Drowsy Maggie Set
Brady Park sits on the east side of Long Island’s Massapequa Preserve, just north of Sunrise Highway, in the village of Massapequa Park. Next to the park, inside the preserve, is one of the preserve’s several lakes. I went there one sunny, windy afternoon for a walk.
For the soundtrack to the video (see link at the bottom), I played two reels: Drowsy Maggie, and Cooley’s Reel, on fiddle, octave mandolin, and bodhrán. I learned these tunes after hearing them played at traditional sessions, and on loads of recordings. My playing of them goes on evolving as I blatantly rip off turns and passages from other, better players. This sort of thievery is bog-standard, even de rigueur in the traditional-music world, and in many other genres besides. We learn from each other through imitation. Along the road, imitations and iterations become variations and evolutions, which keep the music growing. It’s a kind of perfect pseudo-predation that preserves the original and ensures the health of future generations.
The fiery melodies in these reels have taken me some years to approach. I stumble and crash through them sometimes, as if I were running down a curving corridor and someone suddenly shut the lights. But they’re worth the practice. I’ve been slowing them way down lately, practicing with a metronome, trying to recognize each note for the merits of its own personality, and for the role it plays in the tune. Progress comes slowly and at the cost of sustained effort. It’s the only way. “Slowly, slowly, catchy monkey,” as they said when I was small. When the wee bits of progress materialize, I enjoy them all the more because they were hard-earned.
Along the trails around the lake, and in and on the lake itself, a diversity of plant and animal life most assuredly got on with living. Seeing them was instruction for me to go and do likewise.
