Slide Whistles, E Huli, and the Barehand Jugband

Another full day of teaching.  I love passing the tune Old Joe Clark on to young people.  What is it about that tune? Also, Skip came and played harmonica with my Kids Guitar 1 class.  We worked on This Land is Your Land.  I want to have Skip visit all my classes now.  He was great!  They really loved the kazoo and slide whistle demonstrations.

I was teaching so I only caught the last 5 minutes of the Old Town School "Town Hall Meeting" to discuss the new strategic plan.  I was there just long enough to help everyone sing "E Huli".  I was quite honored.  Lani, you are an inspiration.  Ann Maria, so are you.  "You've got to sing when the spirit says SING!"

Then Lindsay and I headed down to the Hideout to hear a happy hour set by the Barehand Jugband.  They were great as always.  I was honored to play a couple of tunes with them.  Pamela's washboard sounds great and Clay, as always, was a master jug player.  I like how he's started teaching some post-gig jug lessons on the empty beer bottles.

Irish Tunes & Technique Workshop at the Old Town School of Folk Music

Tonight I took a workshop with Sean Cleland, director of the Irish Music School of Chicago, all about learning Irish tunes.  It was pretty cool.  One of the best workshops I've had at the school.  I'm not sure how many specifics I learned, but I got to play a lot, I felt like he listened to my questions, and he left me curious to learn more, in a proactive way.  Very inspiring.
  I can't remember the name of the tune that we learned, but we spent an hour and a half learning it from beginning to end.  I was the only banjo player.  There was one fiddle player, one concertina player and one uke player.
  OK.  Onward to more Irish fiddle tunes.
Later,
J
 

"That's Irish music - Chicago Style." - The Irish Music School of Chicago at the Old Town School of Folk Music

Just got home from the World Music Wednesday concert at the Old Town School.  This week's performer was the The Irish Music School of Chicago, directed by Sean Cleland.  I only stayed for the first set, but I loved it.

The beginning was all teen-agers.  There were (as I remember) four fiddles, flute, bodhran, and octave mandolin.  They played with great energy.  They said that they were nervous, but you wouldn't know it.  They played into the mics, called out the names and stories about some stories about the tunes, and counted the tunes off with a lot of power.  Then they sounded great when they played.  Very impressive.

About half way through the first set,  Sean invited "The Irish Music School of Chicago community" onto stage.  That was awesome.  There where about five rows of ten people per row on the Old Town stage.   I knew a bunch of the adults, which was very cool.  They played a bunch of tunes, together.  Sean said some of the people had only been studying for a short period of time.  But obviously a bunch of the musicians had more training.  Great to see a moment of "everyone together" to get such a prime spot in the set instead of the end of the second set.

As for my life, it was a good day of teaching.  RPMS and Strummers and Kids Guitar at the Old Town School.  My Wednesday kids guitar class is particularly hungary, and they did a great job today when we split into smaller groups to work on the chorus of This Land is Your Land.

Folk Club recap - Tuesday, March 16

I played the Whyte Lady banjo tonight.  I lead Erie Canal.  I forgot the beginning, but once I got some help  to get it off the ground it was cookin'.  Another favorite that we played was I'll Fly Away.  Lisa led it.  Everyone sounded great.

The after-jam was lively and fun and I got to know a couple people a little more.  That is always fun.  $4.50 Kronenbourgs.  It's French.  Who knew?

Tomorrow back to RPMS and the Old Town School.  Wednesday is a full day.

Announcing My New Blog about Music, Education and a Musical Podcast from Radio Lab

Hello,

This is my initial post for my new blog experience!

If you know me, you know how important my teaching is to me and how much time I spend making, listening to and reading about music and education.

This podcast from Radiolab has been on my mind since I listened last week. It's called Musical Language. I've studied music for most of my life, and over the past couple of years I've been studying Spanish. Both experiences have informed each other in ways that have been very exciting. So it's great to hear some other people making comparisons between music and spoken language. It's quite validating. I can't recommend listening to it highly enough.

OK! First post done. Onward!