Homecoming Scotland: music

This is the year of Homecoming Scotland. The land of highland, heather, and sea invites the world home to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of poet and song collector Robert Burns, and the many other fine things about Scotland and its people. Here are several Scottish musicians you’ll want to get know along the way:




Kathleen MacInnes is a singer and songwriter from South Uist in the Outer Hebrides off Scotland’s northwest coast. When you follow this link, you’ll get to hear her sing a song in honor of her dad and see some great photos of the Hebrides as well.

Mary Ann Kennedy is a gifted clarsach player, singer, and producer. She had in mind a project to celebrate men who sing in Scots Gaelic, and that resulted in a fine album called Mary Ann Kennedy & Na Seoid.
If you really want to hear the stories and landscape of Scotland, this is a place to listen, whether you speak Scots Gaelic or not.


You don’t have to know Scots Gaelic to appreciate the work of Sarah-Jane Summers, either. Originally from Inverness, this talented fiddler and teacher explore intersections of Nordic and Scots music as part of the group Fribo. Nesta is her debut solo album, a journey to the highlands and north lands both melodic and lively.

Malinky is a long running Scottish band who balance singing with playing, English with Scot Gaelic, and fast paced tunes with gentle ones. Their latest album, Flower & Iron gives a fine taste of all that.

you may also want to see

an exhibit about the Scottish diaspora at the National Library of Scotland,
on through October, with letters, diaries and other items showing the story of Scots who settled around the world. there’s more about that at the library’s web site, too.

Music Road: Songs of Homecoming, to Scotland and other places

Music Road: Celtic Colours 2009 on the way

Music Road: Homecoming Scotland

Music Road: tuning up for Burns Night: four Scots musicians

creative practice: oasis

I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of oasis -- a place of renewal -- as a physical place, lately, in part because the folks over at the travel site Trazzler are holding a contest for writing about that idea. I’ve thought about places I might write about,and places I know I won’t. It’s also occurred to me along this track of thought that music sometimes arises from, and sometimes leads to, places of renewal in the physical world, and that music is often an oasis itself, whatever the place may be like where you hear it, or play it. I’d welcome your thoughts on any of that.



You may also want to see

Music Road: Songs of Homecoming, to Scotland and other places

Music Road: Irish music, Irish landscape

Music Road: ten songs

other things I’ve written about for Trazzler including Celtic Connections in Glasgow, the Sean McGuire Mural on the Falls Road in Belfast, Veggie Planet in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the Cactus Cafe in Austin, Texas

Saturday Sessions: Brian Finnegan on writing tunes

Brian Finnegan, from County Armagh, has played flutes and whistles with the group Flook, toured with William Coulter, and fronted his own ensemble. He talks about writing tunes:

“It comes and goes in waves as I guess it does for a lot of people,” he said. “I’ll write a huge amount for a couple of weeks or a couple of months, completely haunted by it and waking up at three in the morning, writing jigs and reels and waltzes and strange time signatures that come out of my ears, but after a while the creative well runs a bit dry, and then I can’t think of anything.

“A lot of my tunes are written when I’m out walking,” he says. “If I sit down in a room I find it very hard to write to order, but a lot of stuff will come out when I don’t have a flute, I’ll just start hearing things in my head. I have to be relaxed and just let it flow that way.”

This part of an ongoing series here at Music Road called Saturday Sessions, about teaching, learning, and creating music. Join us again in the upcoming weeks for ideas from Eddi Reader, Gretchen Peters, Matt Heaton, and others.

you may also want to see

Music Road: Saturday Sessions: Matt Heaton on playing for others

Music Road: Saturday Sessions: Emily Smith on songwriting

Music Road: now playing: Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh: Daybreak/Fainne an Lae

johnsmith: gravity of grace

Gravity of Grace


You know the name: John Smith. If you do not yet know John Smith, Wisconsin based teller of tales, maker of stories, singer whose approach to music is both contemporary and timeless, then his new album, Gravity of Grace, is an excellent place to make his acquaintance. At times his songs draw from where he is and where he has been in his own life. At others he creates memorable pictures of moments in the lives of others. He often brings the natural world into his work, too and there’s a strong but definitely not preachy spiritual bent to his work. The spiritual side is about respect, really, and paying attention. Those are qualities which come through in all John Smith’s work.

Father's Day and Right Into Love are two of those stories drawn from Smith’s own life tales. As good songs have a tendency to do, they focus on years told in moments. That’s true, too, as he tells of Eliza Jane, who turns out to be on a journey to both give and receive. Scotch Pine frames ideas about life’s turns and twists in the natural world. Smith has spent time in Ireland, and in fact regularly leads tours there. Touches of that come through in his work, here especially in the joyous welcome for a newborn child in Juni Rae and the a song you can easily imagine Smith sharing with his audience at the end of a gig in Ireland and America, called Safe Home.

you may also want to see:
Music Road: late summer: two for the road

Music Road: Dakota Lullaby: Albert & Gage

Music Road: Matt & Shannon Heaton: Fine Winter's Night concert

photographing music, continued

light and shadow, and music

you may also want to see

Music Road: Reflections: five of the best
Music Road: creative practice: music in silence

Saturday Sessions: Eddi Reader on writing melodies

Scottish singer and songwriter Eddi Reader is known for her own songwriting, and for her contemprary interpretations of Robert Burns. Though the power of words is very present in her work, when she’s working on a song, melody where it starts for her.

