To all who are probably waiting for my next blog post, I promise they are coming. I’m a little behind on uploading dance footage from several dances I’ve been to. Editing takes time, as does driving to gigs and keeping up with daily life.
This blog post is a reflection on 2023 as a whole, as it was a year that changed my life. I started taking fiddle lessons in November 2022 (shoutout and deep thanks to Jordan Tirrel-Wysocki, my incredible fiddle teacher). I learned quickly that fiddling is rather addictive and just plain fun. Otherwise, I was continuing on my merry way to getting prepped to leave for college in Virginia in August of 2023. That would change come spring.
I had started to become lonely in my fiddling. Those of you who are musicians know the importance of playing with other people. I didn’t have a set community for music and I really didn’t know how to break into one. I had, by some slight chance, via my interest in New England history, run across the idea of traditional New England social dancing. I didn’t realize it was still around, really. I had googled something to do with the music and the dances, and Google gave me two things, Frank Ferrel’s “Yankee Dreams” Album, which I listened to with a passion, secondly, “Where’d You Get Them Great Chunes” (Jacqueline and Dudley Laufman). So, being extremely intrigued, I clicked on it. First, a bouncing piano intro to the track “Moneymusk”, then the brisk lilting “Once and a half around”...I loved the sound of the music. It had this lifting feeling that just emanated joy.
Alas, alas, I still did not know how to break into the community. I assumed (wrongly) that traditional New England dances had started to go the way of the dinosaurs. I desperately wanted to go to a dance- but couldn’t find any information online (this was around the month of April 2023). I did, however, find an event for a book signing for the month of May. It was for the book “All Join Hands” by Tom Curren (rest in peace, Tom. Without your book I never would have found the music and the dance alive and well).
Initially, I wasn’t going to be able to go to the book signing. I was teaching horseback riding lessons and had a lesson booked until 6:00pm, when the book signing started. However, when I finished up my lesson, I called my mom with the firm statement that “I am going to that book signing even if I am late”.
Well, I was late. Then, I couldn’t find a parking spot. Downtown Concord on Main Street is not for the faint of heart. Emotionally I was a disgruntled mess of a slightly weepy human and being exhausted. I did find a spot, eventually. I proceeded to walk into Gibson’s wearing a pink plaid fleece vest, horse drooled jeans, and a rather muddy denim shirt.
That wasn’t the worst of it. I tripped trying to be subtle sneaking around the bookshelf. Caught myself, barely. Then found a corner chair out of the way. Much to my surprise, Tom Curren wasn’t the only one there. Dudley Laufman was there as well. I didn’t expect that.
So I sat and listened. After the presentation, I promptly went to go buy the book. A habit I’ve formed over the years is to be the last one in a book signing line so that you actually get to talk to the author/presenter.
Keith Spiro with Manchester Ink Link was there. He came over and started up a conversation with me (most likely because it was odd that I was having people go in front of me to get their books signed). Conversation drifted to why I was there. I told him I play the fiddle a little, and I was interested in contra dancing. To which his reply was “Neat! Come with me, I’ll introduce you to Dudley”
So I go over, get my book signed by Tom, and Keith Spiro introduces me to Dudley.
Keith: “She plays fiddle”
Dudley: (to me) “You do? How long?”
Me: “4 months”
Dudley: “Who's your teacher?”
Me: “Jordan Tirrel-Wysocki”
Dudley: “I know Jordan. He’s good.”
(Silence)
Dudley: “Are you doing anything Saturday night?”
Me: “Nothing in particular.”
Dudley: “There’s a dance in Canterbury this Saturday.
Bring your fiddle. You can sit in.”
Me: “Thank you so much I’ll be there.”
Dudley: “We don’t use sheet music.”
Me: “Oh. I don’t read it anyways.”
Dudley: “Well. That works out then.”
Cue me going out the door and smiling. I was so excited. I went to the dance in Canterbury and sat in. I went to another dance about a month later in Loudon to sit in again- Which happened to be slightly more eventful because I walked in with all the courage of youth, stopped in the middle of the floor, took one look at the stage, and with all the anxiety of my generation, promptly lost all courage, turned on my heel and walked myself back out the door to my car. Took some deep breaths and regathered my courage enough to walk back in… without my fiddle. I went and stood in a corner (anyone who saw me up until recently at gigs or dances knows that I used to hang out in corners and against walls, looking terrified of life). However, it was too late, I had been spotted.
Dudley motioned me over and asked me, with a grin.
“Where’s your fiddle?”
Me: “it’s in the car”
Dudley: “What’s it doing in the car?”
Me: “...I wasn’t sure if I could sit in”
Dudley: “Of course you can! Now, go get your fiddle”
I LOVED playing for dances- Everyone was incredibly friendly and willing to help out by shifting their chairs so I could see fingering on the fiddle tunes that I didn’t know.
Then I found out about fiddle camp. Happiest place on earth I’m convinced. I went to the June week, saw Dudley again and chatted with him about how I was going to college in the fall and I said, quote, “those Virginians don’t know how to dance” (I was to find out that they do, in fact, know how to dance, but at that time I was ignorant) so I was going to try to figure out how to call dances from recordings.
To which he stated, “Eh. I bet you could learn to call alright. I’ve had a few apprentices. If you want, you could apprentice- at least until you leave for college.”
Needless to say I was incredibly excited. I sat in at the dance at Maine Fiddle Camp that night- sat up front, even. I was told my face looked like “a frozen mixture of terror and excitement”
Maine Fiddle Camp caused what I like to call, ‘My Quarter Life Crisis”. Having been incredibly happy at fiddle camp, coming home to normalcy felt wrong, somehow. College, which had previously been a source of great excitement for me, lost all of its glitter. I no longer wanted to go. The world of music and dance restored my joy and happiness, which had previously been lost to years of fighting chronic Lyme disease. Why would I want to leave right when an incredible opportunity arose?
I went to a few dances that summer. Played for private gigs as a fiddler/apprentice under Dudley Laufman, and went to a few dances just purely to dance. The biggest highlights of the summer of 2023 was playing with Canterbury Country Dance Orchestra at Kwackfest 100, in Peterborough NH, and becoming a part of Canterbury Country Dance Orchestra for our August concert at Canterbury Shaker Village.
Of course, I was supposed to be in Virginia at college in August, so you may ask, what happened?
I just couldn’t leave. It was a magnetic force keeping me here, for now. College wasn’t the right path. I had a fork in the road, and I had to choose. To quote Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken,
“Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
When I started taking fiddle lessons in November of 2022, I never ever anticipated the music and dance of New England to become my life, a deep part of who I am. Along with fiddle being my main instrument, I have also picked up button accordion, and some piano. I have become a musician, a paid musician at that, which I never anticipated. Nor did I anticipate a full blown unofficial/official apprenticeship.
Now I’m a history major at Southern New Hampshire University, their online program has allowed me to continue going to gigs and continuing learning the ins and outs of the traditional social dance community.
I just want to thank each and every one of the people who have welcomed me with open arms and overwhelming kindness into this community. You all have enabled me to become less self-conscious of myself, which in turn has helped my musical and social abilities tenfold.
Let’s all balance and swing, tune our instruments, and keep our feet close to the floor this year.
Here’s to 2024 and the adventures it brings.
