Sarah Bauhan:  A Chiff & Fipple Interview

Over the last two or three years, several Chiff & Fipple subscribers have phoned or emailed to try to raise my awareness of the work of New Hampshire-based flute and whistle player Sarah Bauhan.  Her performances and CDs (most notable among the latter, 1993’s The Untamed Grasses) have allowed her to quietly build a loyal following among flute and whistle players.  Events conspired to keep “Check out Sarah Bauhan’s work” on my to-do list until recently, when Sarah was kind enough to email and then send me a copy of her latest CD, Broad Waters.   Five minutes into this CD, I was beating my head against the wall.  “Stupid, stupid!,” I said to myself, banging my head in 2/4 time, “How could you have neglected this music?”   I blame myself, obviously. 

Sarah Bauhan grew up in the Monadnock Region in New Hampshire, where dance music is  a part of life.  She took up the whistle at age 12 and was performing in public two years later.  Her godfather was a flute player and a major influence and her whistle-playing was informed by his style of traditional flute playing. 

In 1987, Sarah acquired a wood flute by Haynes of Boston.  She began to play her large repertoire on this instrument and, for a time, she put her whistle playing aside while developing her abilities as a flute player.  This changed when she encountered Chris Abell and his wood and silver whistles.  For Sarah, the Abell whistles established the whistle as a serious instrument and she further developed as a whistle player.  To this day, the Abells remain her preferred whistles.

Sarah’s first solo album, Chasing the New Moon, was released in 1991 on her own label (Whistler’s Music).  It received fine reviews and was followed in 1993 by a second album, The Untamed Grasses, on the Alcazar label.  In addition to collaborative recording projects and session work, she has continued to perform at festivals, concerts, and dances around the country.  Sarah has taught whistle and flute to both adults and children in a variety of settings.  In 1999, she released Broad Waters, her third solo CD.

On Broad Waters, she is joined by musicians playing guitar, fretless bass, piano, keyboards, fiddle, harp, highland pipes, button accordions, and bodhran.   The CD includes both traditional and new tunes, leaning toward slower and more poignant material.  Fans of Joanie Madden’s solo work would greatly appreciate Sarah’s work.  In her self-penned liner notes, Sarah hints at the soul of her music:

 ….as I was flying across the Atlantic back to America, I realized the role of this broad expanse of water in my life.  My mother emigrated to New Hampshire in 1956 and because she maintained close contact with her family back home in Britain, we were always looking east to the opposite shore.  The Atlantic represented both connection and separation, and like all broad waters, it signified movement, migration, distant lives, and sometimes, longing.

Dale Wisely-Chiff & Fipple:  Like so many traditional musicians, you seem to have grown up in a musical family and community.  I’m not familiar with the Monadnock Region in New Hampshire.  Give us an idea of what that was like when you were growing up.

Sarah Bauhan:  This is an area where contra-dancing never stopped. I was really lucky that a bunch of things converged to give me the opportunities that I had. My family is not originally from New Hampshire – but the people that we were connected to –and the reason my parents ended up there – were the Tolman family from Nelson. Newt and Janet (Tolman) were my Godparents and it just so happened that Newt was a traditional flute player. He learned from his uncle who was in the town band – and as well as playing in the band himself, he also played for all the local dances. I remember as a very small child being up at the Tolman’s place, Greengate, for some gathering or other, and Newt always played his flute, accompanied on the piano by Kay Gilbert from Peterborough. Newt, who was rather imposing and large, used to swoop down at me with his flute, with eyes wide and twinkling. I would be both frightened and fascinated by this act but I loved it and the music he was playing.

That was the first lucky stroke in my life. The second was that I went to a small alternative day school that valued things like music and contra dancing and development of artistic expression; and the third is that the folk music revival and the upsurge in “celtic” music were timed to my adolescence and I got caught in this flood of music pouring into America from Ireland, England and Scotland in the seventies.

Has that community changed much over  the years?

