Find Your Lilt
Step into the world of Irish fiddling with "Find Your Lilt," the podcast where your fellow fiddler, Hannah Harris, guides you through the ebbs and flows of mastering the real feel of Irish music.
Find Your Lilt
Dance Meets Fiddle: A Chat with Claire Shirey
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Join me for an inspiring chat with Claire Shirey, the founder of the Nashville Irish Music School. We delve into the music and dance connection in the Irish traditional scene. Highlights include Claire's journey from dancer to musician, the evolution of the Nashville Irish scene, and fostering a love for Irish music among youth.
• Claire’s transition from Irish dance to focusing on music
• Insights on playing for Irish dance competitions
• Importance of leading sessions within the music community
• The unique connection between dance and music
• Growth of Nashville Irish Music School
• Building a supportive community through music and dance
• Claire's experiences at various music festivals and dance competitions
• The influence of traditional Irish tunes in performances
• Future plans for collaboration and performance
If you would like to learn more about Claire, you can check her out at https://claireshireymusic.com/.
Tennessee residents can learn more about participating in Claire's school at https://middletnirish.org/
Want to share your thoughts on this episode or suggest other discussion topics? Join Hannah's free podcast community over here!
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Welcome back to another episode of the Find your Lil' Podcast. This is your host, hannah Harris, tuning in here and I am so excited to welcome on another guest musician to share basically all the amazing things that she's doing and just give you a really good insight into her world and how to combine the dance and the music aspects of traditional Irish music. So I am very excited to be talking with Claire Shirey today. So, like a total dope at the very start of the interview. I have been I can't tell you how long I've been stressing about like, is her last name pronounced Shirey or Shirey? And I need to ask her this. And from just the very beginning of what I thought I wanted to ask her on the podcast, I've honestly been worrying about this. Did I remember to actually ask her until we were on the show recording? No, so Claire Shirey is my guest, so you get to hear that little fun bit right at the start there. But we had a really great chat and I usually record these intros after the fact just so I can kind of give a little bit of insight into the chat. But really, claire is just doing so many amazing things. I really couldn't be more proud of her. She's got a ton going on. She is the head of the Nashville Irish Music School, which she founded in 2019. And so she has been running that really successfully and wonderfully for the past several years, and so you'll get to hear a little bit more about that. You'll also get to hear about how she's combined her Irish traditional dancing background with being a musician. So she turned more to focus on music fiddle and concertina and now she's really, really focused in on that.
Speaker 1:So Claire and I met at Irish Fest Atlanta, I think also back in 2019. So we've known one another for a while, but we really haven't had a chance to sit down and actually chat and get to know one another, and, of course, we keep up with each other. We run into one another at these events. Usually, if there's something happening in the Southeast, then there's a chance that we'll both be at it and, like Toon Junkie weekend or Force Irish Fest Atlanta, multiple times we've crossed paths there, and then she was also up at the Midwest Flaw in Chicago last year, and so we got to chat briefly there as well, and I really just love talking to her, and so it was so nice to be able to set this time aside and sit down and chat. Which is really what a lot of these podcast episodes are about is just to really take some time to you know, take a breather from the busy schedule and just sit down and get to know one another. So I really hope you enjoy this episode.
Speaker 1:Here is my chat with Claire Shirey. Well, I am super excited to be sitting down with Claire. I should have asked you before Shirey, right? Yes, shirey, yeah, I was going to check on the last name. So, welcome to the Find your Love podcast. Awesome, no, thank you for having me. This is really cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm excited to get to actually like sit down and chat with you. I feel like usually when we're together, we're in the midst of mass chaos or sessions, or yes, yes, there's something going on.
Speaker 1:A majority of our time is in the sessions, yeah, which is still fun too, so I like having you as a session buddy. No, it's great, I love to junkie, like that's a.
Speaker 1:That's a huge session in itself and it was great that that core little circle that we had so yeah, yeah, I think those work because you've got the strong players in the middle and then you can kind of like they keep it going. So as long as everybody on the outskirts can hear, then yeah, mostly so that's the trickle down effect? Yeah, that happens yeah, so uh, so you've just been off, uh, playing for a fish, correct?
Speaker 2:yep, yeah, that's um. Something that I do often is I play for a lot of those irish dance competitions, um, and it's a it's a great, great scene. I get to play tunes all day.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I was in, um, I was in Rhode Island, which is is beautiful yeah, I'm curious because I didn't grow up in the dance scene but you you did and so I kind of came to Irish music from like the classical world. So I'm curious to hear kind of the dancing approach and I know that you eventually kind of turned your focus more to the music side of things, but you're still very much involved in the dance scene. So I'd be curious to hear more about like I know there's like a different set of skills to playing with a dancer and just being in the Fesh environment. So, yeah, share more about it.
