Big Birthday Bash!

How's that for alliteration!

Saturday was Haley's fiddle teacher's birthday party. We drove up for a lesson then stayed for the party. It was a very musical event with some great Irish musicians attending and playing. There was session-style music going on in some form or another from about 4pm until after we left at almost 10pm. Haley played the majority of the time.

Haley with her buddy, John Whelan...one of the best box players out there.

Birthday Session

Irish music all day = one happy kid

I don't know if Haley realizes just how lucky she is to be able to make music with all these great Irish musicians and listen to them play live. The social aspect certainly makes learning music a lot of fun for her.

That is one thing I think is missing in her classical studies...the opportunity to "play" with other people. Sure she plays in orchestra but it is very serious business and the kids only get to socialize for short periods of time either before/after/or during their 10 min. break. Also, the music is already written out. There is no changing it or ornamenting it...no place to improvise.

At a session, they play a tune set, talk and joke around for awhile, then play some more. They improvise while playing and she learns  new tunes from the other musicians. Sunday Haley and her brothers spent almost all day playing Irish music. They busked in the park off and on for a few hours fundraising then wanted to go to the Plough session where we had to pull Haley and Dylan away 3 hours later because the rest of us were tired.

Haley and Dylan were laughing and joking around with the adult musicians the entire time. Haley and the accordian player, a different one from the photo above, kept doing little things in their playing to "shock" each other...adding ornamentation to the tunes in different ways or improvising a bit on the tunes. Dylan passed guitars back and forth with other guitar players and they shared ideas on backing the tunes. I can see why they love it so much!