Transitions and Transpositions

Many of you have read that I had fractured my knee at the end of June, and the good news is that I had transitioned from wheelchair to crutches to a cane and now can walk short distances unaided! Woohoo!

There were many other transitions that happened because of the accident:

Two months not playing harp at Stanford’s South Bay Cancer Center

Two months not playing harp and singing at the Assisted Living facilities

Learning new skills like how to take a shower sitting down…  And so on.

But I was able to perform at the end of July with Gaelic Muses with my brace.  People had to cart me around, and arriving with my wheelchair and then moving into a chair to perform was a challenge. It’s rather difficult to muster the energy to play lively Celtic music on fiddle while sitting. I’m much happier on my feet!

Here’s a photo from the morning gig on July 29:

That weekend of three gigs with Gaelic Muses did a lot to lift my spirits!

In the next few weeks I’ll be transitioning again back to playing at the Cancer Center, the Assisted Living facilities, and even more exciting, after 3 years (due to the pandemic) I will be doing bedside music again at Stanford Hospital! The timing is perfect, since it will be at the 11^th week since the accident (12 weeks should see the bone completely healed).

Now, about transpositions, this is more music related. We had been performing a beautiful original song by my bandmate, Lynda MacNeil, for the past year or so, but she was feeling like rearranging it to really give it the impact it should have. She moved the key from Dm to Am – a perfect transposition for my violin parts! All I have to do is move everything up a string and play as I had. 

But as we found, it was not as easy a transposition for our recorder player, who had been playing two recorders during the final verse. What was interesting to learn is that in order for her to play two recorders at once, since she is using only one hand on each recorder, she is limited to which notes can be played on each with only one hand. So, she’ll need to spend a bit of time to figure out alternatives that would work.

Here's a photo of our marvelous recorder player, Alison Kline, playing two recorders:

 

If you want to hear Gaelic Muses live, (and hear the very cool sound of double recorders) we’ll be performing sets throughout the day at the Pleasanton Scottish Games on Sunday (9/3), and then at Wheelhouse of Willow Glen on 9/10, and the Celtic Tea Shoppe on 9/23.

In addition, I’ll be performing sets with the Harpers Hall Ensemble all day at the Games on Saturday, 9/2. I’ll be also be doing a solo set and a duo version of Gaelic Muses (Lynda and me) that day. We found that transposing a few songs will make them work better with me on harp and Lynda on guitar, so yes, a bit more transposing and life is good!

And Harpers Hall has another performance on 9/24 in Saratoga. So, for me life is transitioning back to my usual active life with lots of fun performances coming up!

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