Scottish Music Concert

 

This morning was very, very cold - my phone said it felt like 10 F outside, so I wore my big white coat and third eye toque. Then things at church were crazy - there were no spots in the parking lot because of a craft fair, so some of us parked along the edge of the parking lot. After that Rich came over and helped us put my new license plates on my car. He did the back one, because there was a piece missing (Travalon had just duct-taped my license plate last year, and it had held all this time), while Travalon put the front one on, and I just stood there yacking at them. Despite the cold weather, all three of us took a walk on Governor's Island. 

Last week at our drumming lesson, the teachers had said we might not have a lesson this week because reasons, so stay tuned. I never heard anything, so I asked my outdoorsy buddy, and she didn't know either, but she lives out of town and didn't want to come all the way in if there was no lesson, so she emailed one of the teachers and found out we did have a lesson. Everyone else must have known, because I swear they were all there plus some people - in fact, the teacher was concerned that we might not have enough straps. Today I found the shin guards, so I had no problem with the big drum they call the surdo, since it could bang against that shin guard all it wanted and it wouldn't bruise my leg. While I was playing that, my FitBit said I was working out on a rowing machine. Then the teacher told us all to switch to another type of drum, so all of us playing surdo went to play the smaller drum, which they call the repique (oddly, the R is pronounced as an H) but online it says it's a repinique. While I was playing that, my FitBit said I was working out on an elliptical trainer. Then we had to switch again, to a drum I have not tried before, the caixa or snare drum. I didn't get credit for a workout while playing that one.

All that drumming must have melted my brain, because this evening I went to a workshop at the music club led by a Scottish band called Cantrip, and despite their teaching us only one tune, very slowly, piece by piece, I was really struggling with it. What up, Brain? How come you can learn tunes on the fly some days, and you can't learn one given to you in baby steps on other days? But it didn't matter, because there were a lot of people with fiddles, and I sat in the back where nobody really heard me messing up. A guy from Moldy Jam and also the Care for Creation team at church was there too, and he played the bass. In fact, there were a number of people there that I knew. Afterwards Cantrip played a concert. Here are a couple of videos.

In this video, the one guy is singing in Scottish Gaelic. I sent this clip to my Irish teacher to see if she could understand any of it, but she said she can't.

Too bad Famie and the red-headed flute player didn't come, because I think they would have really enjoyed it. I also should have told my buddy from the Shamrock Club, who really loves Scottish stuff. (I told the other two, but they weren't interested in the workshop, and I guess they didn't realize you could just go to the concert and not do both.) There were some preteen girls who talked through the first half of the concert sitting right behind me, but then they left. There were also some smaller kids crawling under the chairs. One kept kicking me as he crawled by me, but I don't think he meant to, so I resisted the urge to kick him back. A person doesn't go to a concert expecting to be kicked, am I right? Except maybe at some wild heavy metal concert with a mosh pit, but that's not what this was.

Famous Hat