Six musicians sit around a table in comfortable conversation. One of them, a fiddler, sits beneath a fixture shaped like an old-time oil lantern and the weak light from it glows in reflection from her white-blond hair. Soon, a brush-fire of delight is struck, plucked from the strings of a banjo; one by one, fiddles, pipes and flutes are set alight, flaring to life from a dormant joy. The fire shimmers inside a magical bubble, and I sit and watch in exhilaration and wonder.
The musicians gather on Tuesdays to play Irish music in an old Irish bar. They sit on black chairs at a round, brown table in the dining area. Pint glasses of Guinness huddle around the napkin holder, handy to the musicians, who play beneath the hurricane lamp, which does not brighten the room. There is no need for greater light, for the musicians bring no sheets of music, playing from memory and perhaps, the heart. I’ve learned, by listening, that three of the musicians make up the core of the gathering, which has ranged, in my experience, from as little as those three, to as many as six. I rarely intrude on the chemistry of the players, who interact with each other with an easy camaraderie that is both exclusive and inclusive of me. I am there, they know it, yet they are there for each other and the music.
There seems to be no collective agreement among the musicians on the beginning of the music, which starts when someone plucks or bows the strings; the others join in, one by one. The music takes ever larger bites from the banter between the players until the sawing, plucking and blowing fills the room. No song stands alone, but must bleed into another, with the two making a whole. The music often ends in the same way it started, with each musician tailing off until one long note sawed from a rosined bow across a fiddle’s strings brings silence.
I watch the players while I listen to the music. I note the way in which time is kept; some gently tap a toe, while another thumps the floor, hefting leg and foot; someone else lifts and drops a heel, while another keeps an internal time. I watch how the bow is held and drawn across the fiddle’s strings; one player’s third and fourth fingers gently upheld, while another’s curl onto the bow. A man works the Uilleann pipes, muscles moving beneath his work-worn skin, or plays a simple flute, blunt fingers dancing delicately across the holes. I see the shadow of a woman’s hand move under the skin of the hand drum that she thumps with a small stick.
I have been introduced to some of these players, but our interactions at these gatherings are mainly through the music they play. Some — or all — may be professional musicians. The gathering may have a purpose tied to their professions, and I know that if I ask, I will be told. Someone questioned why I had not made that query. The time is like a great soap-bubble, blown and shimmering in the air; I would not puncture it, and I do not want to reach inside the magical workings to determine the source of joy.
So I go on Tuesdays to the old Irish bar, where I have a beer and an Irish whiskey and listen. I was recently honored when a player raised his hand as I left, and acknowledged me as a “benign presence,” a thanks that, in truth, belongs to them for the deliverance of the music at the magical time.