About Sean
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Pipers of North America: Sean Folsom
By Scott Williams, Celtic Heritage October/November 1995
When
I first began to research prominent North American Pipers for my series
of articles, I expected to confine my efforts to the study of those whose
names have become household words in piping circles for their victories
at prestigious solo competitions, their work with the world's best pipe
bands , or for their contributions through teaching and composing. To
this end, I made contact with more than a dozen pipers from across the
continent who met one or more of these requirements. The first two articles
in the series (Ken Eller, June/July 1995 and Jim MacGillivray, August/September
1995) have been positively received and I fully expected to continue in
the same vein with pipers of similar world stature.
Imagine my surprise when, in response to my request for input from internet-surfing pipers with whom I have been in contact, Sean Folsom's name was put forward by a number of people from sunny California. His name had a familiar ring to it, though he has never won a Gold Medal at Oban or Inverness, and he's never led a Grade 1 pipe band to victory at at Maxville or Bellehouston. He has, however, recorded with Van Morrison on Beautiful Vision (1982), which was featured in the sound track of an award-winning motion picture (Northern Lights, 1980, winner of Best New Picture, Cannes Film Festival), and he recorded a popular Highland Bagpipe version of "Louie, Louie" with drummer Ron Wilson of "Wipeout' fame in 1987. Needless to say, I was intrigued by this man and wanted to find out more about him.
Sean Folsom was born in Berkeley, California, in 1949. There was no piping in his background, but his father had been passing through Edinburgh in 1944 on hi way to Patton's 3rd Army in the South of England and had been deeply moved by a parade of massed pipe bands there. Later, in 1955, Sean was to experience tha same 'shivers up the spine' when he heard the US 6th Army Pipe Band perform in Oakland.
The family moved to Carmel Valley in 1956 where Sean's music teacher informed his parents that their son had no musical talent. By the time Sean returned for a concert in 1989, however, his list of performance credits was along as his arm and he was already receiving as much as $3000 plus expenses from Fortune 500 executives for whom he plays at corporate meetings.
As a youngster, Sean was enthralled by music and he has gone on to make it his life's work. "To know any culture," says Sean, " is to know its music. In school, they teach geography with a lot of names, statistics, dates and history, but if you think about it, the unique genius of any given people goes into their music, poetry and dance."
Sean completed high school in 1967, followed by two years in the college and two years in the Academy of Music in Monterey, where he was tutored in clarinet by Francesco Lucido. He discovered he had an aptitude to teach himself to play different instruments and in this way he learned to play oboe, flute, guitar, and saxophone in Baroque music, jazz and rock.
"The bagpipe was the first instrument I couldn't just pick up and play. I'd listen to records and listen to how they'd tune the drones," Folsom states. "Later, when I got on with the bagpipes, my jazz and rock friends thought I was nuts - totally square." Sean agrees that the best way to learn any instrument is with proper and concentrated tuition, but failing that, he suggests that you can make use of audio recordings, video tapes, meeting with pipers living or tutoring in your area, or by travelling to places where pipes are still played in remote villages. He, in fact, has done all of these things in his own pursuit of his music.
Sean has listed himself as a profession musician since he was 18, and his ability to play many instruments has provided him with opportunities to perform, record, give lectures,and hold workshops at folk music events across the United States, and Canada and even Europe.
"I am an auto dydact," he says, which means he is self-taught. "I bought a used set of Scots pipes for $100 form an instrument collector named Steve Litchfield in in September of 1970, and bought recordings and music books at Donald Shaw Ramsay's Scottish Import in San Francisco.
I went home to Sonora where I was isolated from pipers and bands and I taught myself to play. My first tunes were 'Scotland the Brave' and the 'Skye Boat Song.' Later, I moved back to Monterey and was able to hear pipes played by the Salinas Valley Pipe Band, but I never joined up."
By this time, Sean's interest in bagpipes had expanded to include Northumbrian Small Pipes and Irish Uillean Pipes. He acquired a copy of Antony Baine's Bagpipes, published in Oxford. "It might as well have been a Sears and Roebuck catalogue for its affect on me," says Sean, who, over the next two decades, managed to collect more than 30 of the sets of bagpipes illustrated in Baine's book. Mere possession of these instruments was not the point, however. Sean set about learning to play them all - his "herd of goats" as he calls them, since most of the Eastern European ones have bags made of goatskin.
Sean sent me a copy of his demonstration video on which he plays many of his instruments. On one Arabic set, he plays Amazing Grace in the Islamic scale. On another Chinese instrument he plays the American folk tune Oh, Suzanna. He sings an Irish Gaelic folk song while accompanying himself on a bellows-blown set of Irish pipes. His collection includes bagpipes from Poland, Hungary, Ireland, Scotland, England,Spain, Italy, Tunisia, Bulgaria, Greece, Croatia and Turkey, to name only a few of the countries. "Not all bagpipes are Scottish, and not all bagpipes are loud. Some produce a refined drawing-room style of music."
