I go to two Irish music schools a year,
the Irishfest Summer School in Milwaukee and the O'Flaherty IrishMusic Retreat near Dallas. I also go to the St. Louis Toinol when I
can and between the three of them I get to meet a lot of Irish trad
players. But my favorite of these is the O'Flaherty because it is on
one campus, the food is good and the instructors outstanding. This
year was no exception.
I took two classes: Seamus Egan on
banjo and Roger Landes on mandolin.
My main class was six lessons from
Seamus Egan. For those of you who don't know, he is one of the
founders of the band Solas (two other band members were teaching at
the O'Flaherty) and he is a creative genius among other things. His
classes focused on learning variations and developing style. One of
the things he emphasized is that we (a group of intermediate and
advanced students, there was a beginner's class taught by RickCunningham) needed to take ideas from the class and use them to
develop our own style. He expected that in a year we would be
playing the tunes and techniques he taught in a completely different
way that suited our styles.
I video all of my lessons but I have a
strict rule that these videos are not publicly available unless the
teacher allows it. Seamus did not want his image on the net, and I
honor that, but he suggested that I could video myself doing what he
taught. This is a good compromise, especially since what he taught
was not supposed to be gospel but inspiration.
But before we get to that, here is a
sample of the instructor concerts at the O'Flaherty. Somewhere in
the mix Seamus is playing the banjo:
Seamus' main message was that there are
many variations that can be played on the banjo and that putting them
together makes the music more interesting. While this may sound
simple, his style is a result of a lot of woodshedding and living
with the music most of his life. He doesn't expect us to sound like
Seamus Egan. This is important because the goal of playing the banjo
is to make music, just like any other instrument. (Seamus won four
All-Ireland titles by the time he was sixteen, on four different
instruments. For all I know he plays the Irish ukulele too.) But
each instrument has strengths and weaknesses and these should be
taken into account.
One of the interesting exercises he had
us do was to play as softly as possible. “The banjo is naturally a
loud instrument”, he said, “but it has dynamic range. The
problem is that few players realize this enough to use it.” He
had us play a tune as softly as we could which not only made the next
door class happy, but allowed us to realize how the banjo sounds at
that dynamic level and how it allows us to listen to the music
differently.
Another point he brought up is the role
of the right hand. He showed me a method of right hand placement
that is similar to those of many others, but I finally understood it.
“The right hand only does a few things”, he said “ emphasizing
the downbeat and triplets. Once you relax into the right hand and
are smooth, the rest is easy and you can do anything with it.”
Here is my interpretation of what
Seamus taught:
Roger Landes has been a friend of mine
for years but I don't get to see him very much. Since he was
teaching the mandolin class at the Retreat I had to take one class
from him. We spent most of our time together at Herb Taylor's booth
playing the wonderful instruments that Herb makes including three of
his tenor guitars. Roger had Herb build a unique bouzouki that had a
detachable body – the neck could be strung up without the body with
this design – that had it all. I'm so glad I didn't bring money
with me to the Retreat otherwise I'd have spent it all at Herb's
booth.
Roger gave an “informance” which is
a question and answer period in which Roger performed and then
commented on how he played and the history of the music. One of the
main points he brought up was that a key to improvement was playing
as lightly as possible. By this he meant that left hand fretting and
right hand relaxation (much like Seamus) techniques become less and
less a matter of power and more of finesse. He showed how you could
fret an instrument just by the weight of your left arm and that a
minimal amount of force was needed to get a good tone.
Roger gave us an exercise that he
learned from his classical guitar instructor: fret the note and then
let off until it starts to buzz. Try and hold that (very small)
pressure point and in the process learn exactly how much it really
took to play a clear note. It's not much but if you don't practice
it, you will revert back to a gorilla grip, especially when things
get tense or exciting. Lighter means faster and smoother, both good
qualities to have if you play a fretted instrument.
All in all it was well worth the money
and time to go to the O'Flaherty Retreat. This year it was held in
Midlothian, TX atCamp Hoblitzelle, a gorgeous campus that boasts a
lake, great food and wonderful facilities. It will be held there
next year as well. Everything is provided for (bring your own
instruments, however) and it is 24/7 sessioning if you want..
Mike Keyes
9 November 2014
