Jon Pope

I found my first Gaelic tunes in the back of my songbook for the clarinet that I took up as a kid. I kept coming back to them because they had this rolling familiarity that encouraged repetition and that bright Gaelic danceability. A friend loaned me a penny whistle and book in the 90’s but it wasn’t until I started learning Gaelic dance with Salem’s Ceili of the Valley group that I really got the desire to learn more. Now I’m starting to memorize some tunes and develop the connection between what I hear and what I play, without so much reliance on the printed scores…. that’s a whole new world!