Alasdair Fraser workshop in Southern Maryland

Sarah Brenzo writes:

[FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE] Kick off your week with Celtic energy! Master Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser, an in-demand performer and tutor throughout the U.S and Scotland, and Natalie Haas, a vibrant young cellist, recording artist, and teacher, will be in Southern Maryland for one day: Monday, May 7, 2007. The Celtic Society of Southern Maryland is sponsoring this event to bring Mr. Fraser and Ms. Haas to the area to offer our local students of the string family an exciting new approach to playing through their workshops and an evening concert, which is open to the public. Sign up now for the workshops, as seating will be limited. Learn to tap into your inner creative rhythm to embellish and refine your individual playing style. Discover the soul in the Celtic style and learn to bring new life to your music. The workshop fee is $25 each. Concert ticket prices include discounts for advanced purchase of $20 each, families of 4 pay only $65, and workshop participants pay only $15 for the concert! Tickets purchased at the door are $25 each and $75 for families of 4. To reserve your concert tickets now, send check or money order payable to CSSM, Inc., P.O. Box 209, Prince Frederick, MD 20678. For more information, please call CSSM (443) 404- 7319, or visit the Celtic Society website: www.cssm.org .

Workshops and concert will be held at the Patuxent Presbyterian Church on Rt. 4 and Kingston Creek Rd, California, MD. The workshops will be held from 4pm – 6:30pm and the concert will begin at 8pm.

Fraser has been featured on more than 100 television and radio shows in the United Kingdom and on several nationally broadcast programs in the United States. On the ‘‘Kennedy Center Honors,” Fraser played a special solo tribute to honoree Sean Connery, a fellow Scot. He has made guest appearances with groups as diverse as Los Angeles Master Chorale, The Waterboys and The Chieftains, and as featured soloist along with Itzhak Perlman at New York’s Lincoln Center. His film credits include solo performances on the soundtracks of films including ‘‘The Last of the Mohicans” and ‘‘Titanic.”

Natalie Haas plays regularly with Alasdair Fraser and is a recent graduate of the Juilliard School.

[submitted by Sarah Brenzo, 301-904-7303]

Concert Flyer (click to view, right-click to download)

Registration Form (click to view, right-click to download)

March Royal Mile Jam

Thanks to everyone who came out for a great jam! We had fiddles, smallpipes, a cello, and a classical guitar adding to the mix.

Here's a list of the tunes we played:
Corn Rigs
Bonnie at Morn
Ayr Races
Highland Whisky/Jack Daniel's
Stella's Trip to Kamloops
Dick Gossip's Reel
The Peerie Weerie/Hughie Shortie's/Brenda Stubbert's
The Mull Rant
Catchin' Rabbits/Barrowburn Reel
John Howat's Reel
Statten Island/John Ryan's
Drops of Brandy/Cuzzle Together/Brose and Butter
Shiftin' Bobbins
Hen's March on the Middens
Andy DeJarlis/Calliope House/The New Fiddle
MacArthur Road
High Drive
High Road to Linton/The Ale is Dear/Jenny Dang the Weaver
Devil in the Kitchen/The Drunken Piper
Mrs. MacLeod of Raasay
Duke of Fife/Earl of Mansfield
Stan Chapman's
Father Francis Cameron
Spey in Spate
Molly Rankin's
The Tongadale Reel
Hamish Henderson's Refusal/Tam Lin
Rob Roy MacGregor/Femroy Lasses (sp?)
The Iron Man
Braes of Banffshire/Clydesdale Lasses/Reichwald Forest
Sitting in the Stern of a Boat
Scully's Reel
Sailor's Wife/Muckin' o Geordie's Byre/Auld Rosin the Bow/Stool of Repentance/Off She Goes
Myra's Jig
Ross' Reel #4
Jackie Tar/Flowers of Edinburgh/Reconciliation
Off to California/Boys of Bluehill
Easy Club/Mason's Apron/The Banshee
Da Full Rigged Ship
Da New Rigged Ship/Ferry Reel/Willafjord

Some thoughts on playing together

Sessions are strange animals. They're like a band without a set repertoire or rehearsal. So one of the places that they can unravel most easily is, by lack of agreed tempos or styles of expression, and by lack of a conductor, we stop playing together. There's a large Irish session in town, for example, where one half of the table is playing half a beat behind the other half!

We're pretty good in the Scottish sessions around here, but we hit a few rough spots this last session. So here are some suggestions on how to tighten things up, so when people hear our sessions, they sound like we're a well-rehearsed ensemble:

For the beginning/intermediate players: practice at home with a metronome. It takes a lot of practice to play steadily, surprisingly so, and a metronome is your best friend in the world in this area. Playing with other people is about playing together. It's especially important to have that steady tempo when starting a tune. This makes it much easier for other players to pick up which tune you're starting, and makes it a lot harder for stronger players to bully you into something faster than you're ready to play once they join in. Own that tempo! Then, everyone else will play along.

For the advanced players: We love our slow airs. But let's face it, these are solo pieces, or for tight ensembles. In those situations, our instinct is to close our eyes, lose ourselves in the tune, and play expressively, with lots of rubato. Unfortunately, this doesn't work for a session. We can still play expressively, but the melody players need to open their eyes and watch each other. We don't necessarily need to watch any one person, but to play together, we need to be taking cues from each other. And playing to metronome once in a while wouldn't kill us either.

With these simple tools and tactics, we can be playing together like a well oiled machine for many sessions to come!