I participated in a week long Irish summer music school in the largest offshore island in Ireland, Achill Island, Co. Mayo.
アイルランドでは7,8月にかけて国内各地にて伝統音楽・
メイヨー州が私のお気に入りで、
There are many other summer schools around Ireland between July and August to inspire in new generations a love for Irish culture such as traditional music, dance and language.
County Mayo is my favourite county in Ireland, so I had been dreaming of joining a summer school in Co. Mayo. This is why I ended up taking the chance at last to go.
サマースクールの中でもScoil Aclaは歴史がある方で、今年で30周年を迎えた。
月〜
Scoil Acla celebrated its 30th anniversary this year and it is one of the longest summer schools in terms of its history amongst other summer music camps in Ireland. From Monday to Friday, we had workshops in the morning between 10am and 1pm, divided depending on music instruments and grades (by the way, the cost of the whole week was only 75 EUR this year due to the special anniversary discount, but normally it’s also a reasonable: 95EUR).
Apart from the workshops, we got a basket weaving class, and sessions day and night.
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| 火曜日は籠編体験へ。 |
以前、
When I went to other music weekend workshop in Skerries earlier this year, I totally messed up with the grading test on the first day. I was determined not to do the same, so I secretly practiced and practiced several tunes so that I could play perfectly on the first day this time.
月曜朝、早めに行ってちょっと練習しようかと思っていたら、
内心、アレ！？
クラスに入ってから、ちょっと曲弾いてみて！
まわりは老若男女問わず2-
そしてあくまでも本人の意思を尊重するようで、
残りの半分をPaddy Ryan率いる6レベル中上から2番目のクラスへ。
進度や技術面でもクラスかな！と思った。
私含め残りの19人は、「・・・」
◯月曜の曲
《Intermediate Class》
・Rose in the heather
・Kerry Slides
《Advance Class》
・Few Bob
・The Edenderry Reel
・Hairy Chested Frog
On Monday, I arrived at the lesson venue a bit early because I was intending to practice. However, a teacher who would carry out the grading, John, showed up and allocated me a class after only a second, after asking me some questions, not by letting me play. I was like “whhhatt?!”.
In the class, the teacher, another John, asked us to play some short tunes, so we, around 20 students, played one by one in front of him. Everybody except me had been learning the fiddle over two years. It seemed the teacher respected our wishes, so I asked the teacher to upgrade and let me move to other class. I joined the second highest class out of six taught by Paddy Ryan. I thought it was suitable class for me in terms of grade and technique I could apply. However, there was one ‘outstanding’ person in our group. He was an old lad. Paddy tried to teach him one by one, as he could not get tunes by learning by ear. During that special one to one lesson time, other 19 students including myself had to wait to pass the time peacefully. At the same time, I asked myself what it would be like this week.
◯Tunes on Monday
《Intermediate Class》
・Rose in the heather
・Kerry Slides
《Advance Class》
・Few Bob
・The Edenderry Reel
・Hairy Chested Frog
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| Keem のビーチへ。 |
あのおじいちゃんはまだいるのだろうか。。
せっかくなら、一番上のクラスを見てみたい。。。
Atlantic Roar、John Kelly’s ReelそしてPaddy in Londonの合計3曲習った。
最後まで楽譜も何も配られない。
明日からもここで踏ん張ろうと思ったが、
◯火曜の曲
《Intermediate Class》
・The Blackbird
・Humours of Ballyconnell
・Trip to Birmingham
《Advance Class》
・Atlantic Roar
・John Kelly’s Reel
・Paddy in London
On Tuesday, I was still like in a puzzle.
I was wondering whether that old guy was still there.
As I was curious how advanced the Advance class would have been, I upgraded further to the highest grade class, whose teacher was Liam O’Connor. He taught us three tunes that day: Atlantic Roar, John Kelly’s Reel and Paddy in London. Even after the end of the lesson, no music sheet was handed out. Simply enough, we input by ear and output immediately. I was really overwhelmed by the students in the class, because the process they absorbed music was crazy quick, and also they freely applied ornamentations such as double stops, rolls and cuts. I have not gotten used to learning by ear, so I was way behind compared to others. I wished I could have done better, but I could see the next level I would like to reach soon.
