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The Cotton Wool Mice

About Us

The Cotton Wool Mice are a young folk and bluegrass duo. Sisters Holly and Summer perform a mixture of their own songs and tunes along with a selection of covers and traditional numbers. They are lively multi-instrumentalists, playing: guitar, mandolin, fiddle, and dobro. As sisters, they have been playing music together since they were complete beginners; however, they started playing publicly as The Cotton Wool Mice in the summer of 2017. They play at open mics, local events and Bluegrass festivals.

photo of summer

Summer

Summer has tried many instruments but settled on playing mandolin when she was nine. Summer's first taste of Bluegrass came from listening to the wonderful bands Jaywalkers and Special Consensus followed by a visit to Didmarten Bluegrass Festival. She is really suited to this kind of music as she has visual difficulties which prevent her from reading music, but her sensitive ears mean that she has an advantage when it comes to learning tunes by ear! She particularly likes bluegrass because everyone learns by ear and rarely uses sheet music. After listening to some fantastic dobro players and admiring the instrument, Summer started playing when she was 11. She loves the variety of sounds you can create by playing with a steel bar and is excited to learn as much as she can about this amazing instrument.

photo of holly

Holly

Holly is the older sister in The Cotton Wool Mice. She started having classical guitar lessons when she was 9 years old. However, she soon changed to an acoustic fingerpicking style as she found it much more interesting. She discovered bluegrass music at Didmarten Festival where she saw many bands including the Carrivick Sisters, Jaywalkers and Cup O' Joe. After being inspired by these young bluegrass bands she decided to take up the fiddle and began to flatpick the guitar. Since then, Holly has loved learning Bluegrass tunes from friends at festivals and from her teachers, Charlotte Carrivick and Richard Partridge.