Speaker 2:It's a very unique world of Irish music and kind of subset of playing. I grew up Irish dancing and kind of in the two different arts of dancing. At my ballet studio there was an Irish dance instructor and I was like I love the rhythm of the heavy shoes and that just is what drew me to the Irish dancing and that just is what drew me to the Irish dancing. And then for the music, my Suzuki violin teacher had an Irish music school and kind of went from there, so kind of both directions. And then when I was about probably 12 or 13, we were doing St Patrick's Day shows and during one of the shoe changes for the dancers my teacher was throwing me up on stage just playing. I was playing like polkas, just like Carrie Polk. I know you'd be so excited I'm playing polkas, but it was. It was just something simple for me to get out on stage and that was kind of my debut into performing and I fell in love with the combination between the two because there is a deep connection between the music and the dance and how they complement each other and I um, I grew up dancing, did all the competitions and when I was getting close to retiring from from dancing go off to college.
Speaker 2:I still wanted to be involved, but but as a best musician and that's how I got into it and just shattered a bunch of musicians and also just played for the dancers in my class. They I was fortunate to be really connected with my dance class and my teacher was really supportive of letting me play for all the dancers um, throughout the class. So it's it's been a great time. I think I've been doing feshes for the past eight years. Um, it's brought me great places and also just really allowed me to bring traditional Irish fiddle to the dance scene because it is so heavily saturated with accordions. So I love being able to play fiddle for the for the dancers, kind of bringing it back to the older days nice, yeah, so what's um?
Speaker 1:what are some different things that you have to do? Like, I know that you were, um, you mentioned shadowing, so you were kind of playing along with people during the fesh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my biggest recommendation is always shadowing, because it's a different environment. You have to play at specific speeds for the dancers because all of their dances are choreographed to specific tempos, whether it's slow, fast or traditional, and you have to play for 10-15 minutes straight, which is easy when you play in sessions, but not easy when you're really having to keep that downbeat for each of the dancers, starting every four times eight, 32 bars, um, so it's that's the hardest part about playing for the younger dancers. You're playing for 10-15 minutes straight and, um, I kind of knew I wanted to do it when the younger dancers would come up to the musicians and thank you for it. They're like we really loved your music, we appreciate it, and that's those kind of moments that really keep me going with with those and um, it's uh, I think what else it's?
Speaker 1:a question when, when you were practicing for um like, would you practice for the metronome or would you mostly be doing kind of like in person, like, okay, we have to do xyz, bpm and yeah, so I I leading up to the first major, so that's the regional qualifiers for kind of the world championships and stuff.
Speaker 2:I was playing my first one in 2018 and I would. I woke up every morning and started with the metronome practicing for a couple hours, just because it had to just be spot on and just getting used to that tick going for hours, like there's, there's some fashions where I'm just like hearing the, the drum beat in my head for the next day, um yeah on your Instagram.
Speaker 1:When you post videos, you usually have that going in the background.
Speaker 2:Yep, I would and so many some of the um traditional musicians are like what is that? And I'm like, well, that's that's kind of what fashion music has evolved to. Is the the drum machine? Just because it? It gives a clear indicator of the tempo, so parents can hear the tempo, judges can hear the tempo, the musician can hear it and everybody's on the same page. Because back in the day, um, when I, when I was shattered, one of the musicians that I shattered had this little metronome that he just clipped onto his case and had a blinking light. And when you're playing to 10 dancers on stage, all in heavy shoes, you're not going to be just following that blinking light.
Speaker 1:You start to kind of naturally vary on and off, um, because that's just how the music goes um, but I imagine you have a lot of visual distraction too, like watching the dance and the judges and anyone in the room and so they they ended up just kind of unifying it with the drum machine and that's just the most popular.
Speaker 2:So all my videos you hear the, the drum machine and it's it. Um, you get used to it, but it's, it's very, very different you kind of get to pick your own tunes too, don't you?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's my, that's my favorite part. I um, I play everything that I enjoy playing um, and I love to play ribi tunes. Those are my favorites and I found a lot of dancers appreciate them and there's something different. They're gorgeous tunes and then I'll play a lot of them, just classics of Banshee, father Kelly's, because those are just very common dance tunes, especially for the younger dancers. They're used to hearing them all the time, but I love just being able to basically have a session all day. That's basically it what I do until the um, the set dance rounds where the dancers choose their music. So you have to learn, gosh, I think it's 42 specific sets, wow, um, but I mean, they're all beautiful pieces. There's lots of planks, these in there and and everything, but it's um, it's really nice just to play tunes that I enjoy and there are tunes that are much better for dancers compared to others, and that's something always to be mindful of, but that is kind of a perk of playing.
Speaker 1:Does it have something to do with where the notes fall within the tune, or is it kind of like the number of parts, so like an A and B or a three-parter?
Speaker 2:It's more of where the notes fall, um, and that's one thing that I, as a musician who dances, it's a lot easier for me to find the downbeat on on the tunes, versus some that could throw some kids off. Um, and as soon as somebody false starts on a tune, I just throw it off the list, um, and then play it for a couple of teachers or a couple older dancers be like, is this a funky tune to start? Because there are some out there. Um, I know I've had kids false start rolling waves before, just at a slow, uh trouble Jake tempo. So I just I stopped playing that one. You know it's a beautiful tune. I love it at that speed. It's just a nice, nice groove, but it's, some tunes are better than others and you live and learn which ones. It's all trial and error.