One option was to straggle here from the following day like that day, but I chose to take the other option; that is, to go back to Paddy’s class. I thought it was meaningful to just notice that there was a level I could not reach even though I tried to touch it.
一方、
Meanwhile, I got the latest (good?) news that the old man had been thrown out from Paddy’s class, and joined the lower grade lesson.
◯Tunes on Tuesday
《Intermediate Class》
・The Blackbird
・Humours of Ballyconnell
・Trip to Birmingham
《Advance Class》
・Atlantic Roar
・John Kelly’s Reel
・Paddy in London
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| 島では、羊も柵のない所で放し飼い。 |
水曜、何事もなかったかのようにPaddyのクラスに戻った。
昨日やった曲の楽譜も配られ、
◯水曜の曲
・The Ballinafad Polka
・Kitty come down to Limerick
・The Promenade
On Wednesday, I came back to Paddy’s class as if nothing had happened. It was a bit late for the third day, but I finally figured out where to belong this week.
The teacher Paddy handed out the music they learnt previous day and I recorded tunes while others were playing. In this class as well, we covered three tunes in a day. Of course, they learn by ear, too. It was amazing to find everybody could play immediately after they heard and repeated to play some phrases a few times. I could not follow them very well, because I easily forgot the previous bar while learning the second bar!! The lesson flew fast while I was struggling…
◯Tunes on Wednesday
・The Ballinafad Polka
・Kitty come down to Limerick
・The Promenade
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| 天と地が逆さま。 |
◯木曜の曲
・The View across the Valley
・The Whistler
・The Gold Ring
Day 4- On Thursday, I could give a shout to Paddy that I had been confused a bit in certain parts of the tunes we were working on. I said something harsh about the old lad before, but the similar situation was about to occur at me!! However, other kind students helped me a lot. It was interesting to observe that especially children about junior school age seemed to have been playing hundreds of tunes and they were not afraid of making a mistake, so they were much faster to learn to play compared to older students in the class. The teacher Paddy was like a historian of Irish trad music. He taught us a lot inbetween about Irish fiddlers and some techniques which were different depending on regions in Ireland.
◯Tunes on Thursday
・The View across the Valley
・The Whistler
・The Gold Ring
金曜、もう最終日。本当は土曜も2時間レッスンあって、
◯金曜の曲
・Michael Dwyer’s Jig
・The Mountain Road
・Foxhunter’s Slip Jig
On Friday, it was already the last day. Actually, there would be a two-hour lesson on Saturday and the open-air concert afterwards, where every classes and instruments played on stage. However, I had to head for Dublin with some other friends to make it to something else for the following day. The last three hours- I gradually got used to learning by ear and I had less time to make trouble for Paddy. We learned some tunes including a main tune from a tune book called “The Mountain Road” from south Sligo area. We called it a day with a lovely tune called Foxhunter’s Slip Jig.
◯Tunes on Friday
・Michael Dwyer’s Jig
・The Mountain Road
・Foxhunter’s Slip Jig
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| 毎日、表情を変えるAchill Island。 |
Reflecting on one week workshop, it was stimulative to know how fast other Irish fiddle learners absorbed tunes. I had made efforts to some extent so that I could make it to the summer school in one year and two months. It was really meaningful to join, as I could find the higher grade I would like to reach next. Overall, the summer school Scoil Acla was fruitful and I really enjoyed. However, it could be better if they reduce the number of students per class, since we had at least 20 students (in advance class, there were even more than 30 people). In smaller classes, it would be possible for both students and teachers to interact and provide more individual tips and advice.
後日談。
Paddyのクラスから追い出されたおじいちゃん(※
A sequel to the story: The old man who was removed from the class (we did not really recognise nor do such things, though). It seemed he behaved well in the class at first, but he spoke about himself too much during the lesson. As his classmates treated cold (?), he had never shown up at the class since Thursday. He had an interesting circumstances around him over the week!
あぁ、
次は、
今年、
Though summer school season is going to end soon, I definitely would love to participate in summer music camps next year onwards. What’s next? Maybe my next target will be the fiddlers week in Donegal or the biggest Irish music summer school, Willie Clancy in Co.Clare? I am going to update the details on excel file that I made after some hard work and research this year.
