This was the seventh Maine Pipes and Fiddle Weekend. It's amazing that we're not only continuing to hold these twice yearly, but growing in numbers! The state of piping in Maine and the surrounding area is continuing to move in the direction we've all been hoping for: Smallpiping, PEI/Cape Breton Style!
Fiddle Class on Sunday Morning
Friday Night was the concert. It wasn't as well attended as it has been in the past. We inadvertently scheduled it the same night as two other local events. But audience size aside, it was brilliant. Pipes, fiddle, piano, guitar, bouzouki, harmonium, all came together perfectly. It was amazing, really.
Ward, Ellen, and Owen on stage
Saturday morning (which came a bit early), found us all in class. In the Smallpipes class we worked on "Keith and Kelly's", a four part jig that Ward wrote for Keith and Kelly, who host the instructors every year during the workshops. We also talked a lot about key signatures.
Lunch we picked up from the local Co-op.
Best part of the weekend (that's my sandwich and cookie on the table)
Saturday afternoon we worked on Lady Carmichael's, a nice two part Strathspey. And, like always, we worked on tapping our feet to strathspey time.
Saturday evening we had pizza (really good gourmet stuff) and tunes (also gourmet of course) at the Central Hall in Blue Hill. Ellen had other business, but playing with Ward and Owen was a real treat. And It was great to play old tunes and new with old friends and new.
Holly treating the die hard sessioners to a song as the jam was coming to a close.
After the session, I caught some of the Blue Hill Contradance. I use to attend this, the longest running contradance in Maine, every month when I lived in the area. Ward and Owen also played along with the band for a set. Great stuff.
Sunday morning we learned "Last Summer's Reel", one of my favorite reels. It's another tune written by Ward. Ellen would rather teach us for "session friendly" tunes, but Ward's tunes are so damn good we can usually convince her to teach them to us anyway (if we beg).
After that, we all said our goodbyes, and another Maine Pipes and Fiddle Weekend had come to an end.
Filling out the survey.
Now I'd like to just mention a few things about the Maine Pipes and Fiddle Workshop in general. Those of you who haven't attended the Weekend are probably not aware that this is not just a bunch of totally separate piping and fiddling classes. We're bringing pipers and fiddlers (and guitar players) together. We're teaching fiddlers what to make of these people who play such strange contraptions and pipers that they are musicians too. Pipers tend to be on the fringe of the music world, so we're trying to bring them in out of the cold, show them that they are full members of the musical world, and give them the tools to talk to other musicians. And, of course give or strengthen those tools for the fiddle students.
Movement for musicians class
In addition, there are a few big lessons that we want the attendees to take away from the weekend. One of which is the relationship between musicians and dancers. It's likely that many attendees will never play for a dancer, but we're playing dance music here! Even when we're not playing for dancers specifically, we want people to want to dance. The movement class gets all the musicians (fiddler's, pipers, and guitar players, all together) out of their seats, and shows them what the dancers are doing (very very basically). Then it puts them back in their seats, and shows them what their feet should be doing while they play each type of tune (Marches, Strathspey's, Reels, Jigs and etc.). It's one of the many times during the weekend that sparks the Aha! moment for attendees.
Smallpipes Class
Another thing I want to mention, which is very closely related to the dancing thing, is the emphasis, during the entire workshop, on rhythm. This was one of my Aha! moments. Lesson one in rhythm is to learn to tap one's foot properly (as in the movement class). It sounds simple enough, but to really do it right is not simple. To do the heel/toe thing with reels for example, not easy. I didn't think I had a problem with this, but I did. This would take a whole book to explain. You'll just have to trust me that what most of us (by us I mean adult learners of dance music) are doing with our foot tapping is not enough. The rhythm must be both internalized and externalized. And when you really start to get it, everything changes.
For example, the smallpiping classes, like with most workshops, are built around the learning of new tunes. Now, I used to leave from other workshops with a whole bunch of tunes I'd "learned," and then I'd go back home to relearn them, so I could play them on my own. But when I leave the Maine workshops, I leave with two or three tunes I know, and can play. So when I go home, I just play them. What's the difference? This rhythm thing.
Okay, rant done. Go to Maine Pipes and Fiddle in the Spring. We'll have the next date posted shortly.
