Hannah Harris

Hi Reader! Matt Cranitch is the latest guest on the Find Your Lilt podcast, and I swear every time I have a conversation with him or take one of his workshops, I come away with a whole new set of ideas on bowing, playing in general, or understanding of who he is as a musician. In this chat, I really wanted to hear the spark that got him interested in Irish music. I'm used to thinking of him as a master fiddler who has been long established in the traditional Irish music scene (and...

Hi Reader! We had another really enjoyable (and packed!) session on Wednesday this week, and it's got me thinking about ideal sessions again... If you want to hear more musicians' perspectives around their ideal sessions and session etiquette, I highly recommend giving Tara Connaghan's podcast In Tune with Tradition a listen! A lot of Tara's guests will say that their ideal session size tends to be around 6-8 players. And typically these players would play at a similar level and have a mostly...

Hi Reader! A short letter from me today due to gigs and yesterday being the 4th of July (cue holiday brain mode). But I did want to take an opportunity to share three conversations I've had with some fantastic women in the Irish traditional music space over the past few months in case you haven't had a chance to tune in yet! Liz Knowles has a knack for making practicing your instrument fun. Basically think of the last time you went down a rabbit hole researching something you were curious...

Hi Reader! We had a really enjoyable session on Wednesday this week with a mix of the usual suspects and a couple of people visiting from out of town -- always a favorite combo! It was a bit shorter and earlier than usual due to the World Cup (despite our rousing rendition of Scotland the Brave at the end of the session, I'm afraid it didn't do the trick. But a big congrats to Brazil!). And there was a time and the not too distant past when it would bother me if a pub can't decide if it's a...

Hi Reader! Tell me if you've been in these shoes before. You open up a tune book like the O'Neill's collection (which has 1000 tunes in it if you're not familiar), and think "okay now I'm going to learn every single one of these tunes." After all, if you trained in the Suzuki method or another violin method that relied on progressing through a series of books, isn't that what we're used to? Learn every tune in the book, and then we can move on to the next level. It's certainly how I used to...

Hi Reader! Another Find your Lilt episode is on its way to your earbuds tomorrow (I'm releasing new episodes twice a month on the 15th and last day of the month). If you're not already friends with my guest, I think you're going to want to be by the end of the discussion! From my early days of teaching Irish fiddle, I've thought about how valuable it would be to have a method book that applies technical training to the Irish fiddle style -- much like etudes in the classical world. So my ears...

Hi Reader! This question came up in my inbox this week around how important speed actually is. In my Tune Library videos, I start every tutorial playing the tune "up to speed" and then breaking it down into phrases before playing the whole tune at a slow, then medium pace. But one of my members (rightly) questioned this speed -- how much of a benchmark is it to say you've learned a tune? When I play a tune "up to speed", I'm not aiming to crank out every reel at 105bpm (beats-per-minute). I...