My First Real Session Experience

There are so many things I could say about this particular picture. This is a picture of the first session at Wind on the Bay, an Irish Traditional Flute Festival in Rhode Island. In the middle you see two guys playing timber flutes, on the right Skip Healy (the guy who made my trad flute) and on the left of him John Skelton (an INCREDIBLE traditional Irish flute player). About an hour after I arrived in Rhode Island, Skip informed me that my father had bought me a fife (actually, one of the best fifes on the market), but if I wanted he would take the money for the fife (about half the cost of an irish flute) and give me an exquisite Irish flute and let me pay off the rest in installments. My old flute professor said that I went tharn (except possibly without the whole fear thing). Later that night I decided to take the flute, but I had brought both my old traditional flute and, what was to be, my new traditional flute. I was about to start playing a tune that I new, when John Skelton started to look for a flute (skip was repairing his). I offered him the new one Skip had made me, but instead he took the older flute I owned. Imagine Jimi Hendrix playing your old scrap guitar. Imagine the AMAZING sounds that would come out. John Skelton made similar sounds out of what I considered a piece of plywood with holes in it. This picture reminds me of the first time I was completely drunk with the tradition, the first time I was really and truly able to bury my head in the sound. It's an incredible memory.