This last weekend was spent in the lovely countryside of Lake Norman, near Charlotte, NC. I went that direction to attend the yearly meetings of Clan Ross, and the payoff was lovely lovely countryside and lots of tartan and bagpipes.
The Scots assembled, all celebrating their heritage, in different and diverse ways, tossed telephone poles, had high jumps for bales of hay, did discus throws with a lump of metal at the end of a 3 foot broom handle, and danced and piped and drummed, singly and in groups.
And tucked into one of the clan tents, doing their own thing with great glee, was a fiddle band. What fun!! Four fiddles (otherwise known as violins), a guitar, a bodran (flat drum played with a double ended stick), and !! a cello !! In a style of playing that to a classical player seems like controlled anarchy, a tune is announced, and all start - no music, no conductor, and only a 'sort of' leader. Again, what fun!! Violins can play melody or harmony, and embellish the tune as their skill leads; the guitar does chords, and the cello usually does a bass part, though in this very egalitarian ensemble, the cello shifting to the tune means that someone else plays the bass harmonies.
I had a grand time listening to their set of about 15 minutes, and introduced myself when they were done. They were breaking up, so I didn't get to sit in, as I did 2 summers ago when in Belgium... ah well.
However... the fates that watch over cellists missing their instruments were smiling, and as I walked around looking at the other tents, turns out they had gone to their home tent -- and I did sit in. We played "Simple Gifts" - the one tune that I knew, and did it a couple of times, with variations.
The decorations of the tunes remind me of baroque ornamentation - and so that worked well from my bag of tricks, and/but I was/am totally awed by the vast repertoire that sits in their hands and heads --
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