Newsgroups: alt.callahans
From: cliveg@cix.compulink.co.uk (Clive Grace)
Subject: Tanais' new fiddle teacher
Reply-To: cliveg@cix.compulink.co.uk
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 12:52:00 +0000

As there are so many people jumping into the Tool now and things are 
getting a wee bit noisy in that department, Tanais doffs his cap in 
the cirection of Gypsy and thanks her for a very pleasurable 
half-an-hour's bathing. With a robe around him, his orders something 
warm to drink (A warm Brandy Alexander no less) and sits methodically 
cleaning his ears. His eyes had a shine in them that said he was 
going to give any people interested in his life a quick update, and 
to briefly apologize for not answering his mail (although he'll try 
to get to each table and do it in person as soon as his tail is 
ended). Shaking his body from the base of his spine to the white tip 
of his vulpine tail, he was suitably satisfied with its dryness and 
sat by the fire. A warm glow reflecting in his brown eyes.

I had to try out two fiddle teachers last Thursday night. It was an 
interesting experience, the first one was rather stiff and formal 
with a nice, but rather timid teacher who basically took me through 
the first few months of my lessons with Liz -- my first teacher when 
I lived in London. I wasn't too happy because there was minimal eye 
contact and she was as nervous as I was. 

I felt ill at ease and my bow immediately crunched down on the 
strings when I started some of the most basic stuff (slurred scales 
in G); my bowing hand was stiff and unresponsive and the fingering 
was all wrong -- I was also a wee bit out of tune but she put me back 
on course with that. As a lesson it was "okay", but a little bit 
stiff and mechanical. The other lesson was far more relaxed and with 
a much younger teacher -- she was a lot friendlier and more open to 
eye contact and was quite passionate about music - we disagreed on 
Bach and that was great! I mean, I felt as if I had an opinion that 
was just as valid, whereas with the other teacher I felt it was 
"anything you say - Ma'am" -- my problem not hers. The second lesson 
was basically in a house full of mad Irish women (okay okay, so one 
was English), all were fiddlers and all were really into music -- 
even the landlady who was great! 

I became the centre of attraction almost as soon as I knocked on the 
door, with cups of tea offered here and sheets of music swapped 
around there. It was very nice. I sat in the living room as people 
played a few bars with a "do you know this one?" then they'd play a 
reel or a jig at top speed for three minutes... toe tapping stuff, I 
didn't know any of the tunes, but I suspect I will soon. I know! I 
felt relaxed because, to me it was a safe space, but I play better in 
non-threatening environments. Actually the sheer vibes of the place 
resulted in good playing.

We first of all sat talking about homeopathy, holistic medicines, 
(because she had a stinker of a cold -- and I had told her I had been 
taking Yarrow tea to nip mine in the bud), we also talked about the 
Alexander technique and the Suzuki method (you probably know that 
Suzuki is a teacher with his own system who tends to teach and play 
classical music and technique by ear and had shaken the traditional 
music teaching theorists around a bit), she told me that she had been 
taught by Suzuki for six months in Japan -- firstly when she was 11 
and then when she was 13, she also told me that Suzuki is a healer. 

It was a lot easier to say to my second teacher that "I had a nervous 
breakdown a few months back and I am partly using music as a method 
of "healing" than in the more formal environment of the other 
teacher. 

The second teacher said something interesting: "there are hundreds of 
fiddlers in Bristol and they all sound different. I tell you what, 
after the lessons, I do a gig down at the Fleece and Firkin (a pub 
with a lively ex-pat Irish community) -- come on down and we'll 
introduce you to a few of them." -- very open and friendly people. 
Again, I feel this is right for me and that, as always, a traditional 
approach isn't going to work as well for me as it does for others. 
I'm getting used (or resigned?) to the fact that I'm not a typical 
person, and I'm not going to respond to a standard classical 
education, although there's nothing to stop me from taking up both 
systems now or in the future if I feel I want to do that sort of 
approach. I still have the nagging doubt "how come the classical 
system of teaching is so popular?" I guess I'm slipping into the old 
"there are so many of them, they must be right" syndrome. 

I must question everything.

The first lesson with my first teacher was far more stiff and formal 
with me trying to do basic scales and arpeggios and a wee bit of my 
old music. It was the quiet spaces that freaked me out whereas I 
wasn't aware of quiet bits in my second lesson (well, more of an 
"interview" really). It also showed how an inner "me" somehow needed 
to rebel against the stiffness of the classical music teaching 
tradition and how as I was becoming more relaxed with myself as a 
person that I was more willing to try a different approach.

Also I noticed something that I'm ashamed to admit, that when they 
asked me "do you know any songs?" I didn't. I knew *pieces* -- dry 
and long winded *pieces* that no one would ever want to tap their 
feet to. She played a few things that I would work on next week which 
I could play (given some practice) and they could happily be things 
I'd pull out at a party or a realspace or even if I needed a ticket 
home <grin>.

So, Mondays between 20:00 and 21:00 are my fiddle lessons in Bristol, 
21:00 till goodness knows when are at a (predominantly) folk 
gathering in the Fleece and Firkin and I suspect I'm going to be 
changing my violin slant quite dramatically from now on.

Tanais sips his Brandy Alexander, puts his cap on the floor and plays 
a reel he's been learning from the Planxty album "The Woman I Loved 
So Well" to impress his teacher at his first lesson. It's an odd 
sight seeing the formal and Classical holding of the bow yet the 
music is wild and, well... "reeling", he's yet to master the way folk 
fiddlers seem to hold the bow -- a little futher up from the frog of 
the bow -- but it will come in time. 
Newsgroups: alt.callahans