Jam Session at Blarney

Friends convinced me to go to Blarney for a trad dance and music session.

The following is the result

ENJOY!

:)

My friend Michelle got to try her first Irish Coffee!

My Friend Michelle is in the Traditional Irish Dance class and her class tends to go to this live music/dance session at Blarney Castle Hotel on Tuesday nights. I was invited to tag along...

I brought my flutes in anticipation of the live music hoping to maybe learn a tune or two from the musicians there. Finally, after politely listening for about an hour, Michelle's teacher saw that I had the flutes when I got them out to show someone. She practically dragged me over to the group and sat me down next to a friend of hers who also happened to play flute. I could not join in at first as the tunes were quite fast and everyone seemed to simply know them by memory. Sheet music here is NOT like back home. If there WAS sheet music, it would have looked like this...

X: 1

T: Maggie In The Woods
R: polka

M: 2/4
L: 1/8
K: Gmaj
B/A/|GD GA|Be e/f/g/e/|dB B/A/G/A/|BA A/c/B/A/|
GD GA|Be e/f/g/e/| dB AB/A/|G2 G:|
d|g>f ed|ef g>e| dB B/A/G/A/|BA A>d|
g>f ed|ef g>e|dB AB|G2 G2:| 

and not like this

...and so, being very kind and patient with the young American girl learning Irish music at the local university, asked me what songs I did know... 

I started playing one I learned for the exam at the end of last semester and Roger (I think that was his name) joined in. The rest slowly joined us once they determined the key signature.

 I had chosen a slow piece called "For Ireland I Would Not Tell Her Name". At the end, he turned to me with a big smile and said, half jokingly, "That was great!...we sounded like The Chieftains for a minute there!" I knew it was slow and painful, but I was still grateful for them making me feel included and helping me to have a great time!

Sadly, there are no pictures or video of me playing with the other musicians because my friends were preoccupied, but maybe next time I'll be able to post some photos (though I know that the experience was the important part!)

The dance class started getting involved as they saw all their friends joining together, I suppose they must have been must as nervous to dance as I had been to play.

At one point, Michelle was pulled from our booth and brought to the middle of the musicians where I had been sitting and listening in for awhile and told to "SING!" (I don't know who had told the professor about us being in choir/music classes) but she didn't want to sing alone and we all felt kinda bad at her being put on the spot so we offered to join her in singing "some of my favorite things". Sadly, my camera was on the other side of the room on our table so I have no video of this. She really does have a pretty singing voice...
:)

...and then later that night we heard a hush fall over the bar as one of the musicians (whom had given up his seat so I could join in earlier) start singing. I caught the tail end of the song...

I was a blast! and it is every Tuesday night, so I may be going again sometime soon--this time,with some more music prepared!