Speaker 1:It's ironic that you mentioned Rilling Wave, because I've been I'm teaching that in a membership this month and I came across your video on youtube while I was looking for listening examples. I was like, oh, it's clear, I'm gonna talk to her later. Oh gosh, which one? Um, yeah, it was like a. It was looked like an instagram video or something like. It was vertical and from four years ago. Yeah, yeah, something like that.
Speaker 2:I post a lot of YouTube videos, especially the play along.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nice, oh, definitely Stuff to check out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. I just found that was the easiest things when I was making a whole bunch of recording to my students is creating a play along video and starting at a really slow speed and then gradually speeding up, yeah, until they're like the more students you get to, like you can send them to that kind of joint resource and like I've recorded rolling wave already, so here's the video.
Speaker 1:I just send the link, Yep, which has been really convenient, yeah Cause I mean it's not like technology where you know the interface changes every few years the tunes where you know the interface changes every few years, the tune's essentially the same.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I, I I don't know if you experience the same thing, but I I experienced my tunes evolve over over years because, like when I, when I started the school I um national irish music school about five years ago, I would teach it to in a specific way and then over years start to not play it differently but add different ways of playing it. So sometimes my recordings from five years ago at all yeah, I think the more you listen to it.
Speaker 1:Like I recorded Four Milestone for the most recent album and then I heard Dervish's recording and I'm like this is way different. But I really love it and I want to learn this version now. And it's just like you know, you pick the bits and pieces of what speaks to you. So, yeah, I think that, like even too, there's certain situations, like when we were down at Tune Junkie earlier in the month. So whenever I play with Chad, I feel like I kind of mimic more of his style.
Speaker 2:Whereas if I'm not playing with Chad, I don't play like.
Speaker 1:Chad. Yeah, I love the way he plays.
Speaker 2:I love his style. Yeah, it's fun to mesh with. That's why, when we were coming into that circle of the session, I was like I want to sit there. Yeah, right, I want to. I want to sit right next to him and he um, because he has a great style and I. I think that's the kind of one of the benefits of playing in a session is getting to experience playing next to different players and seeing how your style evolves to the environment that you're playing in, and I think that's a huge part of just creating how you play in your own style. Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1:There's like so many other things I could ask you about the dance world, um, but I will maybe switch gears over and talk about more about your school yeah, yeah, I, I am.
Speaker 2:I'm on the nashville irish music school and we started about probably six years ago now.
Speaker 2:Now that I do the math, it's we started in 2019 and um we just started with about eight penny whistles, a piano and two fiddles, so that was very. You had to watch your. It was a lot of 10 whistles, but it was honestly a great time to start it, and now the kids are very inspiring to me. It, and now the kids are very inspiring to me. Um, a lot of them ended up choosing other instruments between the concertina or going up to the flute and um banjos now is a huge thing in the school. I don't know how this banjo craze came about, but I'm happy about it. I I ended up um getting three banjos for the school library and um the kids are loving it. So I was like I want a whole hornpipe set for banjos. But do you play banjo at all? No, not much I am. I love the banjo, but I am.
Speaker 2:I have my my time with out spread thin with the fiddle and the concertina and a little bit of the whistle when it's teaching beginners, but it's going really well. They go to the flaws and compete and they've really enjoyed going to the All-Irelands and getting to experience Galatia and just the environment of being there. I feel like that's been a great experience for them. We really encourage them to go to different music camps. We've been to Schwananoa a couple of times and then up to St Louis for some of their camps. It's going really well and I'm definitely excited for for some of their camps. It's going really well and I'm definitely excited for the future of the school. I ended up creating an organization called Middle Tennessee Irish Music and Dance because I'm also an Irish dance teacher. So I have my own school associated with Scott Ellis School of Irish Dance and I teach both and um it's.
Speaker 1:It's been going really well. Do you have students that do crossover between the two or?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's. That's something that was kind of one of my goals with bringing the dance class into my my schedule was being able to um, get people who are interested in the dancing and expose them to the music, because a lot of times people see the dancing, whether it's from river dance or lord of the dance or something that they saw online. So that's I. I understand it seems to have a bigger social media presence, especially with the collab videos of the hard shoes, with the pop songs, and I think that's a big inspiration for people to start Irish dancing. And actually some of my first Irish dance students ended up taking up the penny whistle and the concertina and their brother started playing the boron. So they've now kind of come onto the music world and I'm just hoping, as both schools grow, that the Irish music and Irish dance community can grow hand in hand together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, can grow hand in hand together. Yeah, I remember as a kid I think my first exposure to Irish or Irish-ish music was Celtic Woman, when they first started touring in 2004. And they came to Charlotte, where I was living at the time, and they ended up. I think it was like my big motivation to like keep playing was like Mary Nesbitt dancing around on stage and this heels and like the pretty dresses and it's nothing like what I do these days with fiddle, but that like kept me interested and motivated enough to be like to keep digging deeper and getting more into the traditional side of the scene.
