...so I'm waiting for my train home from work, and the sun's out for a change and the weather's finally turned warm enough that I can take my hands out of my pockets without losing all feeling in my fingers, so I retreat to an isolated corner of the Skytrain station and pull out the ocarina that I carry around with me for precisely these sorts of occasions. I'm just playing to amuse myself, not performing or anything, so I close my eyes and launch into a lazy rendition of My Darling Asleep - fitting, as I'm dead tired myself - when I notice that I'm no longer standing in direct sunlight.
I open my eyes, and there, about two inches from me, is this sixtysomething fellow *dancing a jig*. I grin, and spend the next few bars trying to maintain a halfway decent tone through my smile. When I finish the tune he takes a little bow, thanks me, and in the thickest Irish accent this side of the Atlantic, asks me about the strange little instrument I'm playing. The folks at Mountain Ocarinas ought to be giving me a cut, Itellyouwhat.
He nods, and then remarks that what I'm playing sounds Irish, and is it? I answer in the affirmative, and he shakes his head, and declares that he f***ing grew *up* in Ireland and spent his whole life there for Christ's sake and *he* can't play a f***ing instrument, let alone like that, and here he is in a f***ing train station in Vancouver and I'm here, and I sure don't look Irish, playing all these tunes he grew up with, and what the f*** sort of a crazy world do we live in. From there he unleashes a thirty-second-long tirade of profanity on the topic of [above], his face growing redder and redder, before he finally gives up, shakes his head, and says, "Oh, f*** it, just give me another tune." So I do.
Have you met any interesting people through music lately?
I haven't anything comparable to offer, but did you ever notice people who approach the session group to compliment or comment on the music often feel the need to offer excuses as to why they themselves never learned to play, or never kept it up?
I suspect it's envy/regret, and they're really offering excuses to themselves.
Yeah - nice approach and a good tale. I know quite a few folks who say "Oh I really want to play the [insert instrument]. I've always wanted to play one of those, I'm just too busy."
To which I say - "do you watch TV?"
Sometimes I believe people think that you can only have fun playing music if you are an expert - which is as we all know a load of cobblers.
I've met the odd person who is surprised to find out that I play a little bit - they're amazed that the music enthuses someone so disconnected from Ireland. No stories quite as brilliant as this one!
thanks TD&M
PS - I'm sure the more you play in public (I mean on the spur of the moment) the more you'll make these discoveries.
I was once busking in Durham and this guy came up to me, drinking out of a can of Tenants and carrying several more (I'm still convinced being able to drink in public legally is a good part about this country). He went on this rambling story about how his father used to play uilleann pipes. Then he offered me his half drunk beer. I was like, "Er..... No thanks."
Umm... every time! But then again, I make it a point to encourage the newbies ("...hey, you started your set and people picked up the tunes and played along, therefore you are now a session player") and talk to the punters (especially if they're female and unattached, but that's another matter). It doesn't cost us anything to be nice to people, now, does it?
Several years ago, at the local session, a female violinist who played with the local symphony and had a classical background sat in with us one evening and played quite well (for a newbie)--despite her background and training. Her significant other was not impressed by our playing, however. Apparently, he thought we were an organized band and this session was a public performance. I tried to explain to him that if our playing seemed a little bit disorganized and ragged, that's because we weren't a band. Instead, we were just a group of friends who liked to get together twice a month to play music. He wasn't impressed by my explanation and we never saw either him or his girlfriend the violinist again.
i was busking in Antwerp,playing an old Appalachian tune called "Lonesome John".A dapper eldery gent with a military bearing stopped and listened.When I'd finished he threw 5 euros in the case,and said the tune brought bought back memories for him because it had been years since he heard the Norwegian national anthem!
fauxcelt ( do you pronounce that with a soft or a hard C ? ), classical musicians don't always get it - I think there's a story way back on this forum re a trained musician who went to the Fleadh, and a friend asked him if he was going to ask for lessons from one of the top fiddlers, and his reply was "Not from a man who can't play in tune !", or words to that effect.
