Hannah Harris

Hi Reader! Session scenes are familiar to me. I'm perfectly comfortable walking into a room, seeing a group of Irish musicians playing tunes in an open session environment, and asking to join in (or sitting in my usual spot for the two local ones I attend each week). But if you put me in the room at a Feis (Irish dance competition), even if there are familiar tunes playing in the background, I will feel like a fish out of water. Despite being slightly more familiar with Feises than sessions...

Hi Reader! Out of curiosity... did you go "oooo" or did you roll your eyes when you saw "slip polka" in this email's subject line? If you've played a session with me any time in the past 5 years, you'll know I'm a sucker for a good polka set, particularly polkas from the Sliabh Luachra areas of Cork, Kerry and Limerick! It's really only been in the past year that I started hearing about slip polkas! Since a jig is 6/8 time, and a slip jig is 9/8 time, it stands to reason that a polka is in...

Before you panic... yes, that's a "stunt" fiddle 😉 Hi Reader! Today's an exciting day over here for two reasons: It's my birthday! Over three decades around the sun now... 😱 I couldn't be more excited to share with you that my latest album, At the Core, is officially released and ready for your earbuds! Now available on Bandcamp! You already have the digital copy of At the Core, but if you'd like to download a free copy from Bandcamp, hit reply to this email and I'll send you a code you can...

Hi Reader! I'm going to take a guess that you first heard the term "slip jig" before you heard about hop jigs. Ironically the first "slip" jig I ever learned (The Butterfly) is technically a hop jig, but that's a video explanation for another day! In a nutshell, both tunes are in 9/8 time, where a measure is counted by eighth notes, and there are nine total eighth notes in a measure. These can be different combinations of eighths, quarters, dotted quarters -- but they all add up to nine....

You could have knocked me over with a feather, when my friend and fellow Tune Junkie instructor Claire Shirey excitedly shared with me that my Irish Fiddle Nuts & Bolts workshop was sold out last weekend, Reader! I don't say this to be like "ooo look at me and my teaching skills." (Though yes, I was definitely flattered!) The truly exciting thing about that moment was that clearly this was a workshop topic that resonated and fiddlers wanted to learn! What was supposed to be a 10 person...

Hi Reader! More often than not, the people who find themselves over in my corner of the internet are coming into the Irish traditional music space from another genre, and want to learn how to differentiate this style of music from other genres out there. Maybe that's you? And if so... You and I both know that playing Irish fiddle music like... well... an Irish fiddler, isn't really about playing and memorizing notes you see on a page. Some folks call it playing with lilt. Others refer to it...

Hi Reader! I've been reading back over this fantastic book called Peak by K. Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool -- it's all about achieving excellence in any field of our choice and the steps it takes to get there. In the book there are three types of practice: naive, purposeful and deliberate. Since this is an Irish fiddle newsletter, let's look at each type of practice as it pertains to practicing your instrument. Naive practice is when you play your tunes over and over again and assume that...