CMT Blog: Archive

If a song is packed with fiddle, banjo and mandolin, does that automatically make it a country song? That's what I used to think. But my 9-year-old daughter is slowly but surely teaching me otherwise. She plays the fiddle, but it's not even the slightest bit country. At all. It's not even bluegrass or Americana fiddle. It's 100 percent Irish.

So even though we have no Irish ancestry, my house is full of reels, slip jigs, jigs, hornpipes and aires. Not exactly the hooky honky-tonk tunes I'm used to. Although I know bluegrass music has its roots in Irish music, I keep trying to listen for anything remotely country in her double-stops, rolls, grace notes, ornaments and vibrato. But in this Irish music, the only bouncy tunes are the jigs and barn dances, which just make me picture Michael Flatley, the Lord of the Dance. And the only songs that come close to the heart-wrenching ballads of country are the marches, which sound a little bit like the intro on Trace Adkins' "Arlington," Rascal Flatts' "What Hurts the Most" or the Dixie Chicks' "Cowboy Take Me Away."

But really, any fiddle is good fiddle, regardless of its roots. And on Sunday, my little fiddler is going to rosin up her bow and head to Ireland to compete in an international Irish music festival called Fleadh. (It's pronounced "flah" and I think it translates to "really competitive fight for the biggest trophy.") So when I think of the Irish blessing about may the road rise up to meet you and may the wind be always at your back, I can't help adding "and may your fiddling blow the adjudicators away."