"The good are always merry, save by an evil chance, and the merry love to fiddle, and the merry love to dance."
-William Butler Yeats
"[Music:] a wordless expression of man's intrinsic dynamism of self-realization, a process understood as man's journey toward ethical personhood, as the manifestation of man's will in all aspects, as love."
-Joseph Pieper
Music and Dance: A wordless expression of culture
Music and Dance are a big part of our life. Not only are they a lot of fun, they are both universal cultural linchpins, and every culture has some type of music and dance that helps define it. They have a mysterious ability both to speak the soul of an individual, and to bring individuals together in a deep sense of community.
Music in our family
Deirdre Speaking: For as long as I can remember, music and dance have been a central part of my life. My mom's dad is Irish and that was the culture my mom grew up in. She wanted to pass this heritage down to her children. I remember being a young child and my parents would bring my siblings and I along to Irish music sessions and Irish dance classes late at night. We would drift off to sleep on soft sheep skins in a corner of the room amidst the sounds of Irish jigs and reels.
I spent my childhood playing Celtic fiddle music and learning Irish dancing. In the summers, my family would travel to folk music and dance camps to learn from the masters of these arts. My family's love for Celtic music and dance evolved into a family band (Celtic Spring) that took us touring around the country for about 10 years. I always passionately loved the performing itself. But even more deeply, I loved the opportunities it gave me for connection, community, and pure beauty... the best memories of my life, memories which I still return to often: stepdancing at a square dance in a church hall in the middle of the woods in Cape Breton Island, sitting in the audience with tears streaming down my face at the sheer beauty of a slow haunting air played by fiddler Natalie MacMaster at the Dublin Irish Festival, outside late at night in the forest at a music camp playing the same heart wrenching tune over and over again and basking in the connection and beauty I am sharing with these other musicians. And then, Irish setdancing. How can I describe the exhilaration? The band, the crowded hall filled with seasoned dancers, the speed, the precision, the complexity, the shared enthusiasm, ... What a gift music and dance have been for me!
These meaningful experiences have given me the desire to share this joy with others. I have taught fiddle and dance since I was a teenager. Today I continue to teach as many children as I can through our local music and dance school, "Bows and Toes" fiddle and dance school.
Music and dance have given me so many of the best things in my life, including my husband Max. =) Our earliest conversations were mostly about music. I used to joke that we were not a compatable match because Max preferred a different branch of Celtic music than me. Our first argument (before we were even engaged) was whether our future children would play fiddle or flute. Hmmm. I must have sensed a certain compatability if we were already talking about our kids. =)
We are so happy to be able to be giving our own children similar early musical memories to some of my fondest moments. We bring them along to late night contradances, folk concerts, festivals. If the speakers are too loud, we just cover their ears and dance them to the music on our laps til they fall asleep.
Max Speaking. My earliest musical memories are from the time I was 5 or 6 years old. I remember sounding out tunes I knew on my parents' keyboard at home. For Christmas when I was 6, they bought me a half size guitar, and I started formal piano lessons at 8. I didn't enjoy piano that much, and started taking classical guitar lessons when I was 12 for about a year. The homeschooling community we grew up in had a lot of family's with Irish heritage, and I was exposed to Irish folk songs and dancing early on. Our group loved to celebrate St. Patrick's day! Also around age 12, I joined many of my friends in learning Irish dance from two local girls teaching a class.
After a year of classical guitar, I started teaching myself to play Irish folk songs on the guitar. For the rest of my teen years, I became virtually obsessed with Irish music and dance. I spent all my money on new instruments, and tried to play everything: guitar, mandolin, banjo, tin whistle, bodhran (Irish drum), fiddle. I finally settled on the Irish wooden flute as my main instrument of focus, and that has been what I play primarily since the time I was 16. I played music to point of driving my family crazy. I was mainly self taught, except for fiddle, which I had lessons with Deirdre's older sister Elizabeth. I remember closing the bathroom door, shoving a towel under the door to block sound, and playing my flute late into the night as my siblings slept in the next rooms. I was homeschooled, and would play flute while I studied. If my mom told me to stop, I fingered the holes to gain muscle memory so she wouldn't hear the sounds! I was a bit embarrased when our next door neighbor politely came to ask my parents if I could please close my bedroom window when practicing fiddle past 11:00 pm. He he...It was my life.
At 14, I got 6 of my friends to form an Irish band which we named "The Merry Blacksmiths" after a reel of the same name. We played a lot of local gigs, and even made a small CD, recorded by the nephew of my current farm landlords. I was a big fan of Deirdre's family band, and enjoyed watching them play at local festivals. If you told me back then that in ten years, I would be married to one of their fiddlers, i would thought it was too good to be true! And here we are...