I think you should let this violinist know she doesn't have to bring along anyone who doesn't get it.
I usually pronounce fauxcelt with a hard "C" because that is how I heard it pronounced by the other musicians I was performing with. Some of the musicians who started an Irish Session here in 1995 decided they wanted to start a band to play Irish and Scottish music and call it the Fauxcelts. They thought this band needed a piano player so they asked me to join the Fauxcelts and I did.
I will also answer to my real name which is Laurence if you want to use that.
Yes, classically trained musicians sometimes don't understand this music and aren't always able to adapt to playing it. I have a so-called "classical" background but I was able to adapt and I enjoy playing this music.
Apparently, the violinist decided that if her significant other didn't like the local Irish Session, she wasn't going to come back because we never did see her again.
Yeah, Joe, but come to think of it, that might have been after you left on Saturday. It might have been after we'd been given the pitch by the juggler man.
The People You Meet
The People You Meet
...so I'm waiting for my train home from work, and the sun's out for a change and the weather's finally turned warm enough that I can take my hands out of my pockets without losing all feeling in my fingers, so I retreat to an isolated corner of the Skytrain station and pull out the ocarina that I carry around with me for precisely these sorts of occasions. I'm just playing to amuse myself, not performing or anything, so I close my eyes and launch into a lazy rendition of My Darling Asleep - fitting, as I'm dead tired myself - when I notice that I'm no longer standing in direct sunlight.
I open my eyes, and there, about two inches from me, is this sixtysomething fellow *dancing a jig*. I grin, and spend the next few bars trying to maintain a halfway decent tone through my smile. When I finish the tune he takes a little bow, thanks me, and in the thickest Irish accent this side of the Atlantic, asks me about the strange little instrument I'm playing. The folks at Mountain Ocarinas ought to be giving me a cut, Itellyouwhat.
He nods, and then remarks that what I'm playing sounds Irish, and is it? I answer in the affirmative, and he shakes his head, and declares that he f***ing grew *up* in Ireland and spent his whole life there for Christ's sake and *he* can't play a f***ing instrument, let alone like that, and here he is in a f***ing train station in Vancouver and I'm here, and I sure don't look Irish, playing all these tunes he grew up with, and what the f*** sort of a crazy world do we live in. From there he unleashes a thirty-second-long tirade of profanity on the topic of [above], his face growing redder and redder, before he finally gives up, shakes his head, and says, "Oh, f*** it, just give me another tune." So I do.
Have you met any interesting people through music lately?
# Posted on June 4th 2008 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: The People You Meet
Did he offer to tune your ocarina?
# Posted on June 4th 2008 by nicholas
Re: The People You Meet
Great story, TD&M.
I haven't anything comparable to offer, but did you ever notice people who approach the session group to compliment or comment on the music often feel the need to offer excuses as to why they themselves never learned to play, or never kept it up?
I suspect it's envy/regret, and they're really offering excuses to themselves.
# Posted on June 4th 2008 by grego
Re: The People You Meet
Yes, grego, but I took up the fiddle as an adult and can cut those sorts of things short pretty effectively:
"Oh, I've always wanted to learn to play the fiddle."
"So did I, for close to 30 years. So I finally took it up."
"..."
# Posted on June 4th 2008 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: The People You Meet
Great story, and good answer TD&M, I tell people that too. "So learn! No time better than the present!"
# Posted on June 4th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: The People You Meet
Yeah - nice approach and a good tale. I know quite a few folks who say "Oh I really want to play the [insert instrument]. I've always wanted to play one of those, I'm just too busy."
To which I say - "do you watch TV?"
Sometimes I believe people think that you can only have fun playing music if you are an expert - which is as we all know a load of cobblers.
I've met the odd person who is surprised to find out that I play a little bit - they're amazed that the music enthuses someone so disconnected from Ireland. No stories quite as brilliant as this one!
thanks TD&M
PS - I'm sure the more you play in public (I mean on the spur of the moment) the more you'll make these discoveries.
