Gaelic Roots 2000 Concertina Workshop
June 18-24, 2000 at Boston College,
Chestnut Hill, Massachusets
By Al Bryant, July, 2000
Gaelic Roots
Many people may already know about this week long festival of (mostly) Irish music,
singing and dance held each year at Boston College. The week is modeled on the
schools held throughout Ireland over the Summer, the Willie Clancy Week in Miltown
Malbay being the best known example. The director is Seamus Connolly, the well
known Irish fiddler and director of the music section in the department of Irish
studies at the college. The department of Irish studies sponsors the week and
considers it an educational offering. The college underwrites a significant percentage
of the total budget.
This year classes were offered in Irish and Scottish bagpipes, Irish and
Cape Breton fiddle, Cape Breton piano, whistle, flute, guitar,bodhran, harp,
accordion and of course the finest instrument of them all. Classes are also
offered in Irish step dancing and are extremely well attended. Singing
classes in Irish and English are also provided. Dance, whistle and fiddle
classes are divided into beginner, advanced beginner, intermediate and
advanced sections. Students complained in past years about beginners placing
themselves in advanced classes and thereby slowing down the class, so this
year there were tryouts on Sunday night for these classes. I happened to sit
in on the tryouts for intermediate vs advanced fiddle (the self described
beginners having moved to another room for further partition). Martin Hayes
surveyed the forty or so fiddlers all nervously applying rosin and indicated
that those who learned well by ear should consider themselves "advanced" and
those who learned less well by ear should consider themselves
"intermediate." It didn't hurt that both groups would be taught by the same
instructors: Martin Hayes and Kevin Burke. I understand that the fiddlers
who were in the other sections actually did have to play at the tryouts. As
far as I could tell, however, a few students did move discreetely between
classes later in the week. Every effort was made to accommodate students who
wanted to take more than one class. Morning classes were intended to
continue the next morning, and afternoon classes continued the next
afternoon. One could then take whistle in the morning and singing in the
afternoon, for example.
A great strength of the Gaelic Roots program is that it doesn't stop with
the classes already mentioned. Each day offers time set aside for structured
lectures, afternoon recitals, a slow air class for all instruments, ceili
and set dance classes, slow sessions, Irish language lessions as well as a
musical harbor cruise and two major evening concerts. I was very interested
in the lectures: Joe Burke discussing the music of East Co. Galway, Ciaran
MacMathuna discussing his 45 years of collecting Irish music, and the great
Johnny O'Leary and Paddy Cronin playing, telling jokes and discussing their
lives in music. Other lectures focused on the harping tradition, the history
of Irish dance and what to do about dance injuries (not something I have to
worry about).
The Concertina Class
Michelle O'Sullivan is the delightful young woman who taught our instrument.
She is from Kerry, now lives in Dublin and will soon be moving to New York
at least for a few years. She is involved in playing and teaching the music
at home but not on a full time basis. She hasn't made a solo recording. She
has learned much of her music from fiddle players rather than from other
concertina players or players of other instruments. (Someone asked Johnny
O'Leary if there would have been many concertina players around in past
years in the Sliabh Luachra area, and he said "not many past the learner
stage.") Throughout the week Michelle was consistently upbeat, energetic and
encouraging. Her typical method was to play a tune a few times at normal
speed with ornaments and then slowly without ornaments. A majority of the
time sheet music in staff notation was provided, but Michelle would also
write out the tune on the board in a modified ABC notation and use that as a
reference while going over the tune phrase by phrase with the various
ornaments. She was literally able to write the tune in this notation as fast
as I can write out my name and address. She was also able to change keys
easily. Rather than sending everyone off to practice at that point, she had
each student and then the entire group play through the tune at the time it
was given. Completion of the tune typically produced an encouraging "yes,
you have it," from the teacher. Michelle seemed to believe in group playing
of the tunes we learned throughout the week. I found that this repetition
did help to teach us all the week's tunes, rather than the last one learned
driving out the others. We learned a polka and a jig from the playing of
Paddy Cronin, Lady MacBain's Pantalettes (reel), Rolling on the Ryegrass
(reel), The Morning Star (reel), a pair of slides, Mickey Callaghan's
Hornpipe, another hornpipe from the playing of Tommy Peoples and The Edge of
the White Rock (slow air). Michelle did have suggested fingering for each
tune, but would base her fingering on the specifics of that tune rather than
generalize to a great degree. Ornaments consisted of cuts, grace notes
(A=ABA), double stops, chords and rolls in the style of fiddle playing.
There were ten concertina students, but a few took other classes during some
afternoon sessions. Concertinas included two Jeffries (belonging to the same
student), several Dipper instruments, one Connor, one Suttner, one new
Button Box instrument and one 21 button Lachenal (a twenty button G/C plus
the one C# button). Two students had Lachenals that had been revamped with
new riveted action and were very nice. Michelle herself played a Jeffries
with something more than 30 buttons. The class was small enough to remain as
one group with individual questions answered as they came up. Michelle was
extremely patient when it came to answering questions and never denied a
request to play a particular tune one more time. Each class lasted just
about two hours. There were a total of eight classes, Wednesday being
devoted to other activities.
If You Go
Tuition for Gaelic Roots was $375. Housing in a dorm was $192 for six
nights (double occupancy) and $294 for single occupancy. Lunch was about six
dollars in the very nice cafeteria. Some suppers (and morning coffee each
day) were provided. There is a special package for spouses or parents who
accompany students. For $70 these people can attend all the events except
actual classes. People not registered for Gaelic Roots may not stay in the
dorm. The program is limited to 300 students. Boston College is on the "T"
subway/streetcar system.
There is a web site for Gaelic Roots: http/www.bc.edu/gaelicroots.
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