“There’ll be a melody sense. I’ll mess around with it, I’ve got this acoustic guitar, and you have to have an instrument. For me. I could just walk about making up melodies with my voice, but when I have a guitar, I know of have to work. It’s a bit like knitting or crocheting, and I have to really remember when I’m putting my fingers. So what happens is I tend to come upon a note or a chord set that leads me to something that’s really melodically juicy. I just let this juicy little melody mess around in my head, but it doesn’t belong to any words yet. I’m pretty lazy and a bit shy about all that. Pinning it down feels like finishing, and I find it hard to commit to anything that includes a deadline or a time -- unless of course I really like the words!” she says.

Stay tuned for more Saturday sessions, thought provoking ideas about teaching, learning, and creating music from musicians including Matt Heaton, Del Suggs, Emily Smith, Gretchen Peters, and others.

A nod to a musical friend passing on: Cape Breton fiddler Jerry Holland died on Thursday. Here’s a brief remembrance from fellow musician Susan Gedutis Lindsay
Goodbye, Jerry Holland.

you may also want to see
Music Road: Saturday Sessions: Del Suggs on teaching

Music Road: Eddi Reader, Emily Smith, Robert Burns

Music Road: eddi reader, willie stewart, and the search for haggis

vote in Ireland's Music Awards

This is the inaugural year for Ireland's Music Awards, an event which will take place in Castlebar, County Mayo, on 1 August, accompanied by a concert with Sharon Shannon and the High Kings among the performers.

You can vote for your favorties in a number of categories

here.

Many of the musicians you've met -- and a few you'll meet soon -- here along the music road are in the ballots. Heidi Talbot, Mary Black, Altan, John McCusker, Michael McGoldrick. Le Vent du Nord, Sean Keane, Alison Brown, and Eddi Reader are just a few of those -- so I'm not telling you who to vote for, though I do encourage you to search for information about the nominees here at Music Road.

you may also want to see

Music Road: ten songs

Music Road: fourth of july and music, 2009

Eddi Reader, Emily Smith, Robert Burns

Come along the music road for trip to Scotland for a bit of a live show that's a study in songwriting and harmony singing as well. Eddi Reader sings Leezie Lindsay, a song she and Boo Hewerdine made from a fragment of a Robert Burns song. Emily Smith joins on harmony, and you may see a few familiar faces in the backing band too. From a celebration of the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns' birth, January 2009 at the Royal Glasgow Concert Hall during Celtic Connections.




you may also want to see
Eddi Reader sings more of the songs of Robert Burns

Emily Smith:Too Long Away

Music Road: words, music, and poetry

also, stay tuned here along the music road for news of other music events in Glasgow, and more from Celtic Connections

Saturday Sessions: Adrienne Young on focus

With her second disc, The Art of Virtue,
singer and songwriter Adrienne Young included a copy of Ben Franklin’s small booklet with short explanations of the thirteen virtues he thought to practice daily. She wrote a song about them as well, a lively piece that celebrates the positive gifts of doing good. That is typical of Young.: Though she believes deeply in the power of community and the necessity of co operation and the causes of social justice, she celebrates these things rather than preaching about them. She writes original songs and chooses traditional ones that point out and reinforce this path. Sometimes the songs she writes and chooses to cover are funny, some times thought provoking, sometimes just fun. “Just remember when you get too overwhelmed, just take it bit by bit and say what did I do today, or what could I do, to make things better, and what have I learned? That was the whole point of the booklet, and the theme of the record,” Young explains. Counting a whole range of musicians from Duke Ellington to Barbra Streisand to the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Willie Nelson as influences, as well as writers from Emerson to Norman Vincent Peale to Wendell Berry, Young draws on a cornucopia of ideas to shape her work. “For me, it’s always been a very spiritual endeavor,” Adrienne Young said. “Hopefully a communication of feeling and a connection with people.”

you may also want to see

Music Road: Saturday Sessions: Del Suggs on teaching

Music Road: reflections with Adrienne Young

Music Road: Alison Krauss: Live from the Tracking Room: A Hundred Miles or More

Alison Brown: The Company You Keep

The Company You Keep

The thing about listening to Alison Brown play is that she paints whole landscapes and holds whole conversations without saying a word. Brown plays banjo, and sometimes guitar. Her preferred company to keep while doing that include bassist Garry West, piano player John R. Burr, and fiddler/mandolinist/crazy man Joe Craven. There’s also usually a percussionist along, in this case bluegrass drummer Larry Atamanuik and drummer of all trades Kenny Malone. Top Irish guitarist and producer John Doyle joins in as well.

