This afternoon Lily, Rick, and I (“Dandelion”) played our first dance
together, which was also Lily’s first dance. She’s sat in with
Kingfisher for a set or
two many times, but this was her first time being booked and playing
(almost) the whole time.
Lily started playing fiddle in Fall 2022, and after about a year she
had enough tunes up to dance speed that I was thinking she’d be ready
to play a low-stakes
dance together soon. Not right away, but given how far out dances
booked it seemed about time to start writing to some folks: by the
time we were actually playing the dance she’d have even more tunes and
be more solid on her existing ones. She was very excited about this
idea; very motivated by performing.
I wrote to a few dances, and while several (very reasonably!) said to
send another sample when we had a bit more experience, the Northboro dance said yes for
2024-04-27. This gave a good amount of time to work on things.
At the time we were booked Lily had some tunes up to speed that would
be a good fit for dancing (Sandy Boys, Coleman’s March, …) but had
also recently been pretty excited about some notey tunes that she was
still quite a while from getting up to speed (Dancing Bear, Bus Stop,
…) and so wasn’t on track to end up with a set list that was going
to work. We looked over my tune list and picked a few tunes to learn
that weren’t too hard (The Wren, Trip to Moscow, …). These went
pretty quickly: they’re tunes she’d heard all her life, so it was
mostly a matter of getting them into her fingers.
If you want to play multiple tunes in a set this isn’t going to work,
and it’s pretty skewed towards marches, but it was enough! We ended
up playing (from memory):
Road to Boston
The Wren
Cripple Creek
Coleman’s March
Berentanz
Sandy Boys
Willow Tree Waltz
[break]
Gaspe / Scully’s [no Lily]
Trip to Moscow
Road to Lisdoonvarna / Maison de Glace [no Lily]
Angeline the Baker / Liza Jane
Haaplevese Waltz
Lots of one-tune sets! But I find these pretty fun, getting to think
of lots of different ways to accompany them to add variety and reinterpret
the tune.
This was a lot longer than she’d ever played in one sitting, and I was
a bit worried she’d overplay and hurt herself. We talked about
noticing how you’re feeling and resting; since Rick and I can hold
things down fine on our own she sat out some of the times through to
rest (often ~2/3 of the way through the dance, coming back in for the
last two times through). Two of Lily’s friends came to support her,
and she also skipped two of the second-half dances (with my
encouragement) to dance with them:
I took a short video at one point when I had my left hand free:
Several people have suggested open bands, like Roaring Jelly or BIDA’s, but I
think these wouldn’t actually work very well. Lily’s learning fiddle
by ear, and both doesn’t have that many tunes and doesn’t have those
particular tunes. When I play with her we can do specifically the
tunes she’s strongest on, which is going to go better and be more
fun. This would go even less well if we were trying to get into
ECD: I really appreciate that contra is a scene where we can show
up with eleven sets prepared and know we can collaborate with the
caller to put on a good dance!
Overall, it was a lot of fun, and she’s already asking when we can
play another dance. I hope it continues to be a strong motivation for
getting better at fiddle!
Playing Northboro with Lily and Rick
Link post
This afternoon Lily, Rick, and I (“Dandelion”) played our first dance together, which was also Lily’s first dance. She’s sat in with Kingfisher for a set or two many times, but this was her first time being booked and playing (almost) the whole time.
Lily started playing fiddle in Fall 2022, and after about a year she had enough tunes up to dance speed that I was thinking she’d be ready to play a low-stakes dance together soon. Not right away, but given how far out dances booked it seemed about time to start writing to some folks: by the time we were actually playing the dance she’d have even more tunes and be more solid on her existing ones. She was very excited about this idea; very motivated by performing.
I wrote to a few dances, and while several (very reasonably!) said to send another sample when we had a bit more experience, the Northboro dance said yes for 2024-04-27. This gave a good amount of time to work on things.
At the time we were booked Lily had some tunes up to speed that would be a good fit for dancing (Sandy Boys, Coleman’s March, …) but had also recently been pretty excited about some notey tunes that she was still quite a while from getting up to speed (Dancing Bear, Bus Stop, …) and so wasn’t on track to end up with a set list that was going to work. We looked over my tune list and picked a few tunes to learn that weren’t too hard (The Wren, Trip to Moscow, …). These went pretty quickly: they’re tunes she’d heard all her life, so it was mostly a matter of getting them into her fingers.
By the time of the gig the list we had was:
Mairi’s Wedding
Coleman’s March
The Wren
Berentanz
Trip to Moscow
Road to Boston
Angeline the Baker
Cripple Creek
Sandy Boys
Liza Jane
Lisnagun
Haaplevese Waltz
Willow Tree Waltz
Waterfall Waltz
If you want to play multiple tunes in a set this isn’t going to work, and it’s pretty skewed towards marches, but it was enough! We ended up playing (from memory):
Road to Boston
The Wren
Cripple Creek
Coleman’s March
Berentanz
Sandy Boys
Willow Tree Waltz
[break]
Gaspe / Scully’s [no Lily]
Trip to Moscow
Road to Lisdoonvarna / Maison de Glace [no Lily]
Angeline the Baker / Liza Jane
Haaplevese Waltz
Lots of one-tune sets! But I find these pretty fun, getting to think of lots of different ways to accompany them to add variety and reinterpret the tune.
This was a lot longer than she’d ever played in one sitting, and I was a bit worried she’d overplay and hurt herself. We talked about noticing how you’re feeling and resting; since Rick and I can hold things down fine on our own she sat out some of the times through to rest (often ~2/3 of the way through the dance, coming back in for the last two times through). Two of Lily’s friends came to support her, and she also skipped two of the second-half dances (with my encouragement) to dance with them:
I took a short video at one point when I had my left hand free:
Several people have suggested open bands, like Roaring Jelly or BIDA’s, but I think these wouldn’t actually work very well. Lily’s learning fiddle by ear, and both doesn’t have that many tunes and doesn’t have those particular tunes. When I play with her we can do specifically the tunes she’s strongest on, which is going to go better and be more fun. This would go even less well if we were trying to get into ECD: I really appreciate that contra is a scene where we can show up with eleven sets prepared and know we can collaborate with the caller to put on a good dance!
Overall, it was a lot of fun, and she’s already asking when we can play another dance. I hope it continues to be a strong motivation for getting better at fiddle!
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