Masthead Banner Made with MyBannerMaker.com! Click here to make your own!
I play tenor banjo and fiddle with Pub Scouts at the Friday happy hour 4-7 at Duffy's when I am in Chico. 2008 has had me traveling around the world, well, at least a part of it. Trips in the car back and forth across the U.S., a short stint on a cruise ship traveling to the Caribbean and Mexico, and two months abroad in the UK and Ireland (and a quick hop over to Belgium. I went places I'd never been, played golf at the home of golf, and played fabulous sessions with great players and made new friends. It's been an exciting year.
Playing Irish music brings me great joy. It's upbeat, even the minor tunes, and the music always brings smiles and toe-tapping to everyone who hears it. Everywhere I go around the world I can play tunes with people I've never met before. In Rome, Italy I couldn't speak a word of Italian and the sessioners couldn't speak English, but we knew the same tunes and spoke through our music. It truly is a universal language.
I got my first guitar, a Stella, for Christmas when I was 8. I had my first band at age 10 (We played for the old folks home down the street...Linda, Jane and me--The Summer Singers). At 16, my mother got me a Gibson Custom Les Paul and I had designs to be a "rock star," but I didn't have the persistence needed to accomplish that goal. Likewise, an early talent in golf had me practicing long hours and I became quite good (relatively), however, my lack of persistence had me fall short of my goal to be a touring professional.
In 1997, I moved to Chico and when I dropped into Duffy's and heard the Pub Scouts playing Irish traditional music, I was hooked. From being invited to play guitar at practice sessions, I soon took up fiddle and that was the beginning of a new era for me. I went to Ireland in 1998 to the Willie Clancy Summer School and Blas in Limerick, immersing myself in the music and the culture. It would take many more years before I honed my skills enough to keep up with the established players, but I am there now. "There" being a relative term. I took up the tenor banjo three years after starting on fiddle, but on both instruments, it would take a lifetime and then some to be the player I would love to be. In the meanwhile, I play as an amateur "for the love of it."
..