Speaker 2:Celtic women was my very first concert. Yeah, I mean I do a lot of the performing shows and stuff nowadays, but she was just as a kid watching that on stage. I totally relate of seeing just like a fiddle player being highlighted among the the singers and she's a beautiful fiddle player as well.
Speaker 1:So oh absolutely um yeah that's, that's so you have the suzuki background too, and now we have the catholic woman. Yeah, a little bit.
Speaker 2:I only did book one of suzuki until completely Irish music and Irish fiddle playing and I didn't really learn how to read sheet music. Well, until I took up silver flute in middle school and high school because they didn't have orchestra and my fiddle teacher was like you've got to learn how to read sheet music and I did the whole band thing and I loved it. I enjoyed playing the flute Never really played Irish flute, but a couple years but I never really learned how to read sheet music. I would just rely on whatever the person next to me was playing, because I had so much ear training and I was so used to learning by ear that I really relied on the person next to me. So did I learn how to read sheet music, kind of yeah but it worked not as well as I.
Speaker 2:I should have um playing, playing in band for that long, but that's. It's just interesting, just all the different, you know, crossover things and yeah it's so growing up in a, because you grew up in a classical background. I did yeah coming over to learning completely by ear.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was it was good that I started Suzuki because I don't know, um, if you had the same learning method I did, but they didn't let me look at the book until probably like two thirds of the way through. Like I had to read lines with like the A, e, a123, e123. And that was pretty much like all they would let me do for the first year or two playing. So it was a lot of learning by ear, which I know is big in the Suki method. So being able to, like you know, I did have to learn to read sheet music, but then, you know, 15, 20 years down the line, getting serious about Irish music in college, I was like, oh okay, so this learning by ear thing, even though I didn't think I really could do it, I had built skills early on and kind of brought back a little bit.
Speaker 2:So yeah, Cause I mean I I'm very fortunate to to to have grown up learning by ear, but I wish I had a little bit more sight reading and and sheet music background than than I do have.
Speaker 1:but well, seeing all that you're doing, I'm like I wish I'd had more of the dance background. I had a really good friend growing up who did a lot of the feshes, um, so like I knew of them for the longest time, but I never played with her. I just, you know, I was doing a lot of my classical things.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's um, it's a.
Speaker 1:It's a different world, but it it's, it's like it's a, it's enjoyable and yeah, so this is kind of, I guess, tying it all together here, but like, so, the music and the dance is kind of your thing, where you're really highlighting the way that they communicate with one another. And, yeah, do you have any, like you know, messages you want to share out with the world of your mission?
Speaker 2:to show more Irish dancers that the music means so much more than the tempo, the drum machine, the fancy tunes and the fanciness that a lot of dance shows and dance musicians play. But it is just beautiful traditional music that has a lot of history and I hope that Irish dancers also see how much history they have and it really just comes together. And I love hearing the older stories of the musicians up in New York playing for the dancers and how much more connection it seems like they had dancers and how much more connection it seems like they had um and it's um. I just want to, I just want to play fiddle for dancers?
Speaker 1:I don't know. Yeah, do you have any like? Do any stories come to mind, um from from the New York area or um?
Speaker 2:not, not at the top of my head right now. To be honest, um, because I'm I, I would butcher them right now, um, but it is really cool to hear. Just a lot of the older judges have a lot of history because they grew up dancing in the in the 50s and 60s, but, um, I would not be able to tell a story properly.
Speaker 1:No good.
Speaker 2:When did dance get over to the States? I'm not really sure. I went to the Castles this past year and Tony Cashlyn McGavin's father he did a talk on house dances that their family hosted over the years and, um, and then how they kind of came over to america and that was a really interesting lecture. And I love the, the lectures at thekills, because the, the folks that they bring in it's it's really incredible just to hear them talk and that's something that I really enjoy.
Speaker 2:I love the Kaylee dances, I love the set dances, and so I'm not I'm not sure on the on the year or anything, but that's one of my favorite parts about dance is I love to do Kaylee's and so I did the set dancing, which is a little bit different than Kaylee dancing, and the Irish set dancing and, um, you know my, my husband, jonathan Thoreau, who dances and plays music as well, um, we, we did it together.
Speaker 2:It was a lot of fun. We made a lot of mistakes and I think that was totally one of the the fun parts about it. But I love that social Kaylee dancing and I think that was a big part of what came over first in New York, because that was a way that they could socialize and still have the culture and the tradition and a community. So we do host Kaylee dances in in nashville, which is and coke fell um. We've hosted a couple of them here with um caitlin dunn calling them with me and they're really fun and even though some people have no idea what a kaylee dance is, they they still get up and they'll dance and we make mistakes and we have a lot of fun I think that's one of, like my low-key favorite parts of Tune.
Speaker 1:Junkie is playing for the Kaylee Dance on the Friday night.
