JEANNA DUERSCHERL The Roanoke Times

Patrick McAvinue plays in the bluegrass band Audie Blaylock & Redline along with Paul Williams during a jam session Friday afternoon at FiddleFest on the Hollins University campus in Roanoke County. The festival continues today and features a marathon concert.

Johnny Williams (from left), Jeff Michael and Teresa Sells, members of Big Country Bluegrass, play in the Babcock Auditorium at Hollins University during a FiddleFest jam session Friday.

One way to measure how FiddleFest, Roanoke's homegrown summer bluegrass festival, is doing in its seventh year of existence is to count the Dobro players.

Friday morning's workshop session with Dobro masters Ernie Power and Harold East was attended by at least half a dozen learners, the youngest 12 years old. "We usually have one Dobro player and three instructors," said FiddleFest organizer Mike Conner, who was delighted to see the students outnumbering the teachers for once.

Or, as Power put it:

"I didn't know there were this many Dobro pickers in the world."

This is FiddleFest weekend. The two-day festival at Hollins University opened Friday with morning workshops, afternoon jam sessions and an outdoor concert Friday night. It concludes with more of the same today, including a five-hour concert featuring numerous acts including Mountain Heart and bluegrass legend Tony Rice.

Conceived as a weeklong extravaganza that was supposed to draw thousands of people to downtown Roanoke, FiddleFest is now a modestly sized event held entirely at Hollins. Its first year was widely regarded as unsuccessful.

But after seven years, nobody can doubt its staying power. "Each year we've gotten a little better," Conner said. "We've gotten a little bigger in our attendance. Everybody told me it takes five years to establish a festival. I guess everybody was right."

Attendance figures are not yet available for this year's event, and attendance will depend partly on the weather. Conner said advance ticket sales were up 20 percent over last year.

He said people have come from Texas, Alabama, Florida and Japan. "We got some people from Tokyo. Bluegrass is huge in Japan."

The nightly concerts are the main events. But long before the opening act took the stage Friday night, musicians and fans attended workshops and jam sessions featuring many of the same performers.

After an afternoon jam at mostly full Babcock Auditorium, singer Paul Williams of the Victory Trio called FiddleFest "unique."

"It's the setting," he said. "The little get-togethers during the day. It's just a good time. It's just a great way to spend a weekend in Roanoke."

Others agreed.

"We've had a good time," said Eddie Marrs, yet another Dobro player, of Princeton, W.Va., after the same jam session. "We really enjoyed Paul Williams. I got to jam with Randy Waller," of the Country Gentlemen. "This is really nice."

Earlier, aspiring musicians had a chance to learn from bluegrass masters. Morning workshops drew dozens of student fiddlers, singers, banjo players, mandolin players and guitarists.

At one point, a roomful of mandolin students at Moody Center heard Spencer Blankenship of Bedford talk about ways to play a B chord.

"I've seen some people do it like this," he said, demonstrating, "but that's a stretch for me."

Upstairs, meanwhile, the Dobro players traded licks and occasional quips. When one player lamented that he knew only five chords, Chet Dickerson of Roanoke shot back, "You don't need but three."

East, who has played for decades, advised the students to play with other musicians as often as they could. "It's a little different when you're playing with a group," he said.

He paid particular attention to 12-year-old Matthew Amos of Bedford. "Looks like you're coming along pretty good," he said after Matthew took a solo. At the end of the session, East commented, "This young fellow's probably going to surpass us all."

The best advice of the day may have come from Roger Martin, a bluegrass veteran from Pilot Mountain, N.C., who played a guitar accompaniment as the Dobros pinged and twanged.

"You should always play with somebody better than you," he advised the up-and-comers, "until you finally run out of people."

Online: roanokefiddlefest.org