How I Stumbled Into the Music - And... How Did You?

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:43:32 +0000

I get this question asked of me a lot...

"How is it that some guy living in Greeley, Colorado turned into this prolific Irish Traditional Flute, Tin Whistle & Bodhrán player... I'm mean... C'Mon... you're not even really Irish!"

I often respond with... "Well, does that mean you have be German to play Bach!?"

So, most of my friends, folks who come into the shop and students know this story but I just realized the other day that I've never told all of you the story - so here it goes...

My wife Deborah and I moved here to Greeley, Colorado in the spring of 2001 for me to take the job of Music Director at a new Presbyterian church plant called "St. Patrick" ( www.saintpatrickpc.org ). We hadn't yet started services so I was spending most of my days planning and getting to know Greeley better. One day, while driving, I heard this local band Siucra ( www.siucra.net ) play live in studio on the local college / NPR affiliate station and was FLOORED! I think that my impression of Irish music before was the more commercial variety and had not yet heard the more "pure drop" traditional stuff. At that moment I was hooked! The crazy thing is that I lived in Boston for 4 years while attending Berklee College of Music studying guitar and somehow never crossed paths with the traditional Irish music scene. I think that if I had I would have never moved!

So, that night Deborah and I headed to Ft. Collins to hear them play. Siucra was a trio made up of Matt Heaton on Guitar & Vocals, Shannon Heaton on Irish Flute, Tin Whistle & Vocals and Beth Leachman on Bodhrán and Vocals. I don't remember all the details of the show but I do remember being fixated on Shannon's whistle & flute playing. I had never even seen an Irish flute before nor had I seen a tin whistle played so masterfully. Being mainly a guitar player, I had no real woodwind experience at that point but I was hooked and thought to myself - "That's the coolest thing ever!" So after the show, I introduced myself to Shannon and asked her more about how to get into the music. As she and Matt were just about to move to Boston, she gave me some names of folks who played the music in the area and where the sessions were as well as some websites that had tunes up that I could learn and such.

So, having that sort of obsessive personality and being fueled with this new found passion for Irish traditional music, I got online and started learning a bunch of tunes - jig and reels and such. After I had learned about 10 tunes, I headed down to a pub in Denver where Shannon mentioned they had a session every Sunday night. One of the guys that played there was David Migoya who some of you may know. David is a fantastic Irish flute player whose playing has been featured on the CD: Irish Flute Obsession Volume 3. I'd have to say that David was instrumental in helping me get into the music as well.

After a couple years of playing the tin whistle I started to play the Irish flute and after a year or two of that got this crazy idea to go to the University of Limerick where they have the Irish Wold Academy of Music & Dance. There they have a masters program in Irish Traditional Music Performance. I think I had been working for the church for about 5 years or so and was in need of some time to focus back on being a musician solely. Also, Deborah and I were thinking that having kids would be in our near future so taking the opportunity before that to go study abroad seemed like a good choice. So I put together an audition recording and waited to hear back....... and got in! Deborah and I somehow figured out all the details-like how the heck we were going to afford to do this and getting an interim to fill my spot at the church and so on.

The rest I suppose is history. Sometime I'll have to recall our time in Ireland with you all. These days I'm enjoying being a father (came home with a "souvenir" from Ireland... we found out we were expecting our daughter Erin the week that we returned) working for the church, running Whistle & Drum and teaching the Irish flute, tin whistle & bodhrán to anyone who's willing!

It's a personal work in progress but you might be interested in checking out my own personal website at www.blaynechastain.com There I'm working on developing a training library for the tin whistle & Irish flute. The direct address for that is: http://www.blaynechastain.com/i-teach. I'm also working on putting up all the hymns that I've composed as well as some of my arrangements of traditional hymns for download (mp3s, sheet music and such) at http://www.blaynechastain.com/page/hymns-re-written

By the way, how did you get into Irish music? Share your story by posting a comment below!

Hope this finds you well,

Blayne Chastain
Irish Traditional Musician & Founder
Whistle & Drum
www.WhistleAndDrum.com

A Nice Interview with the Heatons

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:33:34 +0000

Fate and Shannon Heaton are to blame for me finding my musical home within Irish Traditional Music. It all started when one day I was driving in my car, listening to KUNC, our local NPR affiliate / university station and Matt & Shannon did a "live - in studio" appearance. I was so taken by Shannon's flute & whistle playing, I called Deb and told her that we had to go hear this Irish band I just heard on the radio... (The band being Siucra, which Matt & Shannon were a part of) They were on KUNC to promote a show they were doing in Ft. Collins later that night... Anyway... The rest is history. I just checked out their new (to me) website mattandshannonheaton.com and stumbled upon this delightful video interview with them... Click here to check it out. You might brew a cup of your favorite vice as it's fairly lengthy... Enjoy!

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How I Stumbled Into the Music - And... How Did You?

A Nice Interview with the Heatons