Melodeon.net Forums
Discussions => Teaching and Learning => Topic started by: David Colpitts on July 03, 2019, 04:49:59 PM
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Just wondering, since the excitement is building for me for the marvelous week of listening, learning and meeting folks at CIAW. If so, are you taking classes? Giving them? Just hanging out? I am taking beginning/intermediate button accordion, so you’ll recognize me: I’m the old beginner!
Regards,
David
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Pretty impressive list of tutors: https://www.catskillsirishartsweek.com/summer-catskills-irish-arts-week/instructors/ (https://www.catskillsirishartsweek.com/summer-catskills-irish-arts-week/instructors/)
Three bodhran tutors sounds a bit scary. Just imagine all those eager bodhran learners bashing away enthusiastically in the sessions. I suppose they'd double on the shaky eggs too.
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And, nobody teaches the spoons.
But otherwise, a great mix of workshops, talks, concerts, dances, sessions. It is addicting!
David
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I went five or six times from 2005 onwards, mainly so that I could sit at the feet of guru Jackie Daly (learning as many jokes as tunes) but haven't been for quite a few years now.
Some time ago, presumably in an attempt to stop the festival losing money, they cut back on flying tutors in from Ireland, so no more Matt 'n' Jackie and many others. Patty Furlong is a fine player and a very pleasant person, if that is who you are taking classes with (and if not!).
Friends of mine are attending and I thought about coming down for the week to hang out but couldn't swing it. I'm always curious to see how many more hotels and restaurants have closed and been boarded up from one year to the next. The town has been in decline for decades now. In the age of cheap flights and air-conditioning, people in New York no longer retreat to the hills for the hot months of summer. I'd like to have been there in the heyday in the 1960s when you could find the likes of Paddy Killoran holding court in Erin's Melody Inn, where I stayed on my first visit in 2001. It's now a rooming house for people on welfare.
But plenty of fun still to be had. I hope you get a lot out of it, David.
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Yes, Stiamh, it seems the “Irish Catskills” have suffered in the past few decades, but it’s got great people working hard to keep (and, dare I say, rekindle?) the tradition. This is only my fourth visit, but just three years ago Jackie Daly was there. This year, at least 3 all-Ireland champions are teaching box, and I am indeed going to class with Patty Furlong. And, of course, I’ll have the C#/D with me. I am so excited, but realize it is a stretch for an old rookie, along the rows kind of guy. And, last year, there were about 400 students, which seems like critical mass.
Regards to all,
David