Learning to Love the Accordion

There is a phrase I never thought I would write. But life is funny and after spending a couple hours last night with an Irish band that included two accordions (one piano, one button) I've developed a greater appreciation for the most maligned of instruments. I'm still not a fan of the polka (the music most often associated with an accordion) but in Irish music the sound can be awfully sweet.

I'm being offered a slow musical education. One of my knitting friends, Lee, has a husband who plays in an Irish band. We've had our knitting nights correspond with their jam sessions a couple of times but last night was one of the few times where it's really been just Lee and I (and her husband and Jeff). We knit for an hour or two at the coffee shop before the musicians arrived and then settled in to knit and listen to some music. Lee sat next to me and pointed out all the instruments. I learned how different tippers make different sounds on a bodhran. I learned how an accordion can sound exactly like a harmonica. I learned how there are accordions with make different noises on expansion or contraction. And I learned that the sound of a lone fiddle can produce one of the sweetest, saddest sounds known to man. In short, I had a fantastic time.

The group is made up of whoever wants to come. Last night there were two fiddle players, a guitar player, two accordion players (one who's a local politician), a dulcimer/harmonica player, a bodhran/whistle player, and Lee's husband Connor who is a mandolin player. I got introduced to most of the musician and then just sat back and listened while Lee and the other wife there explained the pieces played and how the instruments worked. Most of the time one player would just start a tune while the rest quickly joined in. Lee's husband was the only one reading music, while the rest played by ear. It was clear that they were having a good time and playing for the sheer enjoyment of it. One of the fiddle players is just learning the songs and spent most of the night either kidding or being kidded about her slower playing. She seemed to have a blast. At the end of the night she wowed all of us with a rendition of Niel Gow's Lament For the Death of His Second Wife (a very nice rendition here with some wonderful images of Scotland) which left the musicians and the listeners speechless.

My plan had been to leave at 9:30 after about an hour of playing. Jeff headed off about that time and I thought about it. I haven't been to bed before 11 in well over a week. But I stayed. I simply couldn't pull myself away. I stayed until the musicians began to put away their instruments and I still wasn't tired. Home by 11 and in bed shortly afterwards. I'm a bit tired today but it was worth it. I'll be heading back for the next jam session. I've always loved Irish music and I'm slowly learning to love the accordion.

Thinking about Drinking

Today I'm thinking about coffee. Not surprising, of course, since most days I think about coffee. I have a serious coffee addiction. But the issue for today is less on the actual drink and more on the atmosphere that it is imbibed in. I am a coffeehouse person. I love the feeling and setting of a good coffeehouse. I feel at home there. I can trace each stage of my life to the different coffeehouses I have been in. I fell in love with a city ones based entirely on its coffeehouses. My older sister is a bar person. And this distinction interests me.

A couple years ago I read Tom Standage's excellent book "The History of the World in Six Glasses". This fascinating book told the entire history of the world through beverages. It includes most of history of the human race starting with the brewing of beer by the Mesopotamians, wine in Greek and Roman time, spirits that brought about a new world, the proliferation of coffeehouses, the tea trade, all the way down to the creation of soda. But it was the section on coffee that fascinated me the most. Standage says that the history of coffee can be linked to some of the greatest innovations and scientific advances of our lives. The rise of the coffeehouse was linked with the exchange of ideas, philosophies, and advances.

One of the things that Standage says is that the coffeehouses were so popular because of their differentiation from the bars. And I have to say that bar people and coffeehouse people are very different types of people. I can see that in my own life. It's New Years Eve and there is no way you'll catch me out at the bars. It is just not my place. I go to bars occasionally but I am never at home there. I just never really feel comfortable. The bars are too social, too loud, and too unpredictable for me. They are places for extroverts and pleasure seekers. They are retreats of night owls where no work will ever get done. Coffeehouses on the other hand are all about industry. Alcohol is a depressant. Coffee is a stimulant. Coffeehouses are all about work and ideas and caffeine-induced writing. :-) They are about productivity and introversion.

I am a morning person, an introvert, and in some instances, a workaholic. People will tell you that I am boring, and it is probably true in their eyes. I am happier reading a book or writing a story, then drinking and playing pool. My older sister had a big influence on me when I was growing up. For a long time I wanted to be her. She was all about going out to the bars and meeting tons of people. She always seems to have way more friends than I do and have more fun than I do. I always thought that was what I wanted. That I was supposed to be like that. It is only in the last couple years that I have realized that I don't want to be her. Not that she doesn't have a great life...but that I'm not like her. She is a bar person...I am a coffeehouse person.

So tonight I am going out to dinner with my husband and a friend. Then we will go back to my house to open a bottle of wine and knit. I'll make some coffee and we'll sit and chat. And that sounds like a great New Years Eve for me. I won't be out at the bars. Call it boring but for the first time in my life, I know where I want to be.