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| Transcript from Peter Browne's interview with Todd Denman on
"Sounds Traditional" broadcast on RTE 1 (Ireland) August 21, 1997.
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Peter Browne:
Two reels there, the Templehouse and Tommy People's, played
on the pipes and on the fiddle by Todd Denman and Dale Russ
from a new record called REEDS and ROSIN. Now both of those
musicians live in the United States of America, but at the
moment Todd Denman is in Ireland and is going to talk to
us a bit about himself and the music and the new record.
You're based in the USA, Todd, where?
Todd Denman:
San Francisco, California. And I've been there for about
six years. Prior to that I was in Switzerland, prior to
that I was up in Washington State, near Seattle.
Peter Browne:
And where were you born?
Todd Denman:
I was born in Idaho, actually. (laughs) And my father was
in University [there] and went off to Boston University
after that, so we were on the east coast very early and
then we were in Germany for a year - all of this happened
in my first five or six years - and then we settled in a
small town in Ohio where I grew up and that's where I was
first exposed to Irish music, actually, on the local student
radio station. Some students had come over [to Ireland]
and bought the Gael-Linn recordings and were back playing
them on the student radio station and it fascinated me and
I knew immediately that I wanted to play the pipes. And
I had no idea there was any Irish connection in my family,
at that time, I just fell in love with the music and it
was only later when I pressed my parents for a little information
I found out there was some Irish background.
Peter Browne:
What is that?
Todd Denman:
My mother's side, her father, her father's family, was
from the North of Ireland.
Peter Browne:
Why did you take up the pipes, as opposed to any other
instrument?
Todd Denman:
It's hard to say. It just caught my ear, and my heart,
really. It went very deep. It was one of those moments where
your life changes right before your eyes. Even though I
had no idea what the pipes looked like, or how one played
them, I was simply enraptured by the sound and I never expected
to play professionally, I never expected even to play competently,
I thought I would just do it as a hobby. And I'm sure my
friends would be [heard] in the background now saying, well
I'm still doing it as a hobby, (laughs) and that's where
I belong! That's fine with me too.
Peter Browne:
How long were you playing before you managed to come to
Ireland for the first time?
Todd Denman:
I'd only been playing two years. I came over in '82 and
I'd just received a grant from the National Endowment for
the Arts to study piping with Denis Brooks, who now lives
in Cork. And at the time he was in Seattle, and was a very
charismatic figure. He's the one who actually started the
San Francisco Pipers Club in 1975 in San Francisco and there
were about twenty or thirty members, even back then. And
then he moved to Seattle in 1980 and started a Seattle branch.
And that coincided with my decision to learn the pipes and
I met him - and I actually got my first set through the
mail, didn't know how to put it together, didn't even know
it was bellows-blown, didn't know anything about it, I'd
never even physically seen a piper or a set of pipes, and
luckily about six months after that I met Denis. (laughs)
Peter Browne:
If you hadn't met him, it would be nearly an impossible
thing I suppose, for someone to learn just in a vacuum where
there was no access to any other piper?
Todd Denman:
Right. I did manage in those first six months to get, you
know, a dozen tunes off of some recordings and I was already
playing the tin whistle because I couldn't get a set of
pipes initially, [so] I settled for the tin whistle, which
turned out to be a good, you know, sort of start, a tutor
almost, or training experience. And I transferred what I
was doing on the whistle straight to the pipes, and had
figured out the mechanics of the pipes enough that I could
actually play, more or less correctly, and then I met Denis
and you know, my horizon just expanded like crazy. So I
was able to actually do it. And there are still Americans
in different parts of the country who are totally isolated,
have never seen a piper, except perhaps on Riverdance or
something, on the video, and are managing to get off the
ground just a bit. But we're trying, there's been a movement
in the States for some time now, to at least through newsletters,
and now with the internet, to connect with other pipers
so that everyone has access to the same resources and information
and help with reeds and so on.
Peter Browne:
When you did come to Ireland then, was it a big help to
your learning?
Todd Denman:
Ah, a huge help. It's quite a story. I landed in Wexford.
I just came to Ireland with a vague idea that I was going
to come and learn what the music was like first-hand. And
hopefully meet a few pipers. And I knew about the Willie
Clancy Summer School, but I didn't actually know what time
of year it was (held). And I happened to arrive in the middle
of that week (but didn't know). And I had no money, so I
was thumbing from Wexford kind of aimlessly into the country,
and about my second or third lift, the fellow was listening
to the radio and Pat Sky was being interviewed and they
were talking about the Willie Week, and the driver turns
to me and he says, "That's where you should be headed, boy!"
(laughs) So I thumbed straight out to Clare and arrived
by sunset. And I'll never forget, I stepped out of the car,
and I walked down the main street and I saw people carrying
uilleann pipes across the street, I saw someone playing
there on the curb, and you know, in the first thirty seconds
I saw more uilleann pipers than I'd ever seen in my whole
life. (Peter laughs)
Peter Browne:
You must have been in shock!
Todd Denman:
I was. Totally! (Peter laughs) And it was a fabulous, fabulous
week. And not only that, I walked halfway down the street
and then I heard my name called out, "Todd!" And it was
Peter Heelan, a friend of mine from San Francisco who plays
pipes, originally from Dublin. He was there, he invited
me in, gave me my first pint in Ireland, and invited me
into his class the next morning, which was being taught
by Joe McLaughlin, from Derry, a great, great player. And
that experience with Joe also blew my mind, because he's
a very fast, very tight, very syncopated, very ornamented
player, and a bit like Robbie Hannan.
Peter Browne:
I was going to ask you that. You mentioned Joe McLaughlin
there, and Robbie Hannan. What are the main pipers that
you admire?
Todd Denman:
Stylistically, I like the tight, flat set players as well
as the more open players like Denis Brooks, who plays in
the mixed, sort of gentle open Leo Rowsome style with the
regulators. At times I've favoured one over the other. But
in recent years my appreciation is wide open for the whole
spectrum.
Peter Browne:
This new record we heard a track from there a moment ago,
Reeds and Rosin, it's yourself and Dale Russ who plays the
fiddle. Tell me something about him.
Todd Denman:
Dale is a very fine fiddle player from Seattle. We were
in college together at Evergreen State College in Olympia,
Washington and he was my first, direct musical connection.
He taught me my first tunes. So he was a big influence on
me [and my playing] early on...
[Note: Dale is a highly regarded traditional fiddle player
by people like Kevin Burke and Martin Hayes and his fiddle
playing was influenced by the piping of Séamus Ennis.
–from the review by Larry Hill,
Fiddler Magazine]
Peter Browne:
OK. We're going to hear a couple of tunes now, again. REEDS
and ROSIN is the name of this. These are the Holly Bush
and Come West Along the Road. Tell me something about them.
Todd Denman:
The Holly Bush is a very nice tune. I got it from an unknown
piper who I recorded on the streets of Milltown about seven
years ago. I've forgotten who, hadn't written it down, so
don't know who it was. Come West Along the Road I got from
Dale.
Music begins...
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