At Dance Musicians week it so happens that there are numerous people wandering around with instruments looking to play music.  During the week-long musical “take-over” you can hear music all around campus.  The musicians are put into bands and before long they infiltrate the nightly dances and bump the instructors off stage.  David Kaynor, Susan Songer, Naomi Morse, and Peter Siegel don’t seem to mind, actually I hear that they encourage it.

A band playing on the Keith House stage with Peter looking on

I walked from the Keith House to the Music Studio and low and behold there were more musicians!

Mike Robinson plays the fiddle

I opened the door to a practice room.  Guess what I found?

A band plays in the Music Studio

The bands practice during the week and play for the dances at night.  The dances are free and open to the public.

Here we are at John C. Campbell Folk School for another week of music and dancing.  This is the seventeenth year of this fantastic class, with dancing every night for everyone, and dancing and playing every day for the 21 instructors and students participating in the class.

Monday morning we identified the class goals and began to work toward achieving them, then the students were broken up into pick up bands, given 5 minutes to get a tune together and then play for the dance.  All four bands did well, while the others got to dance.  Unfortunately there is a preponderance of men in the class, so most couples were of the same gender.  On Tuesday we were able to recruit some women from other classes and the community to join in.  We have daily sessions with instructors for the different types of instruments, such as fretted, keyboard, and fiddle, and are permitted to go to whichever session we choose.  Many of the students are competent on multiple instruments.  Bands are formed to play at the community dances, which happen each evening.  Our band consists of two fiddlers, a hammered dulcimer and recorder player, a guitarist and myself, a banjo player.

Tuesday and Wednesday was spent discussing topics related to music for dancing, jamming on tunes, forming bands, playing with others, practicing for the dances we will play for, and working on learning and improving instrument skills.  Students have many options to choose from to meet their personal goals.  Now, time to get to work. Additionally, the instructors and some students play music to entertain the students in other classes as they wait to enter the dining hall.

Is little middle already a memory?  How did it come and go so fast?

When I was a kid I went to Little/Middle every year.  I took all the classes in the book.  Mostly they were along the lines of the adult courses offered – quilting, woodcarving, enameling, pottery, blacksmithing, etc.  This remains to be true – that young people can come here to learn about Appalachian heritage and crafts.  But this year when I was walking around campus it was fun to see that a few other mediums have popped up — like drumming!

Looks like fun to me!

Summer is here and so is Little/Middle Folk School.  While the campus is taken over by kick ball, card games, picnics, and the fire truck that stopped by on Tuesday to spray the kids off – there is still one adult class happening, and that’s Dance Caller’s Week.

Dance Caller's week

You can sign up as a dancer (which is a nice option if your child is in little/middle) or as a dance caller.  During the day the callers pick dances to try out on their class, and each night from 7-9pm, they take turns calling dances for the Little/Middle folks and community members.

Deciding to try dance calling and actually doing so are two different things.  Standing up on the stage, looking out at the dancers, and knowing you have to direct their moves might be a scary thought to you.

For Tony Prince, a glass artist and instructor, calling for dances involves a mixture of fear and excitement.  He says that it’s about accepting these feelings and going for it anyway.  ”I wanted to take Dance Caller’s week but decided to take Dance Musician’s week first.  I thought it would be good idea to get a sense of the dancing from the musician’s perspective as well.  Now I feel more comfortable communicating with the band, ending the dance, and picking tunes.”

“I’m also a craft instructor and learning to call dances, and get comfortable doing so, strengthens my teaching skills.”

All in all it’s the best place to learn – the dancers are very understanding and Steve Hickman and John Devine, the musicians for the week, are masterful and can adapt in seconds.

calling a dance

Morning song at the Folk School is a cherished way of waking up.  We  can slowly get out of bed, walk to the Keith House Community Room, make a cup of coffee or tea, and for thirty minutes before breakfast, blink, yawn, and listen to music.  Depending on who is performing – listeners are invited to sing along, or lean back in their chairs to hear stories.

