People assume that you go to Ireland to study Irish music. But what I found there was so much more diverse. Unfortunately, I can’t remember this guy’s name or how we met, but he plays the Indian vina. You’re hear it and think “sitar,” and it’s in the same family, but it’s a vina. I really do wish I could remember his name. The minidisc is labeled “vina” and that’s it, although I do know it was 2003, because I remember him coming to practice in my room at the Leeside apartments– the room on the top floor that had the slanted ceiling window thing. I’d wake up in the mornings and watch the scrolling slideshow of clouds, rain, seagulls, patches of blue, clouds, rain, seagulls…
Anyway, this was me and the Irishman with the vina practicing for a rare gig (completely unique for me, actually) at an Indian restaurant in Cork City, 2003. All completely improvised.
For at least two of my three years at UCLA, I was a member of the Bulgarian Women’s Choir, aka “Superdevoiche”. (I was also a member of the Anglo American Ensemble, aka “Trailerpark McShank” but that’s another story altogether.) The choir usually had about 14 girls, which included only two Bulgarian speakers, and only one of those was actually Bulgarian at the time. They’re both Bulgarian now. Anyway, we girls would get together every Monday night at 7pm in the big ensemble room in the ethnomusicology wing of the Schoenberg Music Building. We’d circle up, link arms at the elbows, and sing utterly meaningless (to all but two of us) strings of syllables set to some of the most awesome melodies and harmonies you can imagine. We were asked to forget the vocal training we got from the concert choir. We were expected to be able to tap our toes to meters like 7/8 and 11/16. We sang loud, and in minor seconds. We wore all black with a “splash of leopard” to a gig once at a rock club in San Francisco, for extra exotic effect. I remember having to juggle parts around when one of us was out sick. I remember the stress of trying to remember the words. I remember the joy of having a whole room full of people circle up and dance around us while we sang. We had parties, roadtrips, extra rehearsals, all kinds of performances, and a cd recording project. I’ve never before and never since bonded with a large group of girls like this. For the times we stood together and sang together, these girls were my best friends in the whole world.
There’s a certain kind of music girls make when they’re together in groups. It’s kind of like when the starlings invade a single treetop, every branch covered in birds, chattering, squawking, flapping, giggling. The music of girls is laughter, words like “like”, rising/racing voices…and lots of touching. This is a piece of a rehearsal I recorded in May, 2001, in that big ensemble room at UCLA. It’s not perfect, but you can maybe imagine all of us standing in a tight circle, arms linked at the elbow. With special pre-song “girl music”.
Dragana I Slaveya:
This track is off Superdevoiche’s first cd, and was recorded in the organ room just off the courtyard at the music building at UCLA. This particular song was a duet between Lea Hume and myself. We practiced it together over the phone.
In my collection of characters, this has to be one of my favorites. I had traveled to Gainsborough, England, for the 10th anniversary festival of the Friends of American Old Time Music and Dance in February, 2004. We spent the whole weekend in this school building, playing tunes and drinking Newcastle ’round the clock. The most memorable jam for me took place in a tiny closet-type room, but at one point during that jam, I was lured out into the hall by this quite tall, quite hairy man. I’m not sure how we got onto the topic of Scotland, me and this guy, but I suppose in the interest of making pleasant conversation, I mentioned to him that my brother-in-law’s last name was Galbraith. Well off he goes into the big long story (about ten minutes, actually) about the vikings, with heads and tails on their ships…. This whole animated, drunken middle-of-the-night history lesson, with Appalachian old time music as the soundtrack… Both brilliant and bizarre.
This is another recording made at my home at the Red Abbey in Cork City. I think it was recorded on the R.L. Tack dulcimer I brought home from Winfield in 2003. Such a beautiful sound, and I loved it a lot, but I regrettably sold it for rent money… Someday I hope to find that dulcimer again.
This is one from the archives. 2004 sometime, 3 Red Abbey Court, which was the last place I lived in in Cork City. I don’t really remember why I had Edel’s* cardboard mountain dulcimer, and I don’t really remember playing it–much less writing a tune on it–but I have this minidisc in my little treasure box, and it’s labeled “Christie muckin’ about on Edel’s MD”. Other than that, the only clue that this is actually me playing the mountain dulcimer (something I’ve rarely done) is the slowness of it all, and my obvious love for those major seconds. I wish I had a photo of that house to show where this music took place. The kitchen was yellow and had a table in it that folded up into a cutting board. My bedroom was a wild magenta color, and the window framed the church tower outside so poetically that I’ll probably never forget it.
A piece I wrote on Edel’s cardboard mountain dulcimer:
A little meditation on Amazing Grace…
*Edel Sullivan, by the way, isn’t a mountain dulcimer player at all. She’s one of Cork’s best fiddlers!
My first rejection letter. This came from Father Joe Glass at our church, enclosed with the tape he was returning to my mother, informing her of the reasons why he didn’t want to use my recording at Aunt Carol’s funeral mass. Too much of a “tear jerker” he says. I don’t know whose idea it was to have my sister Leslie play this on the piano, have me sing, and then record it all, but I’m SO grateful that such a tape exists. It has to be my earliest musical recording, and what a beautiful document of my four-year-old self!
An interesting sidenote– Tonight I happened to be talking with Gramma on the phone, and she mentioned having spoken recently on the phone with Clara Mae Turner, the woman who sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone” in the movie version of Carousel. Quite a coincidence there! Then again, she also told me about the flowers she received from Julie Andrews… So that’s just Gramma, she’s a high-class kinda gal.
Here’s a photo of Leslie and me, perhaps around the same time of making this recording, getting in on some of the Jersey shore action.
And now for the bonus track, “You Light Up My Life”:
