tamsyn
Greetings! My name is Tamsyn and I am primarily a fiddle player, currently residing in Ames, Iowa, where I work as an ag science writer for Iowa State University. I was most excited to find an Irish music session when I moved here two years ago that's been meeting regularly for about 30 years just a quick drive down the highway in Des Moines.
I love traditional music, from Ireland and Scotland, to Scandinavia, to Appalachian and Canadian. I've been playing violin since about age 7, and I started playing Irish music before anything else, around age 9 when I started taking lessons with the local folk music society. It was a little intimidating being the only small person enrolled in the course ...most everyone else was at least 20 yrs. older at the time! ... but such fond memories of learning my first Irish tunes by heart: "The Boys of Bluehill" and "Sweeny's Polka," taught by Oliver Brown, a soft-spoken Irish man with a fire in his wrist. I started classical music and trained mostly classically over the next several years, but have always loved Irish & Scottish folk music and never stopped taking classes in it or playing it on my own.
I also have a sweet little mandolin (technically it's called a "mandolute," but it's basically a mandolin that has a slight gourd shape to it, which gives it a mellower sound), a beautiful antique instrument given as a present by my father for my 16th birthday; and a mandola (currently residing in Sydney, Australia) ... though I must claim far less proficiency on these outside of plucking melodies. I'd really love to learn how to chord these instruments. I have also recently acquired a bouzouki, but I don't really know how to play this yet (chording and right hand problem again), and I try to dabble on the whistles, though these have taken something of backseat to my other instruments as my time has become more strapped since leaving school.
Originally, I'm a Pennsylvanian from the City of Bridges (more popularly known as the Steel City) ... or Pittsburgh, Pa, where I used to play occasionally with a Scottish folk group called Twisted Knickers. In Columbia, Missouri, during my grad. school days, I used to play with a hammered dulcimer group that did a mix of American folk, Irish, Scottish, Old Time and Appalachian traditional tunes, plus originals. I also dabbled with an acoustic string group playing some traditional tunes and originals written by the group's guitar player. It's hard to define what we played .... lots of improvisations of various types of folk music with the occasional bluegrassy or jazzy sort of style added in. A lot of it in minor keys (which I particularly enjoy). Sometimes we produced a curiously *interesting* sound, but sometimes we really kicked up the dust ... still and all, a great musical building experience!
I went to Australia for the first time for an environmental journalism study abroad in 2004, where I brought my mandolin along (and borrowed a few fiddles while there!) and made an effort to attend local music sessions. It wasn't long before this that I'd only just managed to get up the gumption to go to my first real session in Missouri. I was amazed at the plethora of fiddlers that seemed to materialize out of nowhere. And I'd thought to have been doomed to a graduate life of solitary fiddling! Where were these people hiding ... under the Ozark rocks?!?
The session was great. I'd always been intimidated by folk music sessions, partly fear of being new, mostly fear of not being able to play along or not know the tunes. But I actually knew a few more tunes than I realized (though a lot fewer than I'd like!) :) And, like my dad says, the only sure way to get better on any instrument is to get out there and play with people. Hang up the pride and the self criticism and just have fun.
Thanks to all who post such wide-ranging variety of tunes that make this site such a wonderful resource, and a fun place to visit!
--tamsyn--
Tunes in tamsyn's tunebook: 294