Since forming the RubberBand as a vehicle for his music 11 years ago, Shupe has become a prolific songwriter in addition to being a fiddle/violin virtuoso. He files his songs in one of five color-coded notebooks — "One is for crappy songs I wrote," he says, "one is for songs I think are OK but are lacking a certain je ne sa quois, another is for ideas I like but they're not a full song yet, another is for songs I have completed and another for songs I'm working on. If I get stumped on a song, I just put it in a folder and get back to it someday. I have no problem ditching a song. If it's not working, put it away for a while."

"Ryan is a musical genius," says RubberBand guitarist Craig Miner. "He's always got multiple songs going through his head. He's probably simultaneously writing 30 songs at a time, going back and forth. He's a music factory. He practiced long and hard really early and got really good. Of course, that has served him well through the years."

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Shupe was 5 years old when his father began to wake him at 5 o'clock each morning to practice the fiddle. They met in the family room, which was really a music room filled with guitars, mandolins, violins of every size, banjos and a piano — and for two hours they would play.

"As long as I played with him, he would play all day," says Ted.

He wasn't trying to create a star; he was merely continuing a family tradition that dated back several generations to his Mormon pioneer ancestors. His grandfathers and grandmothers and great-grandfathers played the fiddle. Ted's great-grandmother is reputed to have hosted fiddling parties in pioneer times, and many of his relatives played in various bands at one time. When Ted's other children — Darren, Tara, Bonnie and Stacey — were old enough, Ted gave each of them fiddle lessons for 30 minutes every morning in their Ogden home before they dashed out the door for work and school.

"Music is not a choice in our family," says Ted. "We did the same thing in my family when I was growing up. It's like brushing your teeth; kids wouldn't do it if they weren't compelled. It was just part of the education. I wanted my kids to carry it on."

The five Shupe children followed this routine five days a week into their teenage years. "I didn't know any different; I didn't realize most people didn't do that," says Ryan, who eventually began to study with Ted's brother, Jim, who started the Utah Oldtime Fiddlers Association and played violin in the Utah Symphony.

"Aside from anything it would do for the kids, this was my one-on-one time with my kids," says Ted, choking back tears. "Once I left the house (for work), it was really consuming. But in the morning I had them. My greatest memories are working with my kids."

The Shupe children played in bands as well as an informal family band, with Ted on bass and his wife, Sandy, on guitar. The children continue to play in bands, and they have branched off to other instruments. Bonnie plays drums; Tara the mandolin, guitar and violin (she is studying jazz guitar at the University of Utah); Darren the banjo; and Bonnie the bass.