🎻 How balancing on a planter reminded me of keeping track of tunes

Hi Reader!

Last Tuesday I got an opportunity to do some volunteer work at a local farm. We were planting cabbages for about four hours, and when I say "many hands make light work" I mean it!

We were a team of about 10 and we managed to plant 10,865 cabbages all in a morning. When our coordinator told us the number, I was honestly staggered. And very motivated to do this again!

The team had the whole strategy worked out. One farmer drove the tractor which poked holes in the ground and watered them while two people sat on the back in a two-seat planter dropping seedlings into the holes as the tractor slowly made its way down the row.

The farmer, Vern, was driving the tractor as slow as he could go (yes, we asked) but even then the two people in the planter simply couldn't fill every hole or linger long enough to ensure the plants were secured in the ground.

That's when the volunteers behind got to do some work! We would walk behind the tractor filling in the gaps and making sure the ones dropped by the planters were rooted firmly.

We all took turns being riders and walkers throughout the morning. It was teamwork, community and time spent outdoors connected with the earth and with each other at its finest.

As I thought about what to write to you this week, I kept coming back to the "many hands make light work" thought. In Irish music, there are easily more than 10,865 tunes out there. And at any given time you can have 10s, 100s maybe a few 1000 that you remember how to play.

But if you play with ten other people in a session, your tune output expands. The collective retains more together and someone who fully knows a tune that you only partially recall has your back -- walking behind you to firmly root the tune further into your memory.

The more I play with other people, the more relieved I feel that the tradition is in good hands. None of us has to carry all of the tunes alone.

Sure we can make a conscious effort to familiarize ourselves with lots of patterns and their various combinations. We can go back and review old tunes. We can and should make the effort.

We just don't have to do it all by ourselves.

Weekly Tune Library Update

​Fergal O'Geara's and Lucy Campbells are now up in the Tune Library! Both of these tunes have similar A or B parts to other tunes both in the library and not, so let this be some good phrasing practice to help keep them distinguishable from the similar tunes!

I'll be prepping for my online workshops for QDF SummerFest this week, but back in the saddle for Tune Library materials the rest of the month. If you have requests, or if there's a lesson with a * next to it that you'd like a video tutorial for, just let me know!

Upcoming Gigs

Registration for QDF workshops is closed now, but you can still attend the virtual concert! If you're local to southeast Michigan or headed to Swannanoa for Celtic Week this summer, here's where Bear and I will be playing:

• QDF Concert Series Thursday June 4th -- Sunday June 7th. I'll be playing Saturday June 6th, but you can get your concert pass to see all the acts!
• Sionainn Laoi at Motor City Irish Fest! Sunday June 14th @2:30pm.
• Sionainn Laoi at Michigan Celtic Fest on Main Stage July 11th @1:30pm
• ​Swannanoa Celtic Week Staff Musicians July 19th-25th.

To wrap up this week, I also wanted to let you know that Liz Knowles' episode is now live on the Find Your Lilt podcast! If you found today's topic reassuring about not needing to keep track of every single tune out there, I think you'll really enjoy this chat.

Liz has a ton of insights around approaching practice, teaching students how to practice, and keeping ourselves engaged and curious in the process of learning. It's always a pleasure getting to video chat with her, and this interview was no different. Please enjoy!

And until next time, happy practicing!

~Hannah