# Posted on June 5th 2008 by Brown Creeper
Re: The People You Meet
Good story. And yes, let us encourage everyone we meet to play, for all the right reasons.
When folks say to me, "I wish I could do that" I tell them (all things being equal, of course) "You likely could --- you just haven't yet."
I like the reference to TV, too. Like taking up tai chi, or yoga -- 15 minutes a day, that is really all you need to get many of the benefits.
(Of course, ITM might take a little more than 15 per day to get any where. *Sigh*)
# Posted on June 5th 2008 by Piece
Re: The People You Meet
D.J.F., Joe CSS, san fran and I were approached my an Irish man on the south bank, who informed me that I was dancing Sean Nos.
# Posted on June 5th 2008 by mehitabel23
Re: The People You Meet
Do tell Ms. M! That's cool. Feels like half the story is missing. Where you guys having some tunes and you hopped up?
# Posted on June 5th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: The People You Meet
I was once busking in Durham and this guy came up to me, drinking out of a can of Tenants and carrying several more (I'm still convinced being able to drink in public legally is a good part about this country). He went on this rambling story about how his father used to play uilleann pipes. Then he offered me his half drunk beer. I was like, "Er..... No thanks."
# Posted on June 5th 2008 by DrSilverSpear
Re: The People You Meet
Were we? Do tell, cos I don't remember....
# Posted on June 5th 2008 by Joe CSS
Re: The People You Meet
Umm... every time! But then again, I make it a point to encourage the newbies ("...hey, you started your set and people picked up the tunes and played along, therefore you are now a session player") and talk to the punters (especially if they're female and unattached, but that's another matter). It doesn't cost us anything to be nice to people, now, does it?
# Posted on June 5th 2008 by tomw
Re: The People You Meet
Several years ago, at the local session, a female violinist who played with the local symphony and had a classical background sat in with us one evening and played quite well (for a newbie)--despite her background and training. Her significant other was not impressed by our playing, however. Apparently, he thought we were an organized band and this session was a public performance. I tried to explain to him that if our playing seemed a little bit disorganized and ragged, that's because we weren't a band. Instead, we were just a group of friends who liked to get together twice a month to play music. He wasn't impressed by my explanation and we never saw either him or his girlfriend the violinist again.
# Posted on June 6th 2008 by fauxcelt
Re: The People You Meet
i was busking in Antwerp,playing an old Appalachian tune called "Lonesome John".A dapper eldery gent with a military bearing stopped and listened.When I'd finished he threw 5 euros in the case,and said the tune brought bought back memories for him because it had been years since he heard the Norwegian national anthem!
# Posted on June 6th 2008 by dafydd
Re: The People You Meet
fauxcelt ( do you pronounce that with a soft or a hard C ? ), classical musicians don't always get it - I think there's a story way back on this forum re a trained musician who went to the Fleadh, and a friend asked him if he was going to ask for lessons from one of the top fiddlers, and his reply was "Not from a man who can't play in tune !", or words to that effect.
I think you should let this violinist know she doesn't have to bring along anyone who doesn't get it.
# Posted on June 6th 2008 by Guernsey Pete
Re: The People You Meet
I usually pronounce fauxcelt with a hard "C" because that is how I heard it pronounced by the other musicians I was performing with. Some of the musicians who started an Irish Session here in 1995 decided they wanted to start a band to play Irish and Scottish music and call it the Fauxcelts. They thought this band needed a piano player so they asked me to join the Fauxcelts and I did.
I will also answer to my real name which is Laurence if you want to use that.
Yes, classically trained musicians sometimes don't understand this music and aren't always able to adapt to playing it. I have a so-called "classical" background but I was able to adapt and I enjoy playing this music.
Apparently, the violinist decided that if her significant other didn't like the local Irish Session, she wasn't going to come back because we never did see her again.
# Posted on June 7th 2008 by fauxcelt
Re: The People You Meet
Yeah, Joe, but come to think of it, that might have been after you left on Saturday. It might have been after we'd been given the pitch by the juggler man.
# Posted on June 7th 2008 by mehitabel23