However, if you don’t make it to morning song (or you don’t know what 6:45-7:15 looks like) there are plenty of opportunities to hear music later in the day.

Monday night, I walked into the Community Room to find David Brose and Martin Sacs singing “The last thing on my mind,” “Farewell, Angelina,” and other great songs.  While the sun was setting , we were singing and enjoying the timelessness of good music – a perfect way to transition into evening.

David Brose and Martin Sacs

Every 2nd Monday night David Brose invites friends to join him for a one hour concert.

Maypole Dance (Photo by Gale Oliphant)

I was invited by Nanette Davidson to participate in last Saturday’s May Day celebration, in particular the maypole dance and the parade, and I felt honored.  Work/studies tend to be seen as more transient members of the Brasstown Folk School community, at best benign passers-through.  Now – individuals choose to be work/studies for a variety of reasons: to learn a specific craft, to gain gardening experience, to celebrate and enjoy the beauty of the area.  Essentially they’re largely drawn to the Folk School for the same reasons as paying students.  Key, of course, to the experience of all studying here is… community.  The school offers students a week or weekend of communal living, eating, working and learning.  Work studies come for this too – but we stay longer.

I tend to think community and tradition are inextricably linked, and Brasstown has a very elaborate relationship with the idea of tradition. Very old traditions, ones consciously preserved by the school (ballad singing, timber framing, morning song, etc), intertwine with traditions that came to this region through the Folk School (like Morris and Garland dancing) and are all wrapped up in and coiled around newer Brasstown traditions (Sunday breakfast at at Tim Ryan’s house, St. Patrick’s Day at the Depot, endless potlucks, work studies throwing deserts at each other after lunch), topped off with traditions that are frankly as old as human beings living amongst each other (like sitting around a fire, and making things grow out of the dirt.) What I’m trying to get at is this: the feeling of community here is an interesting and complex but unique and wonderful thing, and I guess I’m still a little high from the feeling of welcome that I had on May Day.  I know that I was not the only one.

The rain held off, but just barely, and there was a feeling of electricity in the air. The wind was high, the music was silly, the dancing was spectacular, and everybody seemed to be having a grand old time.

Dames Rockets (Photo by Michael Baker)

]]> http://blog.folkschool.org/2010/05/06/ive-got-that-may-day-feeling/feed/ 1 http://blog.folkschool.org/2010/03/03/upcoming-concert-evokes-a-folk-school-memory/ http://blog.folkschool.org/2010/03/03/upcoming-concert-evokes-a-folk-school-memory/#comments Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:37:16 +0000 Emolyn Liden, Writer, Student & Instructor http://blog.folkschool.org/?p=1080

Music and dancing is the heartbeat of the Folk School.  While students, instructors, and staff work during the week, it is at the dances and concerts when the community comes together to have fun.  Free concerts are held almost every Friday night at the school and this Friday Paul and Jerry Wilson and their family will perform.  Groups who play here often travel from afar to share their music, but this week the band will be coming from just down the road.   Tipper Wilson writes about her memories at the Folk School:

My name is Tipper, I spend my days writing about all things Appalachian over at the Blind Pig & The Acorn. Fortunately for me-my writing abode is just down the road from the John C. Campbell Folk School.

The first time I remember being at the Folk School, I was six years old. My 2^nd grade class had planned a field trip to the Folk School. My grandmother, Marie Wilson, worked in the craft shop, instead of taking the bus with the other kids I rode to work with her that morning.

Woodcarving from the Folk School (Photo by Tipper Wilson)

Even though the years have passed quickly since then, I still vividly recall the day as the beginning of my fascination with the Folk School. First there were the wood carvings-dozens of little animal figures-any child would have been spell bound by them, there was the sliding door refrigerator with more fruit in it than I’d ever seen before, and as I wandered around and lost my way-there was the nice housekeeper who let me follow her back to my Grandmother-never scolding me for nosing around and getting lost.