It’s Brown’s playing and imagination which center this good company, however,
leading them through music that brings in sounds of bluegrass, folk, jazz, swing, and Celtic music, without ever losing focus -- creating focus rather, with a music that moves like a fresh breeze from the composer’s imagination to yours.

There are ten tracks on this album, one written by Burr, one written by ace Irish box player Mairtin O’Connor, one a folk tune, and seven composed by Brown with input from West, Doyle, and Burr on various cuts. The titles of the tracks themselves suggest an interesting story, all the way from Crazy Ivan to Rocket Summer, The Road West, Drawing Down the Moon, and Under the (Five) Wire through Rain or Shine, Over Nine Waves, Forky on the Water, The Clean Plate Club, and Waltz for Mr. B Brown regards composing music as both an individual and a collaborative act, starting with the composer's idea and shaped by the ideas of those who play the music. That process is in full and lively force here. That’s something you can see clearly if you get the limited edition ‘Two Makes Company’ version, which includes a dvd of a concert the group played at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Watching or listening , it’s fine and original music played with grace and creativity, well worth repeated visits.

For a taste of what the album and the dvd are like, here’s some video:


update, December 2009 ***congratulations to Alison and all involved on the Grammy nomination for the track Under the (Five) Wire on this album***


you may also want to see

Music Road: Alison Brown Quartet: Evergreen

Music Road: Liz Carroll & John Doyle: Double Play

Music Road: now playing: Athena Tergis: Letter Home

creative practice: the music of what happens

There is an old folk tale from the Fenian Cycle of Irish mythology, in which the Fianna-Finn are talking of music. "What is the finest music in the world?" asked Fionn of his son, Oisin. "The cuckoo calling from the tree that is highest in the hedge," he answered. They went around the room, and each told what music they believed to be finest. One said the belling of a stag across the water, another the baying of a tuneful pack heard in the distance, and others believed the finest music to be the sound of a lark, the laughter of a girl, and the whisper of a loved one. "They are good sounds all," said Fionn. "Tell us," one of them asked him, "what do you think?" "The music of what happens," said Fionn, "that is the finest music in the world."
-Cathie Ryan


The Music of What Happens



you may also want to see

Music Road: Cathie Ryan: Irish and American

Music Road: Matt & Shannon Heaton: Fine Winter's Night concert

Music Road: late summer: two for the road

fourth of july and music, 2009

It’s the fourth of July. Whether that’s your holiday or not -- about half of those who join us along the music road come from the United States, and about half from other parts of the world -- I hope you’ll join in a mood of celebration and reflection, and while you are doing that, take a look at these thoughts:

from the fourth of July last year
Music Road: now playing: Angels Unaware

music and politics
Music Road: listening through the changes

music and connection
Music Road: creative practice: being there


take guess...
Music Road: creative practice: laughter

celebrate! Wilderness Plots has been nominated for an Emmy. congratulations and good wishes to all involved
Music Road: Wilderness Plots: the dvd

Saturday Sessions: Del Suggs on teaching

Del Suggs is a singer and songwriter whose work in music has led him back almost full circle these days to the interests he had while studying for a master’s degree in education at Florida State University. Through his music, he’s had opportunities to work with college students and staff not only on developing music programs but in such areas as career planning, leadership, and goal setting. Here, he talks about what he does to get better at his teaching practice.

“The best things I've found to improve my teaching are reading and teaching,” Suggs says “Reading keeps me plugged into the views of others and helps me learn new concepts and ideas. And when I say reading, I don't just mean ink and paper. I spend a great deal of time reading on line, and it reminds me of my childhood in the library. I've always loved libraries, and loved the serendipity of just wandering the aisles and picking up any book that caught my eye. It's even easier on line. I'll 'Google' something of interest, and an hour later I'm a world away from where I started, just following tangents.

“Teaching also makes me a better teacher. I've always felt like doing something is the best way to improve at it. Not practicing doing it, but actually doing it. It goes back to my early days as a performer. I might practice a melody or fingering for hours and not be able to play it. But once I starting attempting it in a real performance, I was suddenly able to do it. I know that the practice helped, but not as much as actually doing it.”

Suggs is a Florida native who calls what he does saltwater music. You may keep up with his music and speaking gigs at his website, and look for
him at the Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities Conference in New York City (Aug. 24-26), Univ. of Connecticut (Aug. 14), Univ. of Akron (Aug. 15), and Edinboro University of Pennsylvania (Aug. 26).
.
you may also want to see

Music Road: saltwater music: del suggs

Music Road: Saturday Sessions: Emily Smith on songwriting

Music Road: creative practice: laughter