This will be a workshop with Janine Randall. Here is Janine’s description of what to expect:
We will explore the differences in the Cape Breton and Scottish sound in traditional music playing. Can you hear the difference? What is the root of that difference? What can I do to make the jig, and a typical "set"; March, Strathspey, Reel, sound more like Cape Breton Scottish style? A bit of history, discussion, Q&A, and piano demonstration. As well, we'll listen to audio and video recordings of some of my favorite tunes, and some home recordings from the 1950's and 1960's to examine how the music accompaniment has changed even since then.
Click here for the sheet music of some tunes we’ll play, and listen to them here:
Here is a bio about Janine:
Janine Randall is the creator and director of the Ceilidh Trail School of Celtic Music in Inverness, Cape Breton Island, which hosted all the fiddle greats of the time, from Jerry Holland and Buddy MacMaster to Natalie MacMaster and John McCusker.
Janine grew up in Boston with her musical Cape Breton family and was steeped in the very finest fiddle music from a young age. Her mom, Mary, was a Cape Breton pianist who hosted house parties and played for Cape Breton dances. Her aunt was Betty Maillet, pianist for the Inverness Serenaders, the first group of Cape Breton musicians to be recorded on the prestigious Decca Records. Her dad came from Inverness after the war and played the clappers, was a prompter for Cape Breton square dances, and was a fine step dancer. Janine started out as a step dancer and had many years of piano lessons.
After marriage, children, attaining a degree in Business at Boston College, and a M.Ed from Curry College, she returned to the piano, learning by ear all the wonderful accompaniment she had heard over the years. Seeing the need for a center that focused on all the different regional styles of fiddling in Cape Breton -- the varying styles in accompaniment, the need for a "Celtic" style of guitar instruction, and a way to relate "Cape Breton" as a "Celtic" style of music as well as Irish and Scottish -- was the impetus in 1996 to start the Ceilidh Trail School of Celtic Music... with that ever important "house party" ambience. She went on to write scholarly papers that have been published about these experiences.
Janine has accompanied just about every young and old renowned fiddler from Cape Breton Island in concert and dance halls, as well as fiddlers from Scotland and Ireland, from Newfoundland to the Yukon, and everywhere in between. She also is on nine different recordings with Cape Breton and Irish fiddlers from Canada and the US.
The parking lot for the Music School is off of Fayette St.
Everyone please arrive in time for a prompt 1:00 p.m. start.
Following a break for stretching, refreshments, and visiting, we resume with our regular tune circle.
Questions? NHScottishMusic@gmail.com