An Unlikely Community!

What is community?

I did a search. The Internet is so useful for foolish stuff like that! And I found a lot. In fact, G. Hillery (whoever he or she might be), in an article published in 1955, found no fewer than 94 definitions of community with only one common element: all the definitions deal with people.

I think we can all agree that community, whether it is physical, emotional or spiritual, includes people. In fact, we might all agree that community is something that connects those people together.

I have countless communities that keep me happy, healthy and thriving – and one of the things that I learned listening to Alie Ward’s Ologies podcast https://www.alieward.com/ologies is the importance of social interaction e.g. community in moderating the aging process. My “communities” may be smaller as I get older, but they are still critically important to my life.

My dog walking community consists of the remarkable Lynn Williams and her super-dog Cooper. And of course, Charlotte Winder, and her two agility heroes, Clover and Jem. Then there’s Elizabeth and the most wonderful Ollie. We all understand each other’s challenges and successes when it comes to training, walking or playing with our dogs. And we get strength from one another stories and support. We see each other a few times a month, walk, talk, drink coffee, laugh and do it again.

Cooper and Isla after a romp!

I have my hiking community, also a small one but Marlene, Gisela and Nikki head out with Isla and me on all sorts of adventures. More shared stories, laughter and quite often food (and with Marlene, cribbage!).

But let me tell you about another community which is much different than either of those two – different because though I feel close to everyone in the community, I’ve never actually met any of them in person!

Do you remember Covid? Dumb question, I know, but like childbirth, I’ve been trying to forget it! Regardless, back in Covid, most touring musicians were suddenly without touring opportunities, which had a huge impact on their ability to make a living! Tim Chaisson, a singer/songwriter from PEI who is also a member of The East Pointers, got creative. Initially, he offered Zoom fiddle lessons for students. I have absolutely no idea how I found that out, but before I knew it, I was taking fiddle lessons from Tim every two weeks. That went on for months, and even though we’d never met in person, we’d yak away during the lesson as he’d teach me new tunes.

Then Tim came up with a brilliant idea – The Tune Room. Instead of zoom fiddle lessons, Tim posts video tutorials focusing on tunes from PEI, Cape Breton, wherever, and teaches participants to work on learning melodies by ear, bowing techniques and embellishments, and all sorts of stuff. https://thetuneroom.ca/tim-chaisson/.

Fiddlers from all over the world and with all different levels of expertise signed up. In Tim’s Facebook Tune Room Community there are 82 members. We span the globe from Ontario, PEI, Nova Scotia, Australia, England, New Brunswick, Estonia, and who knows where else! Some have met each other at various music and fiddle events, but I’ve never met a single one of them!

And yet, this is one of my most important communities!

Tim launched a 21 Day Fiddle Challenge a few weeks ago. The challenge, if accepted, was to learn a tune and record yourself – I mean video record, so that includes all the scrinched up faces a person makes when playing an instrument – and then post it in the Facebook site.

I immediately decided to ignore the challenge.

But then, I thought to myself, what do I have to lose? These people don’t know me…I don’t care if they laugh at me. And by participating, it will ensure that I pick up my fiddle every day for at least 21 days, and that’s a good thing. So, a quick change of my mind, and I was in.

Now, posting yourself playing so that other people can see and hear you is intimidating. I’ve been playing for about 15 years, but I am by no means very good. I made sure my first post was a tune I knew well, and didn’t make too many mistakes. Then I sat back, waiting for the criticism.

That word – criticism – it rather makes me shudder. It implies the act of making judgements, and potentially the expression of disapproval. So, when I logged into Facebook to read any comments, I girded my loins, so to speak, and had a look.

All my fear and trepidation was for naught. Each person who commented found something positive to say, and if I recall, I had tears in my eyes on day one! I realized that Tim had truly created a community – a supportive group of people, connected by our love of music, desire to play our instruments more and better, and willingness to risk a bit of ourselves to celebrate in that community.

This group of people even found kind words to say to me when I explained in my video how I’d already recorded a tune but then realized I hadn’t turned my phone around and had actually videoed the back of my music stand! Thankfully, I hadn’t posted the video until I looked at it and realized what I’d done. But I did have to share my lack of techno-prowess with them because I knew they’d all laugh and tell me not to worry!

I am a lucky human to be surrounded, even virtually, by these like-minded people who have formed this unlikely community. And if all goes well, this summer, I’ll get to meet a few of them in person at Tim’s Fiddle Camp in Rollo Bay. And I’ll get to meet Tim in person, and make sure he knows how much this community means to all of us.

We all need communities in this bizarre time we’re in. Hold tight to them, play your instruments, laugh, hike and like I said last week, just breathe!