| Anne & Andi's Gaelic College Adventures Day 6 |
| 8/13/02 Wednesday Wednesday the 13th carried none of the negative associations with that number and may have been my luckiest day at the Gaelic College. We learned all about the various sizes and shapes of bodhrans and tippers at class and got another sheet of rhythms. Practiced with all kinds of neat bodhran CDs I didn’t know existed and generally had a grand time. Ian decided to up the ante and gave us another piece to work on. It is called “Over the Cabot Trail” and has some fancy fingering to it. He really has confidence in our ability to do this! Well that is good – we won’t let him down. I asked him what he does when he is not at the Gaelic College. He works for the local Lumber Industry and had a wonderful conversation with Dean about lumberjack stuff. Fascinating! And he does THIS for a hobby! *sigh* To have such talent! Ian also taught us a couple new techniques. I sure do like having a real person to talk to about fiddling. Thoise books and videos are good for so much and then you need some feedback. I had actually practiced my chanter yesterday before we went out so I was prepared for Bagpipe class. Jim was back, having found that the Advanced Beginners were too advanced for him. Just like my situation in fiddle class in the afternoon! Alisdair fairly divided the time between us and I learned a whole SLEW of new fingerings today! The computer center is still not up and running and it is still 90 plus degrees here. I packed long sleeved shirts and sweatshirts in anticipation of the cooler clime. Ha! They may never get unpacked this trip. Afternoon class with Wendy was the best yet! She gave me a new piece to work on called Leaving Lismore and showed me about grace notes! I love this woman! She seems to know what I want to know before I even say anything. She is a born teacher, trust me. Plus, can she play!!!!! OMG! What a joy to listen to her! Elaine and Andi are getting sick of Morag of Dunvegan. I transcribed the fingerings from John Allen’s Jig for her last night so she can have something else to play. We told her about the $2500 bow the man had played with. SHe was incredulous that it cost that much. She said you can tell the difference between a $100 violin and a $1000 violin and between a $50 bow and a $500 bow. But when the bow costs more than $500, there isn't that much change in it. Carl’s class was funny, with us playing Morag for the umpteenth time and all silently putting out a contract on the man who wrote it. Oh I wish Andi and Elaine would memorize it so we can get up some speed. They seem to be tied to the notes, which I was too when I first learned to read fiddle music. Now I am the opposite. I need to be somewhere in between to succeed here. Hoping the pendulum swings for me soon. Carl let us out a little early which was good because it was just too darn hot in that room and we were all melting. Plus, I was trying sooo hard to pay attention. I had other things on my mind – much more exciting things! |
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| We had no problem finding the house and as we parked on the side of the driveway there was no doubt we were in the right place. There were fiddles on the shutters! LOL! Left the fiddle in the car hoping she’d forget she had asked me to play. Haha! Alex answered the door and we were enveloped by the wonderful hospitality of the MacMaster household. Minnie and Alex were all about making guests feel comfortable and we sat and chatted in the living room for a while along with their neighbor, Dan. She asked about our instructors and knew them all! We spoke about how the Cape Breton dances were different from the others in that they used jigs, reels, strathspeys, waltzes and all kinds of dance music all together. That mostly elsewhere they played only jigs and reels. The moment came too soon. “So did you bring your fiddle?” says Minnie. I nodded and she said, “OK! Go get it! No, wait. Why don’t you use the one on top of the piano there?” As I got up to get the fiddle and bow, I noticed Natalie’s Platinum CDs in plaques dedicated to her Mom and Dad, right there on the wall above the piano. What a feeling sitting there looking up at that inspiration! Dan got me a straight back chair from the kitchen – sofas are not conducive to proper fiddling, and I plopped myself down. “That’s the fiddle Natalie uses when she’s home,” says Minnie, matter-of-factly. “ARGH!” I thought. “What if I break it, what if I suck? Oh my God! I am playing Natalie’s fiddle! Me! Natalie’s fiddle!” I thought. Somehow, I managed to get through “Auntie Mary.” It was the only thing I could remember at that point and I didn’t suck! Then Minnie had me hand the fiddle to Dan to play. He was good and had never had a lesson. Oh to live here and hear this music from birth! What a wonderful thing! Alex declined to play saying he plays twice a year and this wasn’t one of the occasions! LOL!. The visit ended too soon with our having to leave to go back to the college to see Alex’s brother, Buddy MacMaster, guru of Cape Breton fiddling. Minnie and Alex invited us back next year to play some more. We floated back to the College and got there barely in time for the opening act from Rhode Island. The group was on a whirlwind tour of Eastern Canada and were good. Buddy played for over an hour. He was unceasingly energetic. The man is 78 years old for goodness sake! Like someone had wound him up and he just couldn’t stop! Every single person in that auditorium loved his playing. What a gift it was to be able to hear him! |
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| After the show, I got my fiddle signed. Buddy was so nice! “Oh! Who is this? Oh! Natalie signed it! Nice.” |
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| After Buddy’s concert, we went to the dorm to go to bed, With all the excitement we couldn’t sleep and were listening to a grand ceilidh going on in the lobby. All of a sudden Andi says, “That is NOT a student playing that fiddle! Think it’s Buddy?” Well, we got dressed and booked down to the lobby. It wasn’t Buddy but what a time! The lobby was filled with people, Jean MacNeil was playing piano accompaniment to a fiddler I didn’t know. It was Joe Peter…cannot for the life of me remember his name. But if you say those two words, Joe Peter, anywhere on the Isle of Cape Breton, they know about him. He was another Energizer Bunny and would play for 20 minutes, take a sip of his beer and play for another 20 minutes. We sat down with the rest and watched people get up to dance, stepdance, waltz, and just have fun. The man was relentless and Jean MacNeil was an incredible accompanist especially because Joe Peter couldn’t even say which tunes he’d be playing. Jean just rolled with the punches and never even flinched! That family is soooo talented it’s not funny! Went to bed at about 3 AM. What a night! |
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| Two years ago, fiddle playing was only a wild thought in my imagination. I loved to watch and listen to fiddlers from a young age – them and bagpipers! This was before I found out that most of my lineage is Scottish, not English as I had thought. My favorite Great Big Sea guy is the fiddler, Bob Hallett. I had seen Natalie MacMaster several times and had gotten her autograph on my fiddle. I was so impressed with her when I saw her at the Philadelphia Folk Festival a few years ago, I had written her an email on her website to tell her my reaction. Well, that email got me on the road to where I am today. Natalie’s Mom, Minnie, answered my email and was just so friendly. When Natalie rolled into town again, I emailed her Mom a review of the show and some photos. We got to emailing back and forth and I found myself wishing out loud that I could play fiddle. I had surmised that 48 was just too old to begin. Minnie encouraged me to try and I bought my fiddle and was on the road to producing some decent sounds. Every once in a while, I’d email her and update her on my progress. We also told her how much I had enjoyed Cape Breton and at some point she invited me to contact her when I came up again. Well, I very tentatively told her I’d be at the Gaelic College in August, she extended the invitation once again. So I had called on Monday to see when would be a good time and she said early Wednesday evening. – Tonight I am off to meet Minnie and her husband, Alex at their home. She said to bring the fiddle so I can play a tune or two for her. Boy! Am I nervous about this! I took a shower, practiced my fiddle, paced a bit until it was time for Andi and I to leave. The ride to her house was quiet as I tried to stay focused. I didn’t want to completely make a fool of myself. |
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| The Welcome to Port Hastings |