Greetings! My name is Tamsyn (I often go by 'Tam' for short), and I'd like to think I play the fiddle, but really ... I don't think I fully qualify for that designation yet (not with such great fiddlers as Kevin Burke, Liz Carrol, Randal Bays, or Elke Baker! :) ). That said, I love folk music, esp. Irish, Scottish, and Breton Folk (though, I've recently discovered how delightful Scandinavian folk fiddle is as well). 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 ... though I must claim far less proficiency on it, and I took up the whistles a few years ago. I happened upon this session site on the web fortuitously while searching for variations on the tune 'The Swallowtail Jig,' and I'm thrilled that this site exists. I have lots to learn by way of assimilating more songs by heart, but it's a great resource.
At present, I'm living in Cold Spring, NY with my uncle in the spectacular Hudson Highlands and Mid-Hudson Valley. I moved here this past June (2005) to start a summer environmental writing internship with "The Environmental Magazine," and I'm simultaneously attempting to finish up my Master's in environmental journalism from the Univ. of Missouri-Columbia. I've been at it for a while ... but my disillusionment with the school and the vaporization of my program has ultimately been to beneficent effect ...
Last summer, after nearly two years of simmering resentment at the school for cancelling my program after happily taking lots of money from me, I decided on a sudden whim to travel to Australia for a two-month environmental journalism study abroad with Michigan State University. I fell in love with the country, and had the incredible good luck to find people so generous and willing to lend me instruments and welcome me into their sessions, their homes for music (or tea and quiche), and their lives. The people at the Durty Nelly's session in Paddington, Sydney were so welcoming, it was a joy to sit and be amongst the camaraderie, playing along on occasion, or just listening to their excellent musicianship -- and they treated me to several free Guinness! I stayed in Australia two months, traveled from Top End Darwin to Alice Springs, to Canberra and Sydney, to Daintree and Cairns -- and then serendipity took me on my own to the wondrous mossy state of Tasmania and back to Alice Springs in the Red Center. I nearly succeeded at engaging in something musical in every place I visited (minus Canberra -- where I stayed for only two days -- and Cairns). Besides its being a life-alterning experience, I learned so much about culture, environment, music, and had a most welcome respite from the American worldview I'm immersed in here. Not to mention the music and the wonderful local people I met and made friends with.
I loved the country so much, I sojourned there again for a month in January 2005, and am missing the place mickle much. Fortunately, I hope to return within the year, this time as a student at the University of Tasmania. Loving that frowzy green isle, and most anxious to return, I applied for a Rotary scholarship, and had the unexpected good fortune of actually winning it. I shall look forward to locating all the sessions in Hobart and vicinity that time prevented me from discovering last year!
Before my first Aussie trip in 2004, I'd only just got up the gumption to go to my first real session and was amazed at the plethora of fiddlers that seemed to materialize out of nowhere. And I'd thought to be 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 them, partly fear of being new, mostly fear of not being able to play along or not know the tunes. But, no bites yet, and 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. Here in NY, I've been fortunate to find a wonderful fiddle teacher by random chance -- Lisa Gutkin -- while sipping hot tea at the wonderful Peekskill Coffee House and listening to Lisa play so richly everything from Klezmer to Scandinavian to Irish.
Originally, I'm a Pennsylvanian, hailing from the City of Bridges (more popularly known as the Steel City) ... or Pittsburgh, Pa, where I occasionally play with a Scottish folk group called Twisted Knickers (I used to be a full-time member, but distance has precluded such involvement these days). In case anyone should happen to be curious, I have a few pictures of myself bedizened in my traditional 18th century Scottish garb up on my webspace (just realized I had this, so I haven't bothered to fancy it up with any HTML yet: http://home.earthlink.net/~rexmouse). A proud descendant of the McLeod's of Lewis (though, somehow the name McLeod ... or any sept thereof ... was lost along the way. Jones it is, then), I may be seen sporting my full "Loud McLeod" arisaid and matching 'Tam' hat :) I recently got the fabric from Scotland to put on my first solo fiddle performance at a Scottish heritage day event back home, with a debut performance of my dad accompanying me on guitar.
In Columbia, I used to play with a hammered dulcimer group that does more American folk, but also some Irish and Scottish stuff, and I also dabbled in a weird "post-folk" sort of acoustic string group, formerly known as "Crooked Jack" (until I went and moved away). It's hard to define what we played .... lots of improvisations of various types of folk music with the occasional bluegrassy 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.
So far, not much luck finding like-minded musicians out here in New York State -- but I know those musicophiles are out there! This area is steeped in colonial and cultural history from many different groups -- and I'm but an hour and a half from the "Green Isle of the Catskills," East Durham, NY -- where a big Celtic Music Festival and Workshop happens every year. Missed it this year, because I had to visit my grandmother, but I was lucky enough to drive through all the festivities of the lovely area on my way up to her house near Cooperstown.
Some other tidbits about myself ... I've just recently turned 25, and really hope to find work abroad within the next few years. I'm secretly hoping my year in Tasmania will materialize into something more permanent ... but also I'd love to live in Scotland or Ireland for a while and work in either journalism or environmental conservation. I have a special fondness for crows (and how I miss those sweet-singing Tassie Currawongs) and rodents -- a sadly stereotyped but loving and incredibly intelligent bunch of critters (I've had several wonderful mousies over the years). I'm also an avid swimmer with perhaps a pathological addiction to scones .... Nothing so wonderful of an afternoon as hot tea and a warm scone.
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!
--tam--
Tunes in tamsyn's tunebook: 266
| Dot Cat's Midnight Mischief | jig | December 20th 2004 |
| Fiddle to Borrow or Use in Hobart, Tasmania? | July 28th 2006 |
| Studying Abroad in Australia ... Fiddle Anyone? | May 28th 2004 |
| Discussions | Re: Fiddle to Borrow or Use in Hobart, Tasmania? | July 29th 2006 |
| Discussions | Fiddle to Borrow or Use in Hobart, Tasmania? | July 28th 2006 |
| Tunes | Fixed the key ... | December 20th 2004 |
| Tunes | December 20th 2004 | |
| Discussions | Re: Studying Abroad in Australia ... Fiddle Anyone? | May 30th 2004 |