It's St. Paddy's Day & Music Circles

Happy St. Paddy's Day to you! 🍀 This is a day I celebrate with joy because it reminds me of good times sharing music with other musicians in music circles throughout the years, both in the States and abroad. 

I love Trad and Old Time music because they are historically music genres that bring people together to learn and share tunes without performance pressure. 

Trad tunes are traditional Irish tunes that are well recognized and shared. Old Time music is music that came out of the Appalachian area and is often reminiscent of tunes brought over from the British Isles. I spent a lot of time in Kentucky with my grandmother when I was young and met my passion in this music when I received my first dulcimer made in Berea Kentucky by Warren Mays. Soon I started attending workshops and learned from elders who shared their music. 

Since moving to Charleston South Carolina in 2004 I have been placing ads to attract other folks who would like to gather for slow jams. Slow jams are music circles where people come together purely for enjoyment and learning tunes. I haven't found momentum for Irish music or Old Time music here in the Lowcountry, but there are groups up near North Carolina where I have had opportunities to share.  

I have faith in this town and keep stirring the pot to find other like minded folk who want to share the music. With its history, Charleston should be rich in string music circles. But drum circles are what you find here on the beaches and the string music circles continue to be further North toward Asheville NC or further South into Georgia. 

If you would like to be part of a music circle here in Charleston, learning Trad or Old Time music in a slow jam session, please reach out to me. Acoustic instruments (guitars, mandolins, fiddles, dulcimers, bodhrans, tin whistles and pipes) are most welcome. For now I will continue to share through the internet. 

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These are photos are from my days in Connemara near Clifden where I stayed with my friends, the Krandalls. Norman Krandall owned Peter O'Toole's old family home near the cliffs and was very generous to me on my musical visits. 

 I met Junior Davey and Joe Kennedy in Tubbercurry, South Sligo. They are Bodhran champions and shared their technique in playing the instrument with me. I will always be grateful for their time and mentoring. 

When I lived in Detroit I would often visit the Irish-Canadian club in Windsor, Ontario. It's a small world when you find Canadian friends to jam with a thousand miles away. 

Norman Krandall's generosity will never be forgotten. He owned Peter O'Toole's old family home outside of Clifden in Connemara by the sea and opened his doors and his wallet to me whenever I visited. Norman fought for fair Salmon fishing in Ireland and was well liked by all.

A small pub music circle in Clifden. On the far left is Rollande Krandall, Norman's daughter. She performed on ocarina, mandolin, and bodhran. With Rollande are the King Sisters. The Guiness and Harp on tap are far better than what you find in the States - and I never saw a red head all the days of my time in Ireland.

The stone house above and the stone house below belonged to the Krandalls. It was known around Clifden as the O'Toole house. I am not sharing pictures of the inside for privacy but it was quite lovely with whitewashed walls and a fireplace that you could walk into. Peat, or turf, was burned in the fire to warm the house and the smell was lovely. A small staircase led to a bath and bedroom fitted with two twin beds where I shared a room with Rollande. Norman would climb a ladder to get to his bedroom in an upper loft. It was a short walk to the cliffs over the Atlantic. And sitting on the cliffs I could feel sorrow lifting up out of the rock, from generations past, all around me. Truly this would be a place to live for writers of verse and song. 

This last photo is of a house just a short distance up from Norman's home. It was a round house with a thatched roof owned by a friend of the Krandalls. (Just in case you have never seen a house with a thatched roof.) 

Body Awareness as a Musician

Few musicians pay attention to the body alignment and technique approaches taught to them in their youth. And fortunately young bodies are made to handle this struggle. But as musicians age they will often start to notice aches and limitations. Flute players develop tendonitis, others develop hip pain, etc. That is when they return to a professional coach for alignment help with their instrument. The Alexander Technique has helped many musicians and was often taught to us in University classes. But the popularity of that technique has waned and now musicians often turn to other specialists for help. I have had the privilege of working with artists as a bodywork professional for musicians when I lived in metropolitan areas: I am still called upon for virtual help by musicians who live in other areas. I know the challenges are still out there. So, I want to share a link here that I have shared with my private clients. I think it will help you to be more aware of your body, and movement, while rehearsing, performing.  

Here is the link to the website:  avoid injury 

What Kind of Metronome Should I Buy?

When I was a child I had two metronomes that I used to practice my music. The oldest was an electric box with a lightbulb on top. It was very impressive and had to be from the 40s or 50s. When it stopped working I acquired the traditional triangle shaped metronome with a pendulum. You would wind it up like a clock. If you had a cat that liked to sit on the piano while you played, the cat would be batting at the pendulum when it went back and forth making for a lot of missed beats. (And a lot of fun!) Today, choosing a metronome is a more complex task.

For budget minded individuals, you can use your phone's search bar and simply put in the word "metronome." A simple metronome will appear with a slider bar that allows you to increase or decrease the beats per minute (bpm), and a start/stop button. The sound you will hear is a clean consistent tick.

For those who own keyboards, you may have a metronome built into the unit. However, the sounds of the metronome vary with keyboards: some are clicks, but simpler models have beeps.

If you go to a music store and request a metronome, you will be faced with many choices. And this is where students get lost. Many of the metronomes produced today contain beeps that are irritating to some students. Others are not as simple as turning off and turning on a beat. Some devices make you choose the time signature and note breakdown. New students are simply not able to understand how to figure out and enter this information into the metronome - so they give up on using a metronome altogether. 

I realized recently that I need to tell my students which metronome to purchase because a customer service representative in a store will often have them over-purchase. I felt especially bad when I sent an elderly student to purchase a metronome and he was talked into buying a $200 unit that he never could understand how to use.

So here is my suggestion. It is a Wittner MT-50 metronome that produces one sound - a click. It is run by a single battery and can be found for under $25. If you are a student of mine and the music store does not carry this model, or tells you they can not order it for you, you can order it online, or I will be happy to order it for you. In my book, a simple metronome, with a toneless click, will always be a student's best choice.