Wonderful time at East Coast Tional

Uilleann Pipes
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Still groggy from the weekend. It was a grand weekend of piping. Thank you Susanne Ward and others. Wonderfully talented and diverse instructors/performers, all night jam sessions and a perfect location characterized the gathering. It was great to park the car on arrival, and have all rooms, meals, classes, lectures, concert, sessions and PINTS!, all on the same grounds and not have to get into the car until Monday’s departure. I would strongly urge that East Durham be chosen for a permanent location and our Long Island club members would be happy to make that work as long as no toes are stepped on. Some surprise attendees such as Brian MacNamarra, Mattie Connelly among many other notables (please feel free to mentionthem) added to the group. I beleive that there were about 50 people taking the UP classess and I haven’t a clue how many otheres attended taking fiddle and flute classes, but there was great diversity for the sessions that tended to last through the night. Special mention to what I believe to be the best Tional T-Shirt that I have ever seen. It had a halloween theme. Perhaps someone can post it (and send it to me to use as my avatar!) It was a great occasion to toast some friends and make some new ones.

Neil

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What a great time. Slept until 2 this afternoon and I’m still exhausted. Tune buzz still going strong. Where to begin.

I’d say there were about 20 of us taking fiddle classes, which were excellent. I met some truly delightful people in my class who have great enthusiasm for this music.

A big pirate ‘aaaaarrrrrhhhh’ to Susanne for a well organized and most enjoyable weekend. I have to say that yer man Con O’Connell was an absolute star of a host - keeping us well watered and entertained at the bar all weekend, and sending out to Albany for reinforcements after we cleared him out of Guinness and whiskey on Friday night. He stayed up with us all night Saturday, rang his mother in Ireland so she could hear the music, and even brought us out cookies and coffee after the sun had come up. I wouldn’t complain if it was held there again.

Hope to see some pictures posted soon.

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Oh yup. Tonight I will sleep. Yes, precious.

  • Jonathan
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Let’s hear some more about the event.

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I’ll offer my random impressions of the East Coast Tionol, obviously could not be everywhere at once . . . but there was a lot going on, typically a workshop for beginning pipers, two separate workshops for intermediate, and two workshops for advanced each morning and afternoon. Also individual lessons by appointment with Patrick Hutchinson and Benedict Koehler in the evenings.

Attendance was high, and one of the big draws was the strong program of fiddle workshops. The sessions had more than the usual number of flute and fiddle players. Someone else will have to comment on those, I couldn’t keep up (speed-wise, or into the wee hours of the morning).

The intermediate group I was in had workshops with Mick O’Brien, Mickey Dunne, David Power, and Brian McNamara. Debbie Quigley also held workshops, and there was a rumor that Eliot Grasso was available. So, an excess of riches, quality instructors all, with a variety of teaching styles, skills, and lessons to share. Nick Whitmer made himself available for hours and hours on both Saturday and Sunday to run reed-making workshops, and Patrick Hutchinson gave an excellent lecture on the historical influences of Ennis, Clancy, Doran, etc. on piping tunes and ornamentation.

By Sunday afternoon I was fairly “tuned out” and it was a pleasure to have Brian McNamara for a lesson on the history of piping tunes from the 18th century to today; we got to sit and listen and absorb some great tunes and techniques without having to try to learn a specific tune.

For the same reason, when it finally came my turn for a private lesson with Benedict Koehler, I asked him if we could just spend an hour talking about reed-making. He was very gracious; we worked on a couple of my reeds, then he demonstrated his method from start to finish, a beautiful sounding reed in under an hour! Mick O’Brien popped it in a chanter and off he went, it became something of a mini-concert. I wasn’t surprised that Benedict’s performance (yes, it was worthy of that description) drew an audience!

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Hey Jim..That was an elaborate costume you wore on Halloween. The beard looked so real!

Neil

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The Halloween party was . . . interesting . . . David Power did a perfect immitation of Frodo in distress, as I plummeted from the Bridge of Khazad-Dum (I’d had too much Guinness, I guess).

For the curious, here’s a link to my Uilleann pipes page, with a photo of the costume in question:

http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/vanfleet/uilleann.html

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Whoa! Lookit that! A bearded lady! :smiley:

djm

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…well, I’ll say one thing, the Guinness and fall certainly put the color back into your beard…Gandalf. :smiley:

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An amusing story about the Tional:

Someone at the dinner table was busy assigning nick names primarily to the instructors at the gathering. Mickey Dunne looked like the MC of the game show The Weakest Link, and the other one that I recall was that David Powers looked like a larger Frodo (Elijah Wood). Well we didn’t mention anything to David about the likeness, but when Jim walked in the bar with his Gandolf getup, and David ran over and cowered under his cloak it was a tad sureal. Coincedence…or is he reeeally Frodo? We had to tell David over a pint, and he seemed rather please with the comparison I guess given Elijah’s success with the ladies.


Neil

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Sounds like a blast was had by everyone…or as I am fond of saying, more fun than mere mortals ought to be allowed. :smiley:

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Well i thought Mickey Dunne looked like one of the guys from “Who’s Line is it Anyway”.

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Well i thought Micky Dunn looked like one of the people from whose line is it anyways.

Colin Mockery [sp]?

Anyway, to get this thread back on track, can anyone report on the advanced piping classes? Some great instructors there, what was the result?
JVF

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Well, admittedly I was the one doing most of the name dispensing… And while we’re on the subject, I would like to clear up a couple of things. Firstly, I never said that Mr. Dunne looked like someone from “The Weakest Link”. To be perfectly frank, I’ve never even heard of the show (maybe I should spend more of my free time watching tv). Secondly regarding Mr. Power, I told him on Sat. that we’d dubbed him Frodo, so by the time the costume party rolled around, he’d already known for quite a while. And lastly, I never said “a larger Frodo”; (perhaps your opinion Neil??) :slight_smile:

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Yeah, whatever..

Someone else suggested Mickey looking like the MC on the Weakest Link and I thought so as well and Mickey is as clever as well. I forget who you said he looked like. You certainly coined the nickname for David, and I thought David to be a taller stockier fellow than the more scranwy Elijah Wood, so that was my addition. I wasn’t aware that you shared the tag with David by the time that “Gandolf” showed up, but it was certainly amusing in any event. Also, your built in mouth “didgereedoo” (I forget the proper name for it) apparently amused a fair number of us as well, particulary Mick O’Brien And Caoimhin O Raghallaigh. You just need a practice set and regs as you can vocalize the drones!

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Hey Neil… Sorry about any misunderstandings on my part… (no offense taken I hope!) Will have to check out this “Weakest Link” and have a look for myself!:slight_smile: With regard to the nicknames, sounds like everyone was putting their two cents in… (Perhaps we should start a running list of everyone’s “famous” alter-egos!!) :smiley: Glad to hear that people could appreciate the Tuvan throat singing.:slight_smile: Will definitely have to work on doing it while playing! Could make an album called “mouth drones” or “mouth regs”! Well,… I’d best be off for now, going to practice a few min. before I have to leave for work!