Where Have I Been? What Have I Been Doing?

Hello harp friends.  As the admin. and instigator of this blog it is shameful that I have been so unpresent of late.  I have no excuses either although I have not spent that much time on the computer this August.

Practice-time has been more focussed on the concertina and working on the tunes--mainly reels--that I have been learning from Benedict and Hilarie, it just seems nuts to half-learn these tunes!

In Scottish news, the other day at the session I go to sometimes in Montpelier (run by B&H and Sarah Blair) who should turn up but Alasdair Fraser.  It was really something!  He played with us for about a half-hour.  He and Benedict played a Scottish air, name has fallen right out of my head, to die for.   If it comes back I'll come back and add it.

I've worked very hard on the two Vincent Broderick tunes, The Whistler at the Wake and ....uh... the other one.  Also on Bonnie Jean, a Conellan tune that I learned from Kathleen Loughnane.  Maeve taught several marvelous tunes as did Edel Fox - one or two of those are suitable for harp too.  So I have been practicing!

It's been quiet this year playing gigs.  Last year we had several over the summer, but everyone was too busy this year to organize anything, myself included.  I miss the practicing that goes on for those events, however, and hope we get back into it soon.

That's pretty much all my news for now.  xx's to all.  

Where oh where has my summertime gone??.....

Greetings from what seems to be a perpetually soggy state of affairs.  Ugh!  I just got back from SummerKeys in Lubec, Maine, and another great week of group playing and lessons with Sue Richards.  I started the weekend before driving up playing at the Living History event in Hillsboro, in costume, in the heat, at the Franklin Pierce Homestead.  That is always a fun gig, and even though it was sweltering, and my fingers were slippery on the strings, it is very relaxed, and people enjoy it.  I only play things I have well memorized and played for years.  Definitely helps the tone, not watching the page!

Playing with a group of harps, pretty much sightreading and editing as we go, with different skill levels, is a great experience for me.  The performance at the end of the week is never perfection, but 6 harps playing together is a wonderful sound, regardless!  The audience really appreciates the instrument, and are very complimentary!  Then, private lessons with Sue are wonderful.  She pretty much covers what you are interested in, or having questions on, and will happily teach you a new tune by ear, followed up with the written notes.  Very much a traditional player, not quite so formal in her arrangements.  She threw me a curve the last day by suggesting we "jam"!  Well, i realized I have never really done that!  So, she said, pick something you already know, and all i could think of was slow airs!  So we settled on Var Det Du, and while I played my part, she jammed all around me.  WOW!  So, my slow moving brain was saying, "THIS is what it must be like at a ceilidh!  I am TOTALLY at SEA!  YIKES!!"    My first harp teacher said she would rather jam with a concertina, as the harp is often lost in the noise.  Andee, I am assuming this is what you are getting better at when you play with other musicians at the pub?  Does anyone have some hints?  Clues?  A place to start and wrap my head around?

So, the summer is wrapping up, and I have not done half of what I had planned.  Weather has been hot and humid much more so than usual.  June was crazy with family issues, July and August have just tumbled on by.  It will be fun to settle in with the new tunes from Lubec, and really learn them now!  Hope you are all staying cool and doing well!  Love, Sharon

August....and roll on September!

I didn't want all of August to go by without me posting anything.  I have had my ups and downs this month for sure.  The video is Caislean An Oir re-learned in G minor the more common key that it is played in....

Last night I went to an incredible party, all by myself.  I took the bus to Ballyvaughan and from the bus stop I followed the directions to the house that my friend gave me.  As I turned into the little housing development I could hear the clock in the village striking the hour.  Bong....Bong....Bong (seven times--7:00 pm).  In that moment it was like a wake up call, a call to an adventure already underway.  "This is it!"  It seemed to be saying to me, "This is *your* life now.  You are living a great adventure, here in County Clare on your own, The old life is gone, Mike is gone."  It was bittersweet, exciting, I could taste the anticipation of what could happen, the possibilities......

The house was something from a movie set, like a rock star's house, located on the bay, with a balcony of rooms on the second floor overlooking the water and the massive kitchen below.  There was a gigantic long table spread out with food and drinks.  There was a small session going on at the one end.  Yvonne Casey (whom I adore) and a silver haired portly gentleman and a young lady I assumed to be his daughter were all playing tunes.  Gorgeous and in perfect synchrony.  I poured myself a cocktail of coke and spring water and pulled up a chair close by and listened and breathed it in like the most delicious healing balm.  Yvonne asked me where my harp was, alas I *must* get driving!

Later the bands went on in the next room.  I danced away all night long!  First to my friend's band and then to the second band I had never heard before.  Good old school rock-n-roll.  Sounded punky to me but I was informed that the band's influences were more Lou Reed than Sex Pistols.  What do I know?  It's all good and very danceable.

What's this to do with harps?  At the end of the night the singer from the second band said he'd been thinking a lot lately of including harp in one of his other musical projects which is a folk group that includes my friends from the first band and the lovely lady who hosted the party.  I said "I'M IN!!"

Roll on September........... !!