🎻 The little things I noticed watching Gerry O'Connor play

Hi Reader!

We get a fair number of Irish traditional musicians visiting the Detroit area to do shows, and this week we had Gerry O'Connor (the fiddler not the banjo player) and Don Penzien in town!

Gerry was here a day early from his show and joined in our weekly Wednesday session. All I can say is he is an excellent fiddler!

If I had a year to sit down with him at a weekly session and just absorb how he approaches tunes, I have a feeling my playing would go to an entirely new level.

That was pretty much my strategy when I lived in Cork city for my Masters Degree 10 years ago! Go to a weekly session (or more) and absorb... Shout out to Stan Sullivan, John Walsh, Barry Looney and John Byrne for shaping my playing by proximity at the Blarney Castle Hotel Tuesday night sessions and to Mags McCarthy for getting us carless students there!

There was a past version of me who would have felt discouraged playing in the same session as Gerry and realizing just how much there is left to learn. But these days, I find those moments more encouraging than not -- look how much there is left to explore, improve and discover!

One of the best ways to improve your playing and get to whichever next level of musicianship you're aiming for is to get in the room with the experts. That's probably something you've heard before, but it's worth repeating.

I'm writing this a few hours before Gerry's show tonight, so rather than just tell you to seize any opportunity to get in the room, I want to chat about what it looks like once you're in that room.

Tonight I'm going to be watching Gerry's bow hand -- last night I could see that he held the bow down where most classical players are taught to hold it, but that his pinky was rarely ever on the stick.

Post show observation: a lot of Gerry's movement comes from the hand though I could tell his wrist was loose. Just not as big a range of motion as what I use!

I'll be listening to familiar tunes and hearing what he does differently with them. What little variation does he throw in to make my ears do a double take, and have me thinking "How did he come up with that?"

Post show me again: the man is a genius. His transitions? Effortless *chef's kiss*.

All of these things are bits and pieces of what I picked up playing with him last night. But tonight I'll be able to hear better and it'll be slightly more socially acceptable for me to zero in on watching his playing since tonight is a show not a session!

There are many different ways of "getting in the room" and fortunately these days we have more access to online rooms if you don't get a lot of in-person opportunities (I still prefer those over online whenever possible, but am glad to have online as an option).

It's one reason why I have the Tune Library so members can practice playing alongside me at any time of day that suits them!

I used to live in a really remote area of Michigan (think driving forty minutes to the nearest session that happened once a month and almost two hours to a weekly session). So when the pandemic hit, I didn't feel much change in my day to day life having already felt cut off from the in-person world and relying on the online world for connection.

I chose to change things around so that I could drive five minutes to play a session with Gerry O'Connor and thirty minutes to hear him play because my time in Cork taught me the value of being in the heart of things.

But that's also just personal to my lifestyle preferences! It doesn't necessarily have to be yours. You can get a lot of value from watching a virtual concert, or hopping on Zoom to take a workshop with a musician you want to learn from.

Weekly Tune Library Update

There's a new tutorial up for The High Drive Reel (which is actually in D not A -- my mistake from last week)! This one is definitely a challenge tune! It's a four parter and is great practice for bowed triplet and string crossing at faster speeds. It's one that I'm definitely still polishing myself, but I hope that this gives you some inspiration on how to approach a challenging tune right from the middle of the work!

Next week I'll be adding Tommy Peoples' reel, which is in G but definitely has a C feel to it... to go along with last week's theme of tunes in C!

Speaking of Zoom workshops...

Caitlin Warbelow has put together an incredible online learning platform called Tune Supply. I'm so thrilled to be teaching my first ever workshop through Tune Supply on Sunday December 13th!

There are a bunch of amazing fiddle workshops, so while I hope you'll sign up for mine (I need 15 students minimum signed up in order for the workshop to run), I encourage you to get in the room of others that speak to you on the lineup. 😉

My session is open to all melody instruments and we'll be working on using familiar phrasing patterns to help make memorizing and learning tunes by ear go more smoothly (i.e. If you know Rakish Paddy and Spike Island Lassies, you're well set up to master The Bank of Ireland).

Workshops are recorded, so you can register and receive the video afterwards even if you can't attend in person. The cost is "Pay What It's Worth To You" so all can attend. (But they can't run the program if most people only pay a dollar...so please support at the level you're able.) Check out the full class listing here!

Some of my friends have adopted the "dress as a tune name" for a Halloween tradition, and we've been showing up to both the Wednesday session this week and Sunday's session later today in costume. I'm not sure if Caitlin Warbelow started it, but she's who I got the idea from!

I decided on The Silver Slipper (which is a lovely quasi-slip jig). It may be an obscure costume, but it's now firmly implanted into Gerry O Connor's memory of me...

So, Reader. Get in the room even if your shoes don't match 😆. I'll leave you with that note! Have a great week!

~Hannah

P.S. On the performance note, if you're in the Kalamazoo MI area I'll be sitting in for my friend Michele Venegas in her group Selkie on November 17th! Tickets available here!