Rag Week Approaches

I think this is the first time in the history of the world that I have not had class every single day of the five day work week--I'm seriously reveling in it.

This morning, I woke up on the early side (not by my own choice) to meet the two girls from my fiddle class, Tovah and Amy, so that we can swap tunes. This semester's fiddle class is being run a little differently from last, where I would just come in to learn tunes. Instead (because Amy and Tovah have far more experience in the fiddle area than I), we've decided to bring in tunes for Connie to help us ornament. To facilitate this (and to make sure that everyone knows the tunes we're going to be working on), we're going to meet at least once a week to swap tunes. This morning, we went over a Kerry Polka (one I learned from Connie before I joined their class), a reel titled 'Gravel Walk' (from Amy), and 'The Silver Spider' (from Tovah).

Tovah and I have also agreed to do a set with some international students (Amy, Emanuele, and Sean) which will be recorded on Tuesday next and broadcast on RTE 1. Our set will comprise of 'Twelve Pins', 'Gravel Walk', and some other reel yet to be determined. Next week at UCC is 'Rag Week', which is apparently much like Northwestern's Dillo Day (with the obvious difference that UCC's festivities last an entire week). Most students don't go to class, drink 24/7, and go to all sorts of events planned by the different student groups. Because Amy is on the board of the Traditional Music Society (TradSoc), I'll most likely be attending the Monday night session at the Spailpin Fanach and possibly the Ceili up at the pub on campus.

February also marks the coming of UCC's TradFest, run by TradSoc (are you surprised?). Tommie Cunniffe will be playing, in addition to Beoga. I'm most excited for the Ceili that will be run the Wednesday of that week--I do so love a good Ceili.

After my meeting with Tovah and Amy, I came back to try and work on my paper for Mel's class that's due Friday next. Unfortunately, I was so tired, I conked out at the desk, only to move back to bed until around 2 PM. Brunch (didn't eat much before I left for fiddle swap) was beans and toast--Lauren left a ton of food in her cabinet that we're trying to get rid of so Karin, the new flatmate, actually has a place to put her own food.

(Obviously, I'm procrastinating working on the paper at this point.)

I started my study of Arab music yesterday--it's a seriously complex topic, made even more confusing by the vocabulary used to talk about it. Luckily for me, I have a friend who takes Arabic helping with the language and pronunciation aspect of the course. It's very interesting how closely related so many folk musics are, even before globalization really started to effect world music as a genre.

Turkish music is coming up a lot in the readings, maybe I'll just have to make a trip out to visit Gabe in Istanbul to hear it in person, hey?