Deirdre and I played music a little bit together in college, for the one year we attended the same school together. We always enjoyed talking about music on the phone when we were apart, and our common love for it was one of our first and most lasting bonds. In 2013, we recorded a CD together with two friends, and started another Irish band called "Hidden Fifth." Today, we enjoy playing the occasional gig, especially for local contradances. Although farming and kids have reduced the time we have available for music, we still try to find time for it, even if it is just a 15 minute session playing our kids to sleep at night.
Music in our family
Deirdre Speaking: For as long as I can remember, music and dance have been a central part of my life. My mom's dad is Irish and that was the culture my mom grew up in. She wanted to pass this heritage down to her children. I remember being a young child and my parents would bring my siblings and I along to Irish music sessions and Irish dance classes late at night. We would drift off to sleep on soft sheep skins in a corner of the room amidst the sounds of Irish jigs and reels.
I spent my childhood playing Celtic fiddle music and learning Irish dancing. In the summers, my family would travel to folk music and dance camps to learn from the masters of these arts. My family's love for Celtic music and dance evolved into a family band (Celtic Spring) that took us touring around the country for about 10 years. I always passionately loved the performing itself. But even more deeply, I loved the opportunities it gave me for connection, community, and pure beauty... the best memories of my life, memories which I still return to often: stepdancing at a square dance in a church hall in the middle of the woods in Cape Breton Island, sitting in the audience with tears streaming down my face at the sheer beauty of a slow haunting air played by fiddler Natalie MacMaster at the Dublin Irish Festival, outside late at night in the forest at a music camp playing the same heart wrenching tune over and over again and basking in the connection and beauty I am sharing with these other musicians. And then, Irish setdancing. How can I describe the exhilaration? The band, the crowded hall filled with seasoned dancers, the speed, the precision, the complexity, the shared enthusiasm, ... What a gift music and dance have been for me!
These meaningful experiences have given me the desire to share this joy with others. I have taught fiddle and dance since I was a teenager. Today I continue to teach as many children as I can through our local music and dance school, "Bows and Toes" fiddle and dance school.
Music and dance have given me so many of the best things in my life, including my husband Max. =) Our earliest conversations were mostly about music. I used to joke that we were not a compatable match because Max preferred a different branch of Celtic music than me. Our first argument (before we were even engaged) was whether our future children would play fiddle or flute. Hmmm. I must have sensed a certain compatability if we were already talking about our kids. =)
We are so happy to be able to be giving our own children similar early musical memories to some of my fondest moments. We bring them along to late night contradances, folk concerts, festivals. If the speakers are too loud, we just cover their ears and dance them to the music on our laps til they fall asleep.
Max Speaking. My earliest musical memories are from the time I was 5 or 6 years old. I remember sounding out tunes I knew on my parents' keyboard at home. For Christmas when I was 6, they bought me a half size guitar, and I started formal piano lessons at 8. I didn't enjoy piano that much, and started taking classical guitar lessons when I was 12 for about a year. The homeschooling community we grew up in had a lot of family's with Irish heritage, and I was exposed to Irish folk songs and dancing early on. Our group loved to celebrate St. Patrick's day! Also around age 12, I joined many of my friends in learning Irish dance from two local girls teaching a class.
After a year of classical guitar, I started teaching myself to play Irish folk songs on the guitar. For the rest of my teen years, I became virtually obsessed with Irish music and dance. I spent all my money on new instruments, and tried to play everything: guitar, mandolin, banjo, tin whistle, bodhran (Irish drum), fiddle. I finally settled on the Irish wooden flute as my main instrument of focus, and that has been what I play primarily since the time I was 16. I played music to point of driving my family crazy. I was mainly self taught, except for fiddle, which I had lessons with Deirdre's older sister Elizabeth. I remember closing the bathroom door, shoving a towel under the door to block sound, and playing my flute late into the night as my siblings slept in the next rooms. I was homeschooled, and would play flute while I studied. If my mom told me to stop, I fingered the holes to gain muscle memory so she wouldn't hear the sounds! I was a bit embarrased when our next door neighbor politely came to ask my parents if I could please close my bedroom window when practicing fiddle past 11:00 pm. He he...It was my life.
At 14, I got 6 of my friends to form an Irish band which we named "The Merry Blacksmiths" after a reel of the same name. We played a lot of local gigs, and even made a small CD, recorded by the nephew of my current farm landlords. I was a big fan of Deirdre's family band, and enjoyed watching them play at local festivals. If you told me back then that in ten years, I would be married to one of their fiddlers, i would thought it was too good to be true! And here we are...
Deirdre and I played music a little bit together in college, for the one year we attended the same school together. We always enjoyed talking about music on the phone when we were apart, and our common love for it was one of our first and most lasting bonds. In 2013, we recorded a CD together with two friends, and started another Irish band called "Hidden Fifth." Today, we enjoy playing the occasional gig, especially for local contradances. Although farming and kids have reduced the time we have available for music, we still try to find time for it, even if it is just a 15 minute session playing our kids to sleep at night.
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