Arc Attente

Horse hairs strung from the tip to the frog. Turn the screw to the left- it loosens. Turn the screw to the right- it tightens. The tension created by a simple pivot of the silver screw bows the wooden stick straight, straight with a little arch inward towards those horse hairs. Now hold it. A bow hold- your bow hold. They say the fiddle is one of the hardest instruments to master. There are no frets, there are no buttons- no definite answers to the notes you want to play. I always find it interesting looking at the music maker and their art, the relationship with their instrument. How their hands hold and caress their love to make such beautiful sounds, make beautiful music. A fascination between the hands and ears. It's how your drums transposes what is being played by the arms and fingers- vice versa. Trills and thrills, graces and traces- all interact with the melody to shape the song, truthfully. Each fiddler is unique in their own right, simply because of style. 

Dennis McGee, born January 26, 1893, is a class all unto himself. Himself- that's all. A la bal de maison he played. He played fiddle for the dancers, not only waltz' and two-steps, but he played one-steps, polkas, mazurkas, reels, cotillions, and varsoviennes. Old school traditional. Fiddle tunes- fiddle music. And that's what Cajun music was before the 1920's, before the influence of the accordion. The introduction of the bellowed instrument greatly simplified, the now, fiddle part. Not fiddle tunes anymore. There was no need to be intricate, no need to fill the spaces and gaps of silence with drones and notes of the fiddle strings to the extent that was before. The way Dennis McGee played, some would say sloppy, but above all else is something that is not heard of today- modern day. It captures the movement and the evolution, from what once was. He played with Amede Ardoin, Sady Courville and Ernest Fruge, he knew the greatest and was one of the greatest. 96 in 1989, he left. He left behind a legacy that will always stay, it will always be read, it will always be heard, it will always be played and appreciated. 

Over the weekend I was given an album, an album of just Dennis Mcgee- 

Dennis McGee: Himself 

Produced by Valcour Records. It's a series of excerpts from a recording done by Monsieur Gerard Dole using a "Nagra III and a Beyer M 69 N Dynamic microphone in Eunice on Wednesday the twenty-seventh August of 1975." Thirty-three tracks some just a mere twenty-five seconds short, but of such "clarity and energy, in his specific old-time Cajun style..." Sunday morning I scratched at the plastic covering until it gave way, it tore and split to reveal the cardboard case that held the CD. This particular recording of Dennis McGee stayed unpublished until Joel Savoy mastered, produced, and set it free in 2010. I laid it down on my faded denim blue trunk that serves as the coffee table. Picked up my mug and took a sip, my fingers slid under the top of the cover and flattened it out. Took the disc and put it in the stereo, it played. He speaks, he plays, he sings. Nothing but Dennis McGee. I sit back and listen, I listen. I close my eyes, I cross my legs, I sip my black coffee. Mon coeur- my heart aches with love. I can hear him and where his fingers press and what his arm bows. It's clear and prevalent. It's exactly what I need to progress my own style, my own style of playing. 

Merci beaucoup Dennis McGee.