Fiddling, Cape Breton Style

By Gwen Orel

When I first began learning Irish fiddle, I learned a little Cape Breton style, because my first teacher was Amy Beshara, who lives in Montclair and loves that style.

I'd trained in classical as a girl and then put the violin away for a long time because of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, so when a surgery made it possible for me to play again I couldn't wait to learn Irish, the music I loved so much more than Beethoven (sorry, Ludwig, but your second violin orchestral sections with their repeated thirds are a snooze).

So when I knew I was going to Cape Breton for the Celtic Colours Festival I knew I wanted to get a lesson.

Fortunately, the organizers of Celtic Colours made it easy for me to figure out.

The Festival handbook is at first a little overwhelming, but then you quickly figure out it's divided in sections with the same information laid out in several ways: day at a glance, by category, by major concert.

You never go anywhere without one. We had one in the car at all times, and usually one in a purse as well.

My lessons at the Buddy MacMaster School of Fiddling at the Celtic Music Interpretive Centre were outstanding.

If you want to understand something, try to learn how to do it.

The class was an important element in my critical appreciation during the rest of the week: Rachel Davis' easy rhythmical grace knocked me over, as did Kimberly Fraser's strength and drive. Not to mention Dawn Beaton, the Festival's associate artistic director, who house managed at least one concert.

It's almost as if people are born in Cape Breton with a fiddle in their hands.

THE FESTIVAL ALL OVER THE ISLAND

One of the striking features of Celtic Colours is that the Festival is spread out all over the island, by design. And the island is no little vacation spot off the mainland: Cape Breton is 10,311 km, or 3,981 square miles. That's over twice the size of Rhode Island, and bigger than Delaware.

It feels much bigger, perhaps because the highways tend to squiggle over hills and around bays, and there is often an hour or more between hamlets.

This means you are constantly driving around, by design. As Artistic Director Joella Foulds explained at a delegates' brunch during the week, the Festival was created that way in order to drive tourism and interest in the Celtic culture of the island. And that works.

It would have been much easier to centralize everything around Baddeck, where the delegates stay, or around Sydney, the biggest city. It would be easier to see more music and interact more with other delegates and presenters.

But that isn't the point. Having concerts hundreds of miles away from one another, taking place in towns so teensy there seems to be not much there beyond a gas station (as in the first one that I went to, "Tunes for the Mira," at Marion Bridge) means people from far away will visit those towns, perhaps going to what is listed as a "Community Dinner," or dinner made by people at a community center, for a flat fee; see the countryside, drive business there.

Then every night there's entertainment at the Festival Club, which is where you see the acts you might not be able to fit in otherwise, and meet up with the presenters and press from around the world.

In weeks to come I'll report on acts I saw there as well as the different concerts and terrific artists I've seen. I hope they will come to New York soon.

So in addition to listing their own concerts, the Festival works with the towns who suggest activities and events that can be listed in the official catalogue. They have to apply, and they can't conflict with the actual concerts themselves.

THE BUDDY MACMASTER SCHOOL OF FIDDLING

One of the events going on during the week are classes at the Buddy MacMaster School of Fiddling, a week-long class that is offered during Celtic Colours.

Over five days, 10 instructors teach classes in Cape Breton in intermediate and advanced sections. You can register by the day or for the week.

The school is named for 88-year-old Buddy MacMaster, one of the foremost fiddlers of Cape Breton, nicknamed "The Juddique Flyer."

He's been awarded the Order of Canada for his contributions to Canadian Culture, and has an honorary doctorate from Cape Breton University. Natalie MacMaster, the famous dancing fiddler, is Buddy's niece.

The MacMasters are connected to the Beaton family through marriage: Buddy married Marie Beaton.

On my first night at the Festival Club, someone asked me if I played the fiddle. I said I did, and then he asked if I were one of the Mabou Beatons, because the Beatons all have red hair.

I'm not, but Andrea Beaton is, and she's not only a terrific fiddler but also a terrific teacher.

The Beatons are one of the famous musical families of Cape Breton, known for their fiddle playing.

In fact, they were featured in a concert called "Fiddling Families," which included fiddlers Kinnon and Betty Lou Beaton. Betty Lou is Buddy's sister, and a pianist.

One could sign up per day or by the week. I signed up for Wednesday, and that ended up being a morning after I'd gotten in from the Festival club well after four.

Juddique is a good 99 kilometers from Baddeck, so we knew we'd have to allow a good hour and a half to get there. We skipped breakfast.

"Don't worry, Mom," I said, "we'll pass a drive-through and get something on the way."

Or not. There was not one single drivethrough on Highway 19 from Baddeck to Juddique (on the way back to Halifax the day we left we saw that there were Tim Hortons right there in Baddeck. Next year).

There were restaurants along the way, but no time to stop. However, it was a beautiful drive. It seems everywhere you drive in Cape Breton you're on the water, and as the name of the Festival suggests, the leaves are beautiful in their colors.