Speaker 2:I know I'm sad I missed it this year and that's one of my favorites.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I did Contra Dance in college so I didn't know like all the ins and outs of Kaylee Dancing, but it's somewhat familiar to me to be able to dance along. It's funny. I don't know when the transition was between like me dancing those and me playing for them, but now I pretty much just play. But they are so much fun on all ends I think the musicians and the dancers so we might be half and half with the audience here knowing what all the different dances are like. Yeah, versus step, versus step. So if you want to do like a, little.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I did a review. I'll try my best to explain it properly. I I as a irish step dancer, um, I kind of grew up more in the kaylee dance scene. Those are the more competitive um group dances so you'd have either four people to a team, eight or sixteen, and I did them all and enjoy them all equally and that's kind of the the root of of ceilidh dancing for Irish step dancing, um. But there's also ceilidhs, which are traditional Irish group dances very similar to contra dancing and square dancing, and that's something that you know.
Speaker 2:It's a fun family event. You come and there's a caller that teaches you the dances and they'll run you through everything. You just get thrown into dancing it with the music. You have somebody just telling you what to do the whole time and it's a lot of fun. Set dancing my first experience with set dancing was the Catskills this past year and it's got me already wanting to take Porg's class next year. But the front work is a little bit differently executed. It's more of a shuffle, it seems like, versus the Irish skip, two, threes that we were doing in Kaylee dancing and everybody seems to know what they are when he calls out the dance and I just think that's because the environment and the cat skills. They have been doing these dances in his class and have been dancing before, but it just seems slightly different. But it was equally fun and a great experience.
Speaker 1:So is there a collar in set dancing or is it more like you know all the steps? That are happening.
Speaker 2:There is a collar and he had a microphone just attached to his ear and he was dancing it with us, and so there was a caller that that taught you it. But it seemed like the group that I was in was kind of teaching us what to do, um, and then we just kind of thrown into it, so it was, it was fun. And then the caller was like no, you got to do this, you got to do that, and we're like we're learning, we're figuring it out, and it was, it was great, with a lot of fun, and it's super repetitive. So you're doing the dance probably for about 10 minutes straight, it seems like. So by the end of it you've, you've got it and you're laughing and having fun and the music is just uplifting and kind of driving and just creates the whole environment of a good time. Yeah, highly recommend it oh yeah, I'll to.
Speaker 1:I don't know if there's anything like that in the detroit area, but I'll have to oh, you gotta start yeah, there's um. So there's the set dances, the tune type, and then there's set dances, which are totally different things. Yeah, there's the set dances, the tune type, and then there's set dances, which are totally different things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of crossover in the word, but yes, there's an Irish step dancing. There are a tune category, a dance category called set dancing, which is a solo piece to a specific piece of music, whether it's Rodney's, Glory, Planksy, Davis One of my favorites is Planksy Hero, Donald. For the most part they're not eight measures and eight measures for the a part and b part. They're usually eight and twelve or eight, fourteen or sixteen and sixteen for playing c hero and they're a solo piece that the dancer prepares and they're one of my favorite rounds because I think it highlights most the connection between the music and the dance. So a lot of these pieces are choreographed specific for the music and you really hear the dancer solo dancing to the music and it's one of my favorite parts of the day, especially if you have a dancer that's spot on on the rhythm and when they hit the downbeat properly with the tune and just have this beautiful rhythmic piece that goes well. It just fills you with joy because it's like this is really really nice yeah.
Speaker 2:Really really nice and I love watching them as well. I can't watch the dancers too much when I'm playing. Sometimes I just have to go in the zone and just focus solely on just giving them the best music. But sometimes I do try to watch them and it's enjoyable to sit there and do that.
Speaker 1:Is it different in like a performance environment versus a competition, where you know, would you be watching the dancer more in a performance and following them, or would you still be kind of creating that?
Speaker 2:you know, solid background for them or both, both it depends on what the performance is no-transcript stage and it's really fun, but it's not that same traditional music feeling that you get when you're playing a set dance for a dancer and a traditional Irish music show. It's a different side of the spectrum. Playing the dance show scene yeah, it's actually I don't know what's the name of the show I know I've seen oh, I want to be part of this. And Irish dancing the creator. He was one of the leads for Lord of the Dance and he also grew up with magic and he wanted to combine his two passions.
Speaker 2:And that was one of my first dance shows and we toured across Canada 2020 in February. So we, right before the shutdown, um, and that was a great experience um to to be able to do that and I, just coming from a dance background, I love to perform and so being able to combine my love for performing and my love for playing was was a huge, it's a huge luxury to be able to to do that. So I was, I was like, yeah, I'll do it, and so I've done it. I've done it twice with uh, two tours in Canada with them and I um, I hope they do more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sounds like a ton of fun. You did something with Jamie LaValle where you were kind of like I love the video that he did for it, you were kind of like this little, almost like Nutcracker ballerina in the background.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he does these great. He started them in COVID, but they're just kind of performance videos. So he sends me the tracks that he wants to record dancing on and then I practice with them and then we go and just video and shoot them at the at a venue in North Carolina and he puts all the videos together, um, which is I think people really enjoy that and having, especially during the time of COVID, having something creative and musical and dance and kind of bringing his show to people.