Of course, in many ways it has. A lot of the older people like Newt and Jan are gone now. But there is still a dance every Monday night in Nelson, and there are dances around the Monadnock Region and beyond every Saturday night. I think the dance and music communities in New Hampshire and New England in general are very strong. There is a fair amount of influence on the music from the countries of origin – those I mentioned above as well as Brittany, French Canada, Sweden, et al. There are lots of musical get-togethers and session. And Boston isn’t very far away, so if there’s a good show to be had, people drive.

Who introduced you to the whistle?

At that school I was at, I took recorder (as most school kids do) and really loved it. And then Dudley Laufman, a dance caller that lives in Canterbury NH, came once a week to teach us contra dancing. The first thing he did was give four of us this huge collection of photocopied music – jigs and reels and hornpipes and waltzes – so I learned a lot of them on the recorder. One week when he arrived, he handed me a Generation D whistle – by the time he came back the next week I’d learned it and I moved the tunes I’d learned on the recorder over to the whistle. I really haven’t looked back since.

What kind of whistles were available then?

My mother was going back to England on a visit and I begged her to get me some whistles while she was there – which she did. She used to tell a funny story about going into some music shop in London and asking for a penny whistle. She said the man drew himself up, looked down his nose at her, and said “Madam, you mean Flageolet.” They were all Generations. With the exception of the Clarke C whistle, that was all you could get at that time. I think I had a full set in short order. 

Tell us the story of coming across that 1912 Haynes of Boston flute…

I was at the Clearwater Festival down on the Hudson River, where my band was playing, and I just happened to go by a booth selling vintage instruments. It was a shop from Philadelphia (and I’m embarrassed to tell you I can’t remember it’s name – although it might be called the Vintage Instrument Shop) – anyway, I saw this flute there. I had been dabbling a bit on the metal flute (my hands are too small to play the simple system) so I asked if I could try it out. And I fell in love – with everything but the price tag. I came back to the booth several times during the weekend and played this marvelous instrument. As I drove home, I kept saying to myself, I have to have that flute. It really was as though I was smitten. I’d never had that happen to me with an instrument before. I was extremely fortunate to have an angel, who bought the flute for me. And I was fortunate again when that same angel, replaced the cracked headjoint with one made by Chris Abell, as well as a set of his whistles.

I've heard of that shop in Philadelphia.  If I'm not mistaken, Michael Copeland was connected to that shop somehow at one time.  Anyway, is that the instrument you play today?

Yes. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. A couple of times, because of my own thoughtlessness, I nearly lost it – so there is something out there looking after me and my Haynes.

Yes.  I think there is something particularly tragic about a musician losing a treasured instrument.   I recently read that Matt Malloy's flute, by Patrick Olwell, had been stolen.  

It sounds as though you may have largely put whistling aside for awhile after you started on the flute.

I’ve never put the whistle aside. In fact, for years, I resisted playing the flute because I wanted to develop the whistle as a serious instrument.

How did you meet Chris Abell?

That’s a good question. I met his whistles first. Again at a festival . . .Brad Hurley who had become friends with Chris, said, “Here, try this.” Similar reaction to my meeting my flute. I think at the same festival a year later, Chris came with Brad – and very shortly thereafter I had a set of whistles. I can’t give you the exact year – but it was in the mid to late eighties.

Tell us about the whistles you perform with nowadays….

They’re the same ones I’ve always had. Chris made me a low A some time later – which is my favorite whistle.

So, you have Abells in Low A, high D, and what else?

I have a C, D, E-flat set and the low and and my B-flat have the same headjoint. 

I have an Abell low A/B-flat set myself and I treasure them.  Your new CD is lovely.  Over what period of time did you work on it? 

I started to think about it in May of ’98. Marko--Mark Murray, the guitar player I work with-- and I started rehearsed during the fall, and then we started to record around Christmas. It finally came out in June of ’99.

