![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Plain folk
Jan. 12th, 2006 03:35 amOne of my Christmas presents from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
adfamiliares was a pair of tickets to a live broadcast of Dancing on the Air, Jay Ungar's folk music show on NPR. (Jay is an astonishingly good fiddler, and the composer of Ashokan Farewell, among many other things.) Tonight we went, braving dense fog to reach a little auditorium in Albany. It used to be a bank; the vault doors were visible behind the stage.
We arrived in time for the sound check. As 8:06 approached, we were instructed on how and when to clap, and then the red ON AIR light went on, and we were off. There were, ostensibly, four bands there, but since the interrelationships between them looked like a small chunk of the SWIL incest web such distinctions are more or less meaningless; suffice it that the music was folksy and aw-thennic and full of ass-kickery.adfamiliares was excited by Peter Davis's cover of Dylan's Winterlude, to which a few couples danced on the little dance floor that gives the show its name, though presumably the listening audience derived little benefit from them. Me, I was particularly taken with George Wilson, an approaching-elderly player of the fiddle, stomper of the floor, and wielder of a dry wit; the Bernstein-Bard Trio I could take or leave, leaning toward "leave," mostly because of their song choices—though I enjoyed watching the very tall fellow curl himself around a tiny mandolin to play it. All of the musicians clearly loved to play, said love being expressed via an idiosyncratic expression on each face: closed eyes, wobbling head, dreamy grin (toothy or close-lipped). For the closing number, a rousing reel medley, there were eleven musicians onstage, and they blew the doors open.
It was particularly nice to see three really good guitarists playing, at various times, and playing the very music I myself often play. I picked up tips just by watching, and felt inspiration buzzing in my fingertips. I needed something like that tonight.
You can listen to archives of the show at the link I provided above. It looks like they're two months behind, so you can't yet hear what we did, but you're sure to find some good tunes, if you like that sort of thing.
adfamiliares was a pair of tickets to a live broadcast of Dancing on the Air, Jay Ungar's folk music show on NPR. (Jay is an astonishingly good fiddler, and the composer of Ashokan Farewell, among many other things.) Tonight we went, braving dense fog to reach a little auditorium in Albany. It used to be a bank; the vault doors were visible behind the stage.We arrived in time for the sound check. As 8:06 approached, we were instructed on how and when to clap, and then the red ON AIR light went on, and we were off. There were, ostensibly, four bands there, but since the interrelationships between them looked like a small chunk of the SWIL incest web such distinctions are more or less meaningless; suffice it that the music was folksy and aw-thennic and full of ass-kickery.
adfamiliares was excited by Peter Davis's cover of Dylan's Winterlude, to which a few couples danced on the little dance floor that gives the show its name, though presumably the listening audience derived little benefit from them. Me, I was particularly taken with George Wilson, an approaching-elderly player of the fiddle, stomper of the floor, and wielder of a dry wit; the Bernstein-Bard Trio I could take or leave, leaning toward "leave," mostly because of their song choices—though I enjoyed watching the very tall fellow curl himself around a tiny mandolin to play it. All of the musicians clearly loved to play, said love being expressed via an idiosyncratic expression on each face: closed eyes, wobbling head, dreamy grin (toothy or close-lipped). For the closing number, a rousing reel medley, there were eleven musicians onstage, and they blew the doors open.It was particularly nice to see three really good guitarists playing, at various times, and playing the very music I myself often play. I picked up tips just by watching, and felt inspiration buzzing in my fingertips. I needed something like that tonight.
You can listen to archives of the show at the link I provided above. It looks like they're two months behind, so you can't yet hear what we did, but you're sure to find some good tunes, if you like that sort of thing.
