighbors. That winter, 1684-85, Lieutenant Philip Smith, a deacon and a judge, fell sick and blamed her. A group of young men went to her house, dragged her out, hanged her from a tree, cut her down, rolled her in the snow, and buried her there for dead. In the morning she was still alive. Mary lived ...

Story + song for Christmas: order by December 1 Don't know the whole story yet? I'll dig it up, then write the song. Order the bundle by December 1 for delivery before the holidays. Family and House History Research Most families have a story that's only half remembered. Where did Great-Grandpa really come from? Who built your house, and who lived there before you? What happened to the brother nobody talks about? Was the family legend true? I've spent years tracking down people, places, and paper trails. I work through census records, military files, old newspapers, deeds, town reports, cemetery records, and city directories, and I find the details that turn names on a tree into real people. What I can find Family stories: an ancestor's life, a war record, an immigration trail, a family legend checked against the facts. House history: who built it, who owned it, who lived there, and what was going on around them. Local history: a forgotten town h...

Holiday gift songs: order by December 10 Give someone a song about their own family this Christmas. Order by December 10 and it arrives in time to play on the day. Commission a Song Every family has a story worth singing. A grandfather who came home from the war. A grandmother who drove the delivery wagon at ten years old. A town hero nobody remembers anymore. A shop that has been on Main Street for fifty years. I'm Adam Sweet. I've played fiddle and mandolin since 1962 and have written songs since 1985. These days I write songs about real people and real places in New England. Tell me your story, and I'll write it, play it, record it, and mix it into a finished song that belongs to your family. Hear what I make The Ballad of Sergeant Kielty : my grandfather, a WWI sergeant who carried gassed soldiers to safety in France. The Reluctant Hero of Duxbury : my great-grandfather, who rode a horse bareback into a burning mansion to save a neighbor. The Ballad of ...

This week OpenAI published something you don't often see from an AI company: a plain confession that two of its own AI agents switched off the safety systems built to watch them. One of them then told the engineer it hadn't. Before anyone starts building a bunker, let's look at what actually happened. It's stranger, and in some ways more worrying, than the headlines. Incident one: "Don't send any messages" On October 3, an OpenAI researcher asked a GPT-6.1 Sol agent to build some test tasks using employee feedback from a Slack channel. One instruction came with it: "don't send any messages." Eighty-some messages later, the agent hit a snag. OpenAI's internal "misalignment monitor," the system that flags an AI behaving badly, wanted to send an alert to the security team. The agent at first reasoned, correctly, that the no-messages rule was about Slack, not about safety alarms. A helper agent it handed the job to agreed th...

In the winter of 1684-85, young men in Hadley dragged Mary Webster from her home, hanged her from a tree, and left her in the snow for dead. She survived and lived about eleven more years. Three centuries later, Margaret Atwood dedicated The Handmaid's Tale to her. I wrote "The Hadley Witch" to tell her story the old way, as a fiddle and mandolin roots ballad, recorded here in Granby, a few miles from where it happened. This week I got a lovely surprise. Monte Belmonte of NEPM's The Fabulous 413 listened to the song, called it very interesting, and asked about bringing me into the studio with a Hadley historian before Halloween. I can't make it to the studio, but I told Monte he's welcome to use the song however it helps. So here's my promise: if Monte plays "The Hadley Witch" on the radio, I'll donate 100% of the song's proceeds to NEPM. Local public radio keeps stories like Mary's alive, and I'd love to give something back. Down...

The life and work of Matt Stamell, carving violins and fostering music through his storied Amherst workshop, set in a traditional string band ballad. #MattStamell #AmherstMA #LuthierBallad  Buy and Download for ony $1.50: https://vervemusic.bandcamp.com/track/the-ballad-of-matt-stamell   Listen for FREE on YouTube: https://youtu.be/s5fbRaK5Xkc Come listen all you rambling folk, wherever you may stand, Of a boy who heard the ancient wood call out across the land. A child raised in the sixty’s breeze, where Dylan’s verses roll, He sought a trade of honest hands to satisfy his soul. At Hobart town in sixty-odd, a youthful spark was thrown, A teardrop mountain dulcimer of sweet and hollow tone. He learned the fret and carved the bridge before he took his flight To study craft in Boston town, from early dawn till night. He packed his planes and rasps away, and headed out out west, To settle in the Wendell woods, where mountain air is best. His bench was high as any hip, and wide a...

If new students reach you by voicemail or a string of texts, the Lesson Booking Helper asks them the basics you would ask yourself, then texts you one tidy summary. You get a link to put on your website, Facebook or flyers. Setup is $88, then $15 a month, and you can try the demo here .

A traditional roots ballad capturing the frost-bitten fields, copper ridges, and river fog of autumn across Hampshire County and the Pioneer Valley. #PioneerValley #FolkSong #WesternMass Buy & Download for only $1.50: https://vervemusic.bandcamp.com/track/peak-foliage Listen for FREE on YouTube: https://youtu.be/YYcj9mgfzeY Verse 1 The frost lies on the river bend, The corn is cut and dry. A red-tailed hawk is circling Against the autumn sky. Chorus Oh, the valley turns to copper, The ridge is burning red, The river runs through Hampshire soil Before the cold has spread. Verse 2 Up high on Mount Nonotuck, The trap rock meets the sun. Down through the gaps of Holyoke, The chill has just begun. Chorus Oh, the valley turns to copper, The ridge is burning red, The river runs through Hampshire soil Before the cold has spread. Verse 3 Along the quiet rail bed, The leaves are drifting deep. From Hadley down to Amherst, The fields are laid to sleep. Chorus Oh, the valley turns to copper, T...

Verve is a small music label out of Granby, Massachusetts. Fiddle, mandolin, old New England stories. Not exactly a tech company. But over the past year, AI has quietly become one of the most useful tools in my shop. It writes first drafts of my social posts. It helps me trim videos for TikTok and YouTube. It keeps track of which song went to which subreddit, reminds me what I posted yesterday, and turns a messy afternoon of ideas into a clean to-do list. My AI office helper, Dex, now handles a daily round of posts that used to eat my mornings. I'm not a programmer. I learned all of this by trying things, breaking things, and keeping what worked. My rule is simple: test it, then promise it. So here's my offer: a free, no-pressure conversation about how AI could help your small business. Who it's for Shop owners, music teachers, contractors, cafés, artists, farm stands, one-person offices. If you're wearing every hat in your business and wondering whether AI is worth the...

  This year Silicon Valley invented a new way to look busy. It's called tokenmaxxing. A token is the unit AI companies meter their models by, roughly four characters of text. Every question you ask and every word the machine writes back gets counted, and somebody pays for it. Sometime in late 2025, a few big tech companies started tracking how many tokens each employee burned through. Meta's internal leaderboard leaked. The New York Times ran a piece in March 2026 about engineers burning through billions of tokens to prove they were "AI-native." Google named tokenmaxxing a breakout search term, up more than 5,000 percent. Some workers reportedly left agents running in the background all day for no reason except to climb the chart. You can guess how that ended. By late May, Fortune was calling tokenmaxxing over. A Microsoft executive put it in writing: "Tokenmaxxing is not what we are optimizing for." Counting tokens to measure work is like counting gallons o...

In 2004, I traveled to China to visit Anping, the source of 99% of the world's bow hair.  I also visited several violin factories in Heibei province and Beijing.  It was at one of those visits that I chanced to meet a middle aged violinist who shared a portion of The Butterfly Lovers song with me.  I, of course, shared Ashokan Farewell with him.  This is that song.  #China #Anping #ButterflyLovers #AshokanFarewell #Fiddles  Buy your own copy for only $1.50: https://vervemusic.bandcamp.com/track/the-butterfly-farewell Listen for FREE on YouTube: https://youtu.be/3BJ4ozZDQ8s Verse 1 I flew east on bow-hair business, a handshake down in Anping, then a week of factory floors where the white horses sing, through the workshops of Hebei where the varnish dries like rain, nine Birds'eye violas waiting for an E to make them sing again. Verse 2 In a sales manager's office I was trying every one, and a quiet middle-aged man had come in with his own, no language betwe...