Juddique is on the West Coast of Cape Breton, in Inverness County (remember, Nova Scotia is New Scotland), and things seemed somehow a little more prosperous on that side of the island.

Perhaps there is more tourism. The Center for Interpretive Music includes two newish buildings.

The main building where you register holds a little gift shop with many CDs and little jars of jam with pepper in them - these are surprisingly tasty, particularly the orange, which wakes up your mouth. There are archives and a library.

There is also a little restaurant. with a small stage, with a little fake oven on it, and a stuffed cat.

Cape Breton, I learned, does not really have the tradition of "seisuns." What they do have, and how people often swap tunes, is the "kitchen racket." So the stage is set up to look like a kitchen.

At lunchtime the teachers play, and after class ends there's a one-hour "kitchen racket" which feels pretty much like a seisun, except that there are keyboards, and the keyboards are very good.

Cape Breton music developed around the fiddle and the pump organ, later replaced by the piano, and is highly rhythmic because it's used for square dancing.

Square dancing is still very popular on the island. It's a way young people get to see each other, I was told. At a dance, it would usually be a fiddler and a keyboard player.

Irish keyboards, with a few exception, tend to be quiet accompaniment, very "stride" in style with chords and bass notes.

Cape Breton keyboards accompany but are also a distinctive voice, harmonizing, adding counterpoint, interacting with the melody. Next time I go I want to learn a little Cape Breton keyboards.

THE CLASS

Classes were divided into two parts, morning in afternoon. There were intermediate and advanced sessions. We swapped teachers at lunch.

I sorted myself into advanced, and was in a class of about seven. Two of the students were young boys, one was from Scotland, and there were a couple of people from Canada.

I was the only one from America, certainly the only one from New Jersey.

It was one of the charms of the week that whenever anyone found out that Mom and I were from New York/New Jersey they became quite excited and wanted to know more about us.

At the "Close to the Floor" dance concert that night (look for a write-up in coming weeks), when someone won a raffle who was from Florida, the whole crowd went "oooooh." Americans don't get that kind of response in Europe most of the time.

In the morning, Andrea Beaton was my teacher. In the afternoon, I had Gabrielle MacLellan.

Participation in the class meant we got a big tune book of tunes chosen and in some cases written by each teacher.

The only drawback with the book is that there are no page numbers in it, which meant navigation was a little tricky as it's organized by teacher.

While teaching is, as it is in Irish music, mostly oral, there seems to be a greater use of written music as well in Cape Breton.

At the "Tune for the Mira" concert with Pat and Winnie Chafe, at one point Winnie had music in front of her. She clearly wasn't relying on it, but it was there.

Andrea taught us a jig and a reel she'd written herself, "Mike's Rescue."

Perhaps because fiddlers play individually as much as together at rackets, it's very common to be taught an original tune.

Andrea took us through the tune and then showed us where she would ornament it and what it would be.

She also gave us specific bowing, telling us that after a long downbow, in Cape Breton playing you'd usually have two short upbows together.

Fiddle ornaments imitate the Highland pipes.

What is called a "cut" in Cape Breton is what Irish fiddlers would call a triplet.

There are grace notes and trills, which are like half rolls, but then there is also the hammer-on, the pull-off and the drone which is kind of like a slide up in a fourth.

Also doubling is common, that is, playing the fourth finger and an open string in unison.

I knew these from having taken some classes from Amy (one, in fact, the day before I left), but it was wonderful to have them integrated that precisely into the music. By the end of the morning session, I felt at home with the tunes.

In the afternoon, Gabrielle MacLellan took us through a common strathspey, a march, and a jig. A strathspey is a Scottish dance, with a dot-long rhythm and snap bowing.

The jig was "Trip to Sligo," chosen by the class after she played several. I already knew "Trip to Sligo" (which Gabrielle kept pronouncing Sleego), but thought it would be interesting to learn it with Cape Breton bowing and styles, and it was.

Another feature of Cape Breton music that differs from Irish is that there is more use of chromatics within a tune, so there were some minor differences that kept it interesting.

When classes finished I participated in the "kitchen racket," with Gabrielle leading.

It was different from seisuns in that people would start tunes and not have the next one ready, waiting for someone else to leap in.

The 12-year-old boy who was in my class participated, with a girl who obviously had the same teacher - they held their fiddles the same way and had the same shoulder rest.

I knew a third part to "High Road to Linton," thanks to my cruise to Alaska with Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser last year, but had forgotten there was actually a fourth.

Later, at the Festival Club, Irish accordion player Alan Kelly (see last week's review) insisted, "there are two parts to 'High Road to Linton'" with a laugh.

I didn't know the fourth part, but on the other hand, the fiddlers there didn't know "Cliffs of Moher," so it all balances out. Perhaps there will someday be a "High Road to Clare."

After the class I appreciated the rest of the week much more intensely.

And at my next seisun, I'll be playing at least one Cape Breton tune.

Gwen Orel runs the blog and podcast New York Irish Arts