Through the years the Folk School has continued to weave its way through my life. My father, Jerry Wilson, has performed at many a Fall Festival and Friday night concert. The Folk School even aided in one of the greatest achievements of his musical career-when they assisted the North Carolina Arts Council in awarding Dad and his brother the North Carolina Folk Heritage Award for their music.

The Wilson Brothers

The Folk School continues to be a part of my life today.  For the past four years my daughters have clogged on the John C. Campbell Folk School Clogging Team and we all enjoy attending Contra Dances held at the school.

On March the 5^th, this Friday night at 7:30, three generations of the Wilson family will perform on the Keith House Stage.

When Olive Dame Campbell opened her beloved Folk School it was primarily to help our little community of Brasstown and the surrounding area. To be sure, people from all over the world have benefited from the John C. Campbell Folk School. However, as we take our places on the stage Friday night I know Mrs. Campbell will be proud because four generations of the Wilson family, who live just down the road, have intertwined their lives with her dream.

Tipper

Visit www.blindpigandtheacorn.com where Tipper writes about the history and culture of Appalachia.

Our very own Folklorist David Brose has been doing a show on one of our local radio stations that I think you should know about.

Folklorist David Brose outside the History Center

On WLSB 1400 AM and WYHG 770 AM  on Saturdays from noon to 2 pm, David presents a 2 hour show called “The Mountain Valley Homecoming” that features 18 years of live recordings from the Folk School – from Friday night concerts, Monday nights with David Brose, Fall Festivals, and anything in between. Wow! This is the real stuff, folks. Tune in!

If you can’t get it on your radio, you can stream it live on www.wyhgradio.com. (click on the Listen Live icon at the top right)

And, beginning this Sunday, February 14, David is beginning a new show called “Stax of Wax” (wax being the old radio DJ slang term for 33 1/3 record albums). This show will air weekly on Sundays on 95.1FM from 7-9:00 pm. The format for this show will be jazz, blues, rock, Americana, Roots music – pretty much everything and anything (except for opera, apparently).

David gave us a preview of his upcoming Valentine’s Day “Stax of Wax” show. He says, “By the by, if you are a baby boomer you will love my Valentines Show–love songs by: Van Morrison, Temptations, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, The Stones, The Band, B.B. King, and many more favorites.” You can listen to this station online, too, if you’re not local: www.951.fm.

Even though I’m not a baby boomer, I think I’ll love it too. And David says he’ll talk about upcoming Folk School happenings, so that makes the listening even better. Congratulations, David – it sounds to me like you’re Singing Behind the Plow! I’ll be tuning in this weekend!

Last weekend the Keith House Community Room was taken over with shuffle-step-rock-steps, chugs, and good ole’ plain ole’ stomps!  Eventually we scooted into Tennessee Walking steps, buck steps, and syncopated moves.  My sister, Annie Fain Liden, and I had twelve students and we established first thing on Friday night that we were there to have fun!  Our parents Martha Owen and David Liden provided the music which was much better than any recorded music could ever be.

Martha Owen on banjo and David Liden on fiddle

No matter how you spend the majority of your time, I believe it is important for us all to get up and move around at the end of the day.  There is nothing like walking with friends, exercising to the max, or (my favorite) dancing!   Musicians also know that if they provide a good groove, they will attract dancers.  Clogging can be approached in a variety of ways, informally or with precision.  In the end, clogging is about making beats with your feet, adding to the music as if you, the dancer, are the percussionist, or letting the style of music dictate what sort of rhythm comes from your feet by dancing freestyle.  But, like I said before, no matter the approach it’s all about having fun.

