How it’s New York: Brian Conway is one of the New York area’s premiere fiddle instructors and players
How it’s Irish: Brian plays the Sligo method, and has coached all-Ireland champions!
The Brian Conway Fiddle Method is more than a tune book: it’s an approach to playing tunes. I studied with Brian for awhile, both at Catskills Irish Arts Week and then over Zoom and in person, and hope to again some day. When I head this book was coming out I was enormously excited!
Brian studied with the legendary Michael Coleman, and has won the All-Ireland junior twice, and senior once. Another legendary fiddler, Martin Wynne, and then Andy McGann, honed Brian’s playing and he’s become one of the leading lights in Irish music both in America and in the auld country. Among his students that have won the All-Ireland arePatrick Mangan, Maeve Flanagan, Haley Richardson, and Andrew Caden.
You might not aspire to winning the All-Ireland, or even competing in it, but that does not mean you cannot learn from Brian. Not only does he offer lessons on Skype, but this year he put out a book that explains his fiddle method.
His pupil Marilyn Stangl did the transcriptions of tune: but, as they both emphasize, it is not a tunebook.
Those of us who play know the drill.
Fiddle books tend to come in two shapes: tunebooks with no bowings or indications, not very helpful for someone switching to Irish music from another tradition, or books that start with the idea that the fiddle itself is new to you and begin by showing you how to hold the fiddle. (How those books then escalate to complex renderings of tunes is something I’ll never quite grasp.) A few try to do both, such as Matt Cranitch’s terrific book.
But Brian’s is something new: a book that yes, has many tunes– each presented in two ways, one simple (unmarked), and one with suggested phrasing. And the book explains why he does what he does. Marilyn Stangle, Brian’s adult pupil, did the transcriptions and edited.
“Marilyn is one of the best adult students I’ve ever had,” Brian says. She has been his pupil since 2011. These days, he says, their lessons are maintenance and repertoire– something we can all aspire to. “Everybody needs a coach, no matter how good you get,” Marilyn says.
They had the idea of making the book after Marilyn had transcribed many of the tunes he plays at Portal Irish Music Week, a camp that started in 2010 in SouthEastern Arizona, on the border of New Mexico. The book has interviews with founders of the week, and how it began (Spoiler: there isn’t a huge Irish population there.) This year the camp will be held Sept. 20-25, five days around a weekend.
One of the unusual elements of Irish music camps in the states is how many middle-aged and older beginners there are. “We make neurons in our brain our whole lives,” Marilyn says. “You just have to want to do it.” It’s easier if you’ve played an instrument as a child, even if you’ve put it down, but it’s still possible. The classes at Portal Irish week are full of serious students, Brian says.
But if you can’t take a long weekend in September to study with Brian, the book will whet your appetite.
Among the topics:
- How to practice
- Ornamentation
And, of course, the tunes themselves.
“It’s a book for everybody,” Brian says. With regard to bowing, there might be more than one provided: it’s less about doing it the way Brian says to do it than about understanding the phrasing and what bowing will bring out that phrase. His students are following a system– so bowing may look the same, but it is not the same. Fingering is also done with a system, he explains.
Because many teachers want their students to have their own style, they do not always explain how they make their sounds. “It’s about what makes a tune sound Irish, and all the components that go into it,” Brian says. So a tune does not come out sounding like a jig written by, say Dvorak.
The tunes are also in the book without bowing, for those who play other instruments. But the bowings can be helpful to see how the phrasing works, Brian adds. Dan Neely helped with providing some of the background to the tunes, and many others helped as well, Brian says.
This book is one that should be on your shelf if you love Irish music: up there with Matt Cranitch’s book and one to consult as you pick up tunes from YouTube.
To order the book:
Email Marilyn Stangl at mstangl711@gmail.com with your name and address.
She will send you a PayPal invoice that you can pay with your PayPal account, your credit card, or your debit card.
The invoice will be for $30 plus shipping.