Speaker 1:We've touched on, let's say, the dancing for the Fish and playing, and your school. What are we missing?
Speaker 2:Because you're up to a lot. Yeah, I have, I have, um, I have lots of, lots of different, a lot of something in the spoons in the fire, irons in the fire, whatever, whatever that saying is um, yeah, I uh, I, yeah, I, yeah.
Speaker 2:I do my music school. I love to do the play in the fresh scene. I love to perform. One of the tours that I'm going on tomorrow actually leaving for rehearsals is with a group called the shamrock tenors and we're going to be touring around the states for two and a half months and it's going to be a great time. It's it's a male tenor group from belfast, so I'm excited just to be playing fiddle and, um, joining them on the boat. Wow, and I caught you at a good time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, now it's gonna be fun yeah, that's awesome, and you have a session in cookville, is it?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, we um, my, my favorite part of of the music is the sessions and I, when we ended up moving out to cookville, about an hour um east of nashville we um, we found a friend, caitlin dunn who, who lives here as well, and we were like we need to get a session going. So she had a wonderful idea of a place and they have been the most welcoming venue for us to just host tunes, and people come from Knoxville and Nashville and Alabama, georgia. We had some folks from Asheville come last time and, um, it's a great meeting spot for a lot of folks and it really um, it's just great to have all these different regional communities come together and in Cookville of of of all places, the small town that that we were in now, but the first session I remember they were like how long, how long you guys gonna play, and we started at 3 pm and we went until 9, 30 and and everyone does and the.
Speaker 2:I remember the bartender was like y'all look good, y'all look good um. I was like, are you sure, are you sure? And he's like, yeah, this is great and um, they're very welcoming and I think that's the biggest part of having a successful session is just having a really supportive venue and um staff. So we've done a couple Kaylee dances there and we did a great new year session so folks came from all over for that. So we're hoping to make that one an annual celebration and I'll have to come down for that sometime you'll have to come.
Speaker 2:It's. It was great. We, I think we, started tunes at six, five or six pm and then went until past midnight, wow, and then we had tunes the next morning. So it was a great way to to end the year and then then begin it definitely, yeah, we've got a couple of uh, he has to always put him on.
Speaker 1:Maybe this will be the the clip for instagram. I love the cats. Yeah, uh, yeah, we've. We've got two really good sessions here in the kind of Detroit Ann Arbor area. So there's the Conor and Neal's one that's been going for I think, 25, 26 years, that's just kind of the Gavin's one, and they started up another one in O'Callaghan's pub, which is not too far from me in Plymouth, um, and that's just like nice to have two really good sessions a week to. You know, y'all's make it every week, but just to go between and same thing with the venues, just I mean, they take great care of the musicians and it's just a very, very enjoyable environment. We get some people from like the Cleveland area coming through and kind of do some crossovers with sessions there and other parts of Michigan as well, but it's just so fun to see all the regional groups and then tune junkie. We get some Michigan and Ohio people down there as well.
Speaker 2:So yeah, no, we got some great sessions in Nashville as well. Um, yeah, one, that's a weekly one, done and done in franklin at quinn's, and another one that the, the music school, is mostly associated with, and that's first and third sundays, where we have a learning session at 5 pm that the students of the school end up actually run.
Speaker 2:So we um kind of prepare them with a, a specific kind of we call them the staple sets that will be played and they lead it and it's a great learning experience for them and how to lead a session and develop those skills of being a leader in the music and not just a student. And then we have an advanced session that starts at six. Um, it's, it's great time with the, the national community, at that one.
Speaker 1:yeah I imagine, like them, building that skill, like on top of getting to perform to your end of performance, kind of gets like maybe the solo spot of like or the lead spot of just like keeping people interested um, and there's some people that don't like to perform but like having the community with the session, especially for adult learners, it's like having somewhere to go out and play tunes with other people keeps them motivated to keep going.
Speaker 2:But I feel like for the kids it's got to be great to have like the leadership building with leading the sessions on top of being able to perform that's a very big skill on top of just learning how to play, and learning the music is is also learning how to lead a session and and kind of look out for everybody in the session, making sure everybody's playing. And it's a great opportunity for adult the adult learners, because why we started it was there was a couple adults that were like I don't, I don't want to sit in the advanced session, I, I'd like to have a beginner session and I was like how can I, how can I make this a learning experience for everyone?
Speaker 2:yeah, and and that's a great idea that's kind of what we created, and it's been going since last fall, and I try to pop into the learning session every every now and again, yeah, to see how it's going, and we've gotten some great feedback from both the students and some of the adults that take part in it. We're very proud of that one, so what?
Speaker 1:to you is the definition of a good session leader.
Speaker 2:I think, somebody who can kind of read the room and connect with the people who are making up the session. I think an important part of the session is getting to know who you're playing with and give everybody a chance to kind of start a set or, um, at least play a set, but also keeping up the, the environment of the session. You know you still want it to be, um, just a good time playing and and keeping that energy. So it's a it's a hard balance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you want to be inclusive to the people that are coming in and that it's not always the type of sets that they start, or maybe they're not used to playing with other people that much or not used to the style yet, and so you want them to feel welcome. But you also want to keep the session going at a good pace and a good level, and yeah, no, it's, it's a.