Chloe Davidson and Jessica Kaufman practicing the promenade variation

During the weekend we started each session by stretching and warming-up, then we jumped into an array of steps, and looked at the possibilities of building from basic steps into advanced ones.  By Saturday afternoon the class had learned a new dance vocabulary and so — we then let them lose!  Together they choreographed a dance by picking their favorite steps and fitting them together with the music.  At Show-and-tell on Sunday I proudly introduced the “Folk School Stomp-a-lot-ers” to the crowd.  Confidently the dancers took the floor and clogged the house down.  There was nothing left to sweep up after our number — we danced it all to smithereens!

Weekend classes instruction is from 7-9 Friday night, 9-12 and 1:30-5 Saturday, and 9-11 on Sunday.  The weekend is ended with Show-and-tell and the Closing Ceremony.

We were pleased to have Alan Jabbour teaching at the Folk School last week.  We had twelve fiddlers eager and ready to go and thanks to Alan’s instruction we worked our way through fifteen tunes.  Most tunes were in standard GDAE, but we did venture into DDAD, and GDAD.

Alan taught us by ear and we followed along mimicking phrasing, following bowing patterns, and attempting the embellishments that make the tunes “Alan” (and before him Henry Reed and Quince Dillion.)  The tradition lives on.

By Friday I confessed that I’d lost sleep because the tunes were stuck in my head until the wee hours each night, but — my pinky finger was much stronger than on Sunday when we began.  Alan made using the pinky finger look easy, showing that the fourth finger is equally as vital as the other three.  So we placed our pinky fingers on the string below and droned with an open string, or tried to slide from the ring finger to the pinky to give it a lonesome sound.  Sometimes (with twelve fiddlers trying this at once) it sounded like a cacophonous, very unpleasant, screech, like all of our least favorite elementary school teachers were scratching their fingernails on chalkboards.  But, as our pinky fingers grew stronger we felt more confident, and the drones began sounding sweet evoking heartache and joy all at the same time.  Now, I think we would all agree that playing an open string is a wasted opportunity to drone (ever-so-beautifully) two As or Ds at once.

As we faithfully fiddled along, the tunes eventually took shape.  Then Alan took them up a notch and we tried to hold on to the quicker tempo.  “Keep playing even if notes and bowings are discarded on the floor.”  he said.

He also put the tunes into context by telling stories, bits of history, origins, and memories.  No tune went without a reference point.  We first learned ”Henry Reed’s Breakdown” which was a tune with no name for many years.  The next day “Cabin Creek” led to a discussion about giving directions by rivers and valleys as opposed to how we do it now with streets and signs.  Later, we heard about Grover Jones’ children, fifteen or so boys and one girl, as we learned “Grover Jone’s Waltz.”  Henry Reed’s version of “Shortnin’ Bread” which Alan taught us held it’s own against the diddy that can sound like a kid’s summer camp song (in my opinion.)  The origin of “Bonaparte’s Retreat” revealed the history buffs in the class.

At one point, while Alan air-bowed and sang “doooown, up, down, up, down, up” to indicate patterns for different phrases (a hidden talent to be sure), his fiddle suddenly went POP!  We all jumped.  Alan lifted his fiddle up and tilted it from side to side.  We could hear something lose sliding around inside.  “Oh no! It’s your sound post!”

Not exactly…but it was something curious.  Alan had rattlesnake rattlers inside his fiddle.

“Why?”

“I’ve asked fiddlers about it,” Alan responded.  “They give different reasons like, ‘It helps the sound,’…I doubt it.  ‘It gathers the dust inside the fiddle.’  These are kind of pseudoscientific explanations.  I’ve heard, ‘It keeps mice away.’  That’s a pretty good idea!  They hear that rattle snake rattling and stay away from the fiddle!  I think it’s finally kind of a magical thing.  But you know most magic isn’t to make things happen, it’s to keep bad things from happening.  If it’s magic, I think it’s of that sort,  to ward off something or another - Lord knows what.  I probably don’t believe in it,”  he laughed, “but what the heck, you can’t be too careful so I put one in there.  Then somebody put another one in, so now I’ve got two, unless one just exploded…”

See how much we were learning in addition to fiddle tunes?  Thank you Alan.