🎻 Lessons from Liz and a healthy dose of relatability

Hi Reader!

There's something about the name "Liz" that immediately has me thinking "incredible fiddler and amazingly warm and kind person."

(Liz Carroll, Liz Knowles, Liz Doherty, Liz Hanley, Liz Kane, Liz Faiella... the list goes on!)

Today I want to chat about something that Liz Knowles said a year or two ago in a podcast interview that has stood out to me to this day.

"Isn't it interesting how we all come to trad music differently and learn tunes in different orders!"

I'm paraphrasing here, but I remember thinking yes!!!

My early days of fiddling consisted of an assortment of tunes that my Suzuki teacher gave me to help reignite a spark for playing my instrument when classical music was getting discouraging.

Around that time, Celtic Woman formed and was touring in the US. The long dresses, dancing across the stage, and sheer fun and camaraderie of the performance hooked me in and opened a door that eventually led me more towards traditional Irish music.

My aunt gifted me a copy of Miles Krassen's version of the O'Neill's Collection, and around age 15 or so I started gathering tune books like Peter Cooper's Complete Irish Fiddle Player.

Add to that listening to a lot of Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas as well as William Coulter's CDs (including the fiddling of Kevin Burke and Martin Hayes).

The tunes I learned came from the tools I had at hand (primarily tune books and CDs).

It wouldn't be until my first time attending the Swannanoa Gathering in 2014 that I really started to embrace learning a tune by ear as a method to pick up new tunes. Thanks to my early years in Suzuki and the fact that I'd been playing violin/fiddle consistently over the years, I had a bit of development in that skill already.

But I wouldn't have thought to try it on my own without someone encouraging me to bring that skill back to the forefront!

I'm reminded of the first time I played my instrument without the tapes showing me where to put my fingers. Or the time that I rode a bike without training wheels for the first time.

I had "put in the reps" and done a lot of listening and playing. Now the time had come to let go of my proverbial training wheels (sheet music in this case), and try to mimic the phrases Andrew Finn Magill and Kimberley Fraser were teaching us in class.

We're over 11 years past that point now (😱), and while I've been learning tunes by ear consistently, it is a slow process, Reader!

I like to challenge myself to try and pick up tunes on the spot in a session the way it would have had to be done prior to recording devices. It's rarely ever a 100% success rate, and some tunes I play have the "telephone" effect where I've tweaked a note here or there that just made sense to fill the space between the ones I remembered.

But I think 20 year old me would be proud of what I can pick up on the spot in comparison to where I started.

I've been chatting to a few of my Tune Library members this week, and one big takeaway from these conversations have been that ear learning is a slow and steady learning process.

It certainly feels like a steep learning curve to begin (remember how you felt taking the tapes and training wheels off!).

It's also an incredibly exciting feeling when one day you realize "whoa! I did it! I had it in me!"

Until next time -- hug a Liz you know, worry less if it seems like you don't know the same tunes as everyone else, and lean into a challenging but rewarding element in your life!

Happy playing!

~Hannah