Speaker 2:it's a hard balance, but I think the important part is just be engaging to everyone and really just I like for people to all be included and and everything. But yeah, it's a balance. I don't think there's any one rule of what makes or break. I mean what makes the good session. I think everybody has their own tips and tricks and how they lead a session. I would say I loved sitting next to Chad atad at tune junkie when he was leading a session, because the the energy that he brings and how, when he just builds and builds and builds a tune, he doesn't just go three times, three times, three times.
Speaker 2:he really took into account the energy that this tune was creating with everybody and and just kept playing it until he's like, okay, let's go on to this next one, and gave us I think I learned to like do that from him yeah, like it doesn't just have to be three times through and I I learned that from an incredible fiddle player that we had in Nashville that we unfortunately he passed away in 2022 Bill Verdeer he, he was kind of the the session leader for the session.
Speaker 2:That really just made me fall in love with Nashville, nashville, and be like this is where I, this is where I want to be, um, because I just I really enjoy sitting next to him in the sessions and the energy and how somebody would walk into the room of the pub and he would be like you know, come sit down, sit down right here, let's play a tune and very inclusive and encouraging. And when it came to playing the sets, he would repeat more than three times and this was that was my first exposure to oh, don't just move on. After the third time, you really can take in the tune and you can really give it justice and play it and create this one time that this is all going to come together like this. You're you're not going to recreate this on a stage, you're not going to recreate this um, any other point, but it's um. I think that's when I really it clicked for me that you can do. You can do a lot more than just playing a tune three times, with a couple variations here or there.
Speaker 1:It's helpful for having something to start with, but it's not the only thing that you have to limit yourself to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the biggest thing I like to say, when it comes to playing or music or anything, is just being encouraging to anybody who's learning, say, when it comes to playing or music or anything, is just being encouraging to anybody who's learning um and um, just keep, keep learning.
Speaker 2:I, I feel like I'm always learning um. I, I love to take workshops, no matter the level. Um, I think that's something that the music has really taught me is you're, you're always a student, and one of my favorite um organizations is tune supply because of all of those workshops that they they put together and so fortunate to have taken a couple of them. But I am I really enjoy all the workshops from beginners, just because I love to see how other people teach. I think that's one of the most interesting things is to see how different players teach in different ways, and I like to take different workshops and instruments that I'm not so confident on, like the whistle, though I teach beginner whistle, I um Kathleen Keneally's whistle class yeah at Baltimore Trab Fest last year and it threw me out of my comfort zone.
Speaker 2:It, it. It really challenged me because I never really played whistle solo for for anyone besides let's, let's learn the British solicitude right. But I had to sit there and I had to play and I think I played like Silver Sphere or something like that that's like my go-to on the whistle but I was shaking. I had never been that nervous to play the penny whistle before, just to play music before. So I think that was a great thing that I learned was to really start putting myself out of my comfort zone when I when it came thinking out those opportunities.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because even though I'm not I'm not going to be a whistle extraordinaire, that's um, but it just got me thinking more and more about how can I get out of my comfort zone with fiddle, how can I get out of my comfort zone with concertina? Um, and it explains different things.
Speaker 1:Um, that's kind of the more you learn with whistle, the more you can pass on what you're learning to your students.
Speaker 2:I'll have uh two more tunes under my belt. Next next tune junkie yeah but yeah, I, I did toy around with the idea of potentially competing at the flaw with the whistle, just to give me a challenge, give me a um, a goal, but maybe next year, maybe next year. But you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you had said something to me at the midwest flaw this past year about, you know, just enjoying taking for the fiddle stuff, actually going in and doing something different with the tunes, because you, you know a lot of it is in the variation and your approach that you take to it. It's kind of different than how you'd bring it to a session or maybe even a performance, but of course you can.
Speaker 2:Yeah no, I so I also play concertinas as well as fiddle, and I found that when I learned a tune on concertina first, I played a little bit differently on the fiddle, because there's different ways of playing the tune and depending on if I learn a tune on the fiddle from a concertina player and the variations or just the way the ornamentations lay out in the tune is different. So I think that's something that has made my style uniquely. My own, um is the fact that I do crossover between the two and they influence each other a lot.
Speaker 2:So I think if you're doing some more concertina ornaments on the fiddle or vice versa, or yeah yeah, yeah, and kind of depending on what instrument I I learn the tune from, but I I love to, um, take a tune that I'm learning and listen to a whole bunch of different instruments and versions and play along with each of them individually, like, oh, I, I like this a lot, this is, this is a cool way to play it. Um, and, and cherry picking, like that is, is a cool thing to do with tunes and um, just something creative, just creating music, creating your own that's. That's kind of one of my biggest things is create your own music, have your own style, um, when it comes to to play in that's essentially how you find your lilt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's how you find your lilt. Yeah, because I don't. I mean, I love that. Everybody has their own style and music and even though Tommy Peebles is my biggest inspiration, he's a fiddle player that I just really loved his style. I don't ever want to sound like him, because that's him, that's his incredible ness, um, but I, I also love um um mcdora, um, from the ego trip album.
