Hannah Harris

Hi Reader! Today's Irish fiddle story is brought to you by one of my wonderful Tune Library members, Monica (shared with her permission)! Do you remember when I told you, during our Tune Library feedback meeting, that I get in a lot of practicing/online learning when I'm on the road for work? Well, I'm in Florida right now, and my flight was among the 5,500 cancelled due to the intense storm that hit the northeast. The earliest I can get back is Wednesday morning, so I have an entire day and...

It's finally happening Reader... I've let myself get completely lost in the rabbit hole of making sourdough. In past, I've helped others maintain their starter or enjoyed listening to the process of making sourdough. But it's been very much on the periphery, and I haven't ever been in charge of my own starter. There was always the "this takes a lot of time and I just don't know if I can really give it the attention it needs." Doesn't that last sentence sound a bit familiar? From perhaps a...

Hi Reader, Coming at you with another book recommendation this week! Last year around this time, I had just finished reading Peak by K. Anders Ericsson, which covers the process of deliberate practice and what it takes to master a skill (like playing Irish traditional music). This year I've been tapping back into the resource that is my local library, and reading a few books that have been on my wishlist for a time. One of those is Deep Work by Cal Newport. You can imagine my eyes did a...

Hi Reader, Last Sunday I was in mid-recovery from one of my favorite but also one of the most intense weekends of my year -- Tune Junkie weekend in Knoxville TN! So at the usual time that this letter lands in your inbox, I was in a verrry deep sleep and only woke up a couple hours later because we forgot to put the "do not disturb" sign on the door for the hotel housekeeper. Oops 🙈. I should know by now that nothing non-TJW related gets done the week of, and it takes at least a few days to...

Hi Reader, Today I want to share one of my favorite listening exercises with you, and it's one I’ve gotten to do a lot of this year so far! The nice thing is it’s an exercise that touches on multiple skills: note and interval recognition, arrangement awareness and (naturally) listening! More specifically, deep listening. To set the scene for you, my partner, Bear, has been listening to Tony McManus for years and took classes with him in college. We’ve been lucky enough to catch up and play...

Hi, Reader! I'm borrowing this question from Tara Connaghan, who has a wonderful podcast out called In Tune with Tradition - Perspectives on Session Etiquette. Each episode, Tara asks her guest "what is your ideal session?" It's often met with a bit of a laugh, maybe a gasp or two and few moments of quick but deep reflection before they give their answers. One thing I love is that they're all slightly different, or focus on different "idealisms" such as number of players, overall mood, tunes...

Hi, Reader! I’ve known what I was going to write to you about since Saturday last week. But I am glad that I let myself sit on the idea for a few days because it means I’m now writing from a place of curiosity instead of anger. So here’s my burning question of the week: do Irish people waltz faster than Americans? Ok that’s way too general of a statement, so let me provide some context. Over the last few years at quite a few non-Irish trad gigs (i.e. Contra dances and a re-enactment of dinner...