Many Trades: Tom Teasley and "Oresteia Furies Dance"

At age 7 my mom brought me over to Mrs. Cleary's house. Mrs. Cleary was our neighbor just behind and to the north of our property, and she was a piano teacher. I had been enrolled in piano lessons. I spent the next 8 years having weekly lessons with her, and then practicing in the cold back room of our house on an upright piano my parents had purchased. Scales and various songs. Often my fingers were so cold that I couldn't make them work properly. Of course, over many years, I got some proficiency at the piano, but it was all with sheet music. As I got older, I watched friends join bands and learn to play by ear without music, improvising from the songs they heard, and I wished I could do that. At 15, Mrs. Cleary felt I had outgrown her, so I started taking piano lessons with a man named Tyler about 10 miles south of my home. He was a concert pianist, and much more demanding, and I soon realized that my heart wasn't into the work it would take to become a better piano player that could put on concerts. Tyler sensed, and challenged me one day, and that was the last day I had a piano lesson.

I also joined both my junior high and high school bands, moving through a variety of instruments. I played bass drum, baritone saxophone, tenor saxophone, and one tough year, bassoon in concert band. I could hold my own, but again, I lacked the desire to become really good at these instruments, and once high school was over I drifted away from music. In my mid-twenties, I took a stab at piano again because I rented a place with a piano in it, but after I left that living situation my only contact with a piano was in various, random places where one would happen to be. I've lost a good deal of my piano skills since.

My last attempt with a musical instrument was with the Irish tin whistle. I became a fan of Irish music while living in Milwaukee, and I picked up a tin whistle while traveling in Ireland and began to learn how to play it. The problem for me with the tin whistle is all the flourishes - the little notes between the major notes that give Irish whistle playing its unique style. I still don't know how to do the flourishes very well, and so I have not been able to become a champion whistle player.

As I look at today's selection, Oresteia Furies Dance by Tom Teasley, I'm amazed that someone could take the time to learn so many instruments. Tom Teasley is a multi-instrumental performer who uses instruments from around the world to cross cultural boundaries in his solo performances. I've heard the term "Jack of all trades, master of none," but to my untrained ear it sounds like Tom Teasley knows what he's doing with the instruments. Perhaps he just intuitively understands them, or perhaps he doesn't know how to play them at all but simply gets the sound that he wants out of them. Even if he doesn't know them, the sounds he gets out of them are pretty good and better than I would be able to do if you put an instrument in my hand, especially the hanging thing with the bow.

As well as being a multi-instrumentalist, Tom Teasley is a State Department cultural envoy, and has given performances with indigenous musicians in various venues around the world. He also shares his experiences in speaking engagements. He has performed with an eclectic set of visual and performing artists, including Nick Cave, and at art museums around the world. The Percussive Arts Society International Convention broke tradition three times to feature his presentations. "Oresteia Furies Dance" is from his 2012 release All the World's a Stage.