Traditional players connect via new website

A NEW website that seeks to connect traditional players all over the world was recently launched by Dublin musician, Tony Lawless.
The inspiration for www.TradConnect.com came from recognising that the best way to develop playing ability is to play with other musicians and that a significant number of people do not connect up with other people and try to play a few tunes.
The site has been live for four weeks and already has 140 plus, members from all over the world, with many signing up from Clare.
Tony explains, “The site is basically about connecting people and getting them out playing traditional music. Too many are practicing in their bedrooms and don’t get out to sessions. The site will shortly have a Clare Tradconnect group, whereby all Clare people that have registered will be brought together. As Clare is the strongest traditional music county, I will be focusing on it as part of the development of the site.”
“When I bring my children to music classes I meet parents and others who have the ability to play music but yet outside the few tunes they play on class day, they never get together with others. This is a great shame,” he believes.
“Most have attended the local pub session and find that the speed is too fast or they do not know the tunes. With the busy lifestyles that people have these days, they don’t have the time to give to learning pub session tunes,” he says.
Tony believes what is needed is a return to the values of years ago when people called round to houses and played a few tunes. Tony is from a musical family and he immigrated to London in the 1987, where took up learning the fiddle under the great Pete Cooper and in later years with Clare fiddle teacher, Brendan Mulkere.
“I was like dozens of other musicians. I started learning fiddle in my early 30s in London and returned to Dublin in 1995. My children and family took over and the fiddle took a back seat for many years. When I eventually took it up again I was not content with going to the weekly session in the pubs of Dublin. I didn’t know the players or the tunes and often the speed was too fast and this is where the idea for TradConnect came from.
“I started advertising on internet sites to get some players together to play a few tunes and got a huge response from people at all levels. They all had one thing in common and that was the need to connect with other players and start playing music.”
“There is a misconception that you need to be Tommy Peoples or Altan to enjoy music. You don’t. All you need is three people to play nice music. You can play at your own pace and with seven or eight sets of tunes, you nearly have an evening’s entertainment,” he says.
TradConnect aims to connect people living close to each other and encourages people to get together and play music, no matter where they are in the world. By logging on and giving a player’s location, instrument and the level they are at, TradConnect does the rest.
“We have developed a categorisation system from beginner up to professional. When you complete the registration you provide this information. You may have a professional session player looking for an accordion player to join their weekly session,” he explains.
“Once up and running, TradConnect will then notify you of other players at your level in your area and will encourage you to make contact and meet up. It then mostly comes down to making sure that people are in the right location, age group and level of playing. If it doesn’t suit then you can say so. However, if it does suit then you can exchange a few calls and get together,” he concludes.
Apart from this, TradConnect includes a discussion forum, links to other sites and a whole range of specially selected videos. Members can form their own groups and upload videos.