I really like some of the touches here.  One fun surprise is the use of Kent Allyn on fretless bass.  It reminded me of how rarely one hears a bass on traditional music....

Kent is a treasure. It was such a joy to work with both Marko and Kent together. They really fed off of each other and taught each other stuff. This kind of music was pretty new to Kent so he heard things really differently and I think that brought a lot of freshness to the arrangements. He really understood the feeling I was trying to get across in the music.

A lot of traditional musicians are self-financing and publishing their own CDs.  Do you find that they are hard to market without the backing of one of the major  trad labels? 

Yes and No. There are plus’ and minus’ to both. When you put something out yourself you maintain control. You also get a much higher return on your money. But you do lack exposure if you don’t have a big advertising budget. When my first album came out in 1991 on my own label – I was lucky (again) that I got a lot of good reviews – and I followed up and pushed it – so I sold quite a lot of them and got some good recognition. The second album came out on a label from Vermont – and not to be negative, but I can’t help it, since it’s the truth – I was not at all well-served by that situation. It was sort of the beginning of the end for them (they have since been bought up) and they really dropped the ball as far as any support. It was pretty disappointing.

So with the third album, there was no question that it would be on my own label. And the marketing has been a slow process – but I’ve gotten some good press and people seem to like it. And really, if it gives people enjoyment – then I’ve done my job.

Are you able to make a living from music or do you maintain a day job?

I tried for awhile but I just couldn’t stand playing in smelly church basements. I didn’t have the oomph to get myself out there playing enough to support myself. And after awhile I felt like I just wanted to enjoy my music, not depend on it to make my living. So now, though I don’t play a lot of gigs, I teach flute and whistle and play with friends and make recordings once in awhile. I would like to be out there playing a few gigs here and there – and that’s what I’m working towards. In the meantime I work with my Dad who is a small book publisher – doing all of his book production..

Is your Dad a really small guy or...oh, nevermind.  As you mentioned, you teach flute and whistle.  What are some of the most common mistakes you see in students of the whistle?

I think the hardest thing for people to get is the breathing. The fingering seems to be the easier part of the process. I don’t think people realise that you have to have an amazing amount of control over that small column of air coming out of your lungs and mouth. When people finally get that you’re pushing the air into the whistle rather than blowing, it makes a big difference. That’s the technical side of it. The other aspect that I really encourage, and that students are the most lax about, is listening to  recorded (or live) music. When I started out, I listened over and over to recordings of fiddle players as well as whistle and flute players. How else can you understand the subtleties and nuances  of the “language” you’re trying to master? It’s like trying to write without ever having read anything. Ok, I’ll get off my soapbox now!

I agree with both of your points.  I am perpetually a beginner or intermediate player, thanks largely to the time I spend on Chiff & Fipple and the resulting lack of practice time.  And the breathing has been my biggest challenge.  I also think that listening to the music, over and over, is the key.  Well, thanks for the interview, Sarah.  And thanks for this very, very lovely CD.

Thank you Dale, for this opportunity – and thanks for all the work you do to keep people connected.

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Sarah Baughan's new CD, Broad Waters, is available directly through Sarah, who you may email at info @ sarahbauhan.com .  (Close those spaces on both sides of the @ sign).

Sarah's website is http://www.sarahbaughan.com

 The CD should also be available from Tayberry Music (www.tayberry.com).  Tell Margaret Dale said "Hi, Margaret!".

Dale Wisely is the Undisputed King of Internet Whistle Journalism and One of the Hardest Working Men in Show Business.  Check out his sprawling tinwhistle juggernaut website www.chiffandfipple.com

NOTE:  This interview and this webpage is not a commercial endeavor for the interviewer, Dale Wisely.  Nothing was exchanged or promised between Sarah and Dale and this is not an advertisement.  Dale likes Sarah's CD and respects her work and wanted to share it with interested parties.

copyright 2001 by Dale Wisely, Chiff & Fipple, and 3Fish Productions.