My other class was with Chulrua’s Eamon O’ Leary, a teacher so relaxed he made “laid back” look uptight. O’Leary reminded me of a much better looking and far more together Shane McGowen, disheveled and strangely poetic. He also had a daily vested interest in morning coffee, but with all the late night sessions that took place all over the campus after class and late into the night, that was only to be expected - I couldn’t move in the morning without at least three pints of espresso and I wasn’t teaching.


“I am very much of the belief that there is no right or wrong way on how to do this”, O’Leary explained to his class of would-be- DADGAD players on their first day, talking about technique, tunings, capos, what he jokingly called the “non-committal” nature of modal chords, their value in extempore playing, and how crucial it is as part of the learning process to have a chance to play with other people. In the first lesson, he taught what he called “bare bone” chords, set around the lovely Sally Gardens, as well as discussing the place of guitar in traditional Celtic music.


“If you think about it”, he said, “this is a pretty recent phenomenon, right? First of all Irish music being accompanied at all, and then being accompanied by guitar, and then being accompanied in different tunings. It’s fluid, you know, and we are coming up with new ways to do it - I don’t like to tell people that this is the picking pattern, and this is the chord changes and that’s it, like. You will find your own approach, and a lot of this stuff is going to come down to a question of taste and sensibility.”


As the week progressed he also talked about being “slightly mystified” by some people’s distain for capos, and way people became caught up in the differences between a high energy accompaniment versus a more discreet approach. “I think of this mostly as an accompaniment”, he said, patting his guitar. “It can be a solo instrument, of course, but I think as an accompanist you are really not there to draw attention to yourself, but to become part of a whole. It’s almost like a macho thing to be able to play without a capo - even here people call it a ‘cheater’ or whatever. I don’t believe in this kind of thing, like you are not really playing if you are using the capo. Being able to play out of what we are going to call ‘first position’ is useful, but you are here make music; it’s not


The Living Tradition - Page 24


“…The classroom time is a fraction of the overall experience. It’s very enjoyable, but it is just one component - you are not going to obviously get it in one week, but what you get is the desire to improve…”


a competition. For me it is just part of the instrument, it is part of the sound. You are trying to make something sound beautiful…or at least less awful.”


He laughed with the rest of the class. There is a unique atmosphere to camps like Swannanoa, he explained, and the real learning doesn’t only happen in the classroom – hard work out of the classroom is and always will be essential, but also it is also essential to have fun with music. “It is crucial, absolutely crucial just being kind of steeped in it”, he said. “Being surrounded by people who play, and who play well. The classroom time is a fraction of the overall experience. It’s very enjoyable, but it is just one component - you are not going to obviously get it in one week, but what you get is the desire to improve…they will want to learn. Because you got to do the work on your own, you really do. There are no shortcuts - the work that is really fundamental to the whole process.”


Music lessons weren’t the only thing offered by the Gathering. In accordance with the founding members’ original intentions, other arts were all on offer such as dance, story-telling and special interest classes. One that immediately caught my eye was a lecture by Brian McNeill of the Battlefield Band called, Scottish Myth: The Importance of Exploding it.


As a songwriter Brian McNeill writes angry songs, iconoclastic songs, songs of struggle, and working class pride, infused with a deep distain for hypocrisy in all


its forms, and they give short shrift to any attempts to romanticize history. They are also beautifully lyrical songs, powerfully articulate, and in no way lessened by their lack of sugar coating, a little bit like the man himself. McNeill has built up a lot of presence in his long musical career. He is a writer of books as well as songs, an interpreter of Scotland’s history as well as a commenter on its possible future, a composer as well as a performer, and for six years he was Head of Scottish Music at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. With all that under his belt he dominates a classroom in a way that many school teachers would sell their souls for.


At Swannanoa the theme of his lecture was one that anyone familiar with his songs would recognize. During his class he used these songs to illustrate various key points, songs such as The Yew Tree, No Gods And Precious Few Heroes and Strong Women Rule Us All and he kicked various tourist-friendly historical myths of Scotland - such as that of the heroic “Bonnie Prince Charlie” and Mary Queen of Scots as some kind of fragile martyr – right square in the bahookie, so to speak. John Knox took a bit of a kicking as well, as did the historical authenticity of Clan Tartans, or rather the lack thereof.


“I like a story as much as the next man”, said McNeill. “But when a myth starts to cramp a nation’s sense of self-respect then I think that you have reached a point when something has to be done to challenge that.”


But doesn’t every country need its fiction as well as its facts? Why did he feel it so important to debunk the romantic myths? And what about tourism? What would Nessie do?


“Where to start?” he replied. “There are so many lies propagated by Tourism Scotland, and other various organisations, about what we should think of our history…if there is a special place in hell, it has to be reserved for Bonnie Prince Charlie, the great so-called Scottish hero. He was an awful human being. He was a drunk, he was a wife beater, he was a man who abused trust and friendship wherever he found it, and the Scots made him a hero, because when it comes down to it we are a perverse people.”


But as the talk progressed it became clear that to McNeill Scottish history does have heroes – just not often those that tourists hear of, but rather the everyday people living ordinary lives - even if they are caught up in extraordinary circumstances – and doing so bravely, and with dignity. According to McNeill these people are inspirations, such as a museum attendant at the Newton Grange Mining Museum in Midlothian who showed McNeill, his wife and a boatload of American tourists around and became the muse for Prince Of Darkness.


“The guy who was our guide on the day that we went round, was one of these really small wiry guys”, McNeill told his audience. “Sort of like 300 pounds of compressed steel springs in an orange jumpsuit. He had his miner’s hat on, very knowledgeable, very polite and we were going round with a party of Californians – and they were very nice people. Halfway round this lady taps him on the shoulder and says, ‘Excuse me sir, but what is your clan?’ He just drew himself up and he said, ‘Lady, first of all I am a Lowlander, I don’t have a clan, and secondly I am a working man, and that means I don’t need a clan…I’ve got a union!’ And I have to say that my heart burst with pride because one of the things that they are consistently trying to take away from us over the last 50 years is our right to combine, and to determine our own working conditions.”


The human voice is often cited along with percussive accompaniment as being one of the oldest of the musical instruments. Whether that is true is impossible to prove, but it is


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