As any player of the Great Highland Bagpipe will tell you, bagpipe maintenance requires much time and effort. Reeds need frequent manipulation to set them up and even require adjustments during performances to retain the quality of sound the piper wants to produce. Imagine trying to keep over 30 sets of pipes in working order! Sean has had to add reed making to his list of skills for it can be nearly impossible to obtain reeds for such a wide variety of instruments. "Becoming a reed maker has been the key to having a working collection," he says.
In 1982, Sean recorded the Holy Well album with a folk group called Sheila na Gig. He played Uillean pipes, tin whistle, medieval Irish Pipes, Irish cruit (Welsh crwth), Northumbrian half-long pipes, pibcorn, gaita Gallega, hurdy gurdy and the conch trumpet. Sheila na Gig also performed in a series of lecture/concerts in conjunction with the "Treasures of Irish Art" exhibition in which they wore 16th century Irish costumes.
Sean also performed with another folk group called Arundo Donax (Latin for "big reed"), and is writing a book on bagpipes which includes their folklore, mythology and technology. "Pipes have existed for at least 5000 years," he says on his video, as he produces two hollow cane stalks into which holes had been bored. "This is the aulos," he continues, "the precursor of the modern-day pipes. It was played by the ancient Greeks." He placed the instrument into his mouth and blew. It sounded uncannily like a bagpipe, with a continuous voice, though it did not have a bag attached to act as the reservoir of air needed to keep the reeds vibrating. "The trick to playing it, " he says, "is to use circular breathing to produce a constant flow of air."
Circular breathing is quite tricky and very few pipers have been able to master it. You draw air in through your nostrils and as you blow it out through the reed you puff out your cheeks. When it is necessary to draw the next breath, you slowly tighten the cheek muscles to expel the stored air out through the reed while breathe in through the nose. Some Highland pipers use the technique when playing on the practice chanter.
About 2000 years ago people hit on the idea of using a goatskin bag to act as a reservoir of air for the pipes. Drones, such as the two tenors and bass used in the Great Highland Bagpipes, came later. The oldest set of pipes in Sean's collection was made by Irish immigrants George and Billy Taylor of Philadelphia in the 1890's, for use on the vaudeville stage. "These pipes are not a museum piece," he says, "I play them just as I do all the others."
And play them, he does! He delights his listeners with a tour of civilization as represented by the musical instruments of more than 30 countries. A musician extraordinare, a joyous entertainer, a superb musicologist with a flair for the dramatic (he performs in traditional ethnic costumes and speaks or sings in their languages), a music historian, the perfect musical tour guide, Sean Folsom shares his eclectic collection as part of a cultural musical taste testing that excites the imagination. This self-styled World Minstrel serves up his music with a sense of humor that pleases audiences everywhere he performs.
Time, place for bagpipes in Carmel
by John DeSantis, Monterey County Herald, October 10, 1999
It
is the nature of music festivals to attract musicians, whose nature inclines
them to make music even at unscheduled times
and places.
In some places this is seen as a boon for business. In New Orleans, for example, the Jazz and Heritage Festival results in people playing everything from drums to trombones popping up in one club or another, treating patrons to impromptu demonstrations of their skills. Similar - though less raucous behavior - is common during Monterey's blues fest and similar events. Proof of this could be found Friday night at Jack London's, where an accomplished musician and musicologist named Sean Folsom gathers with other folks on the eve of his scheduled festival appearance.
Folsom is a droll and easygoing fellow, originally from Carmel Valley, who now lives in Fort Bragg. During his life, he has amassed a collection of hundreds of ancient instruments. They include an Egyptian flute, and Italian bagpipe with a business end so big you could slay a moose with it, and furry German bagpipes with horns on them, suitable for playing or wearing a costume in one of the Ring Cycle operas.
Wearing a different hat for nearly every country his eclectic collection represents, Folsom kept the spellbound for two hours, young and old alike, and when his show was finished,he put on another, more intimate show for the people who got there late.
Folsom's show was a revelation for anyone who has ever been annoyed by the Great Highland Bagpipes, which can certainly be shrill and are not to everyone's taste. But there was proof in this show that there is a bagpipe for everyone.
Folsom knows each of these instruments intimately. Quirks and shortcomings, strengths and benefits.
In
full noon sunlight at the Sunset Center courtyard, the music of the ages
belongs to the people who had the good sense to attend and the even better
sense to bring their children, presented by a man whose joy comes through
sharing it all. The music inspires - if only for a moment - full appreciation
of how the skirl of pipes once served a
noble rebel use, and thoughts of an impromptu bagpipe parade through
all of the restaurants and hallowed avenues of Carmel.