Speaker 2:It's o'reilly. Yes, uh, that's one of my favorite albums, just straight fiddle. It's like a live house concert and I I love how, how he plays the tunes, especially the the vince and broderick set of the? Um, both the jigs, the Haunted House set and the? Um Milky Way. I I love his style, so I've played along with that album.
Speaker 1:I I can't tell you how many times um, that's what I need to put on my play along list. I listen to it. I've got like bits and pieces on my workout playlist too, so well, I love live albums because people are clapping.
Speaker 2:So if you're working out, yeah clapping as you're working out.
Speaker 1:I just finished a really hard set of weightlifting here, so thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. It's great motivation, yeah, but that's such a great album. Trying to think of like other fiddle albums that have inspired me, the album that inspired me the most has to be the Malloy Brady Peoples album. Um, not only was it, is it the album that we named all of our pets after we have. So you gotta say it, we do have, um, we have. We started with Tommy Peoples, our yellow tabby, and then we got Paul Brady, but it's like Paul, like P-A-W.
Speaker 1:Brady Nice.
Speaker 2:Myron Bressholds came up with that one. He's like no, it's not Paul, it's Paul.
Speaker 2:And I was like oh, you got us with that one. It sounds kind of Southern too. Paul Brady yeah, yeah, it's Paul Brady. And then we have Matt Malloy. He's our dog of I think, it's a German Shorthair Pointer with lab kind of mix that we got from the shelter and we call him Matt Malloy and he has his own Instagram account. He does, he's our good boy Malloy, so he's a great dog. And we um, we actually played a, a Kaylee dance, at a at a Highland Festival last fall and he just sat at our feet the whole time while we were playing. Wow, I had him on the leash and Pat Darcy on the pipes was sitting right next to me and he just sat there just staring at pat on the pipes and I was like, wow, you could not get more perfect, so chill, he was way too chill. And um, then another dog showed up and he was not so chill. I was like, no, you're not perfect, you're there. It went.
Speaker 2:But you're still learning too, yeah he, um he, he really had no problem with the pipes, so we're fortunate on that one yeah, does he?
Speaker 1:does he have any reaction to, like any of the other instruments?
Speaker 2:no, he just, he just sleeps through the music, which I I was happy for because I sometimes, when I'm teaching concertina lessons online, I'll hear a dog howling in the background and I'll have to be. Can you go let your dog? I don't know, but yeah, he's a good dog and does fine with the music. If anything, tommy Peoples, the the cat, doesn't like the music at all. He, he won't get near it. As soon as you bring an instrument out, he, he bolts. So no, not his thing, not his thing. That's fine.
Speaker 2:Um, but yeah, we are a huge Matt Malloy and Tommy Peoples and Paul Brady fans in our in our household. And that album, um, it was the first album that I was gifted and I think I got it for my 18th birthday. But I just had it in the car nonstop once I got it and that was a huge inspiration for me. So when we were naming the cat, I was like Tommy people as a, as a sort of a joke. I'm like I mean, why not? And um, oh yeah, no, he was, he was on board. He's like, as long as the dog is Malloy, because his biggest inspiration is is Malloy and music, and something that we really connected on was the Bothy Band and we actually, for our first Christmas, unknowingly, we gifted each other Bothy Band records.
Speaker 2:That's amazing, both 1975 and Old have you Killed Me? And that's just been a huge part of our lives together. Is is the music and the dance, but connecting on the bossy band and and just how how incredible of a band they were like. We were hoping to see them this past year. Um, unfortunately, the, the concerts were rescheduled and everything but um, that, that's something that we we hope to see someday. But we, um, we briefly had a cat and we named her Trina. Um, and then my parents ended up taking her and so we, we almost got the bothy band started with pets, but oh yeah, no down the line you know, oh yeah, no, no, there's, there's more coming, yeah oh, claire's been amazing talking to you.
Speaker 1:I'm glad that we had a yeah chance to catch up having me yeah so I just love talking with Claire.
Speaker 1:It was such a nice opportunity to get to sit down and chat and of course we had to get into pets too, because I had Rose on my lap at one point and Buley on my lap at another point, and so of course we had to talk about the Malloy Brady peoples to to wrap up the end of the chat. But I really just love their entire family. Both Claire and Jonathan are wonderful people and so welcoming. As you hear when Claire's talking about the leadership and encouraging the kids in her school to really get a chance to practice leading and being inclusive to all members that come into the session, I just loved hearing about that especially. So lots of great takeaways in this episode.
Speaker 1:I hope you enjoyed listening in. If you would like to learn more about Claire, you can check her out at ClaireShyriMusiccom. I'll have that linked in the show notes. You can also learn more about the Nashville Irish Music School and Middle Tennessee Irish Music and Dance and keep up with all that Claire's doing. So thanks so much for listening. I'll catch you in the next episode.