website is www.larryunger.net.    Please email requests larry@larryunger.net

~~~~~~~~

 ...and, for a taste of the long lost art of waltzing, a Zydeco Waltz lesson
taught by Bonnie Mitchell and Jim Bird

 Lesson, 2-3 pm:  the scandalous, Zydeco Waltz,
    Jim Bird and Bonnie Mitchell  

 INFO:  Primary Atlanta contact:  Amanda, 770-499-0142 or Jay, 404-210-4604
                           Or, backup, Sid at 706.539.2485 or email:   Sunday Waltzing

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

''If you could dance with the days of your life,
 if you could take life by the wrist and dance,
I think it would be a waltz.
Forward and back, sad and happy, high and low.''
from John Patrick Shanley's new play ''Sailor's Song,''

About Larry Unger....


Larry Unger has been a full time musician since 1984, and has presented a diverse range of musical performances at contra dances, Scottish dances, waltzes, dance weekends, dance camps, festivals, and concerts all across the United States and in Canada, France, Scotland, Denmark, and Sweden. He's one of the busiest musicians around, playing for more than 150 dances every year.

He has played guitar, banjo, and bass with many top bands for contra dances including Reckless Abandon, Uncle Gizmo, Big Table, and the Reckless Ramblers. He has also accompanied such fiddlers as Elke Baker, Rodney Miller, Alisdair Fraser, Matt Glaser, Ralph Blizard, and Lissa Schneckenburger to name a few. The bands Larry has been a part of might vary in style from Oldtime to New England to Celtic, but they are all lively groups with exciting rhythms and an emphasis on fun. They might also play some of Larry's many original fiddle tunes.

Larry has written more than 600 fiddle tunes and waltzes, many of which have been recorded by one of his bands or by other bands. His tunes are widely played at contra dances everywhere. He has published 2 books of original tunes, as well as one CD of original waltzes (with Ginny Snowe), another CD with the contra dance band Uncle Gizmo, and a brand new CD with the Reckless Ramblers.

Besides playing for contra, waltz, swing, or Scottish dances, Larry also gives solo concerts which include a wide variety of music including fingerstyle blues and slide guitar, rags, oldtime banjo tunes, original waltzes and fiddle tunes, as well as melodies played on a handful of unusual instruments like banjo guitar, fretless banjo, and piano harp. He has a great breadth of understanding of traditional music to complement his considerable technical proficiency on stringed instruments, and enjoys telling the stories about the origins of his music and the people who taught him.

Larry has spent countless hours playing blues with Etta Baker, John Jackson, Turner Foddrell, Ted Bogan, and other masters of the style as well as playing at numerous sessions at old time fiddle conventions in the south. He has even played for Bill and Hillary Clinton!

Unger teaches guitar and oldtime banjo at the Music Emporium in Lexington, Massachusetts. (He has also been known to teach bass or ukelele lessons.) He also gives workshops at camps and weekend festivals on a variety of topics from guitar and banjo, to dance band workshops and tune writing workshops.


" First-rate guitar and banjo player.."
--Wakefield Daily Times

" guitar genius "
--Sing Out

" the undisputed Zamphyr of the piano harp "
--Boston Herald


Larry Unger
5 Sandy Pond Road
Lincoln, MA 01773

phone: 781-259-4484
e-mail: larry@larryunger.net
website: http://www.larryunger.net

About Jim Bird....LCSW, BCD

webpage •  www.members.aol.com/jameshbird/webpage/
                                                                                                                  404-262-1819

 Musings, March ‘04
 

Musings allows me to share thoughts and ideas on a periodic basis. Please call or write me if you have any concerns or questions, and, of course, let me know if you do not want to receive these postings in the future.

I am an avid dancer. Discovering this passion and putting the effort into helping it flourish has brought more wholeness and confidence into my life. I’ve also loved teaching dance for the past several years.

I’ve been wanting to write about this subject for some time, but always stopped short when I reminded myself that dancing, in the strictest sense, is not for everyone. But dance in a broader sense and dance as a metaphor applies universally. Dancing is about moving in the moment through space with grace and integrity, about flowing in harmony with internal or external rhythms, voices, moods, lyrics. It’s about living in the present. It’s an attitude, an approach to life that leads to moving with intention and measured breath. Dance is a form of meditation which can be practiced while alone in our homes, on a special dance floor, or walking across a parking lot.

As an instructor, I pay attention to the dancer’s “frame,” his/her way of holding the body while dancing alone, with a partner, or in a group. Dancers are encouraged to carry their own weight which means using their muscles and tendons to keep them “up” and in charge of their energy. This means they will remain upright if a partner suddenly pulls away. Dancers must learn both to cooperate and to resist, simultaneously. Of course, these frame principles are equally true for committed love relationships.

Dancing life means using our spirits creatively to become artists. According to Jacques D’Amboise, the famous ballet dancer, dancing is “your pulse, it’s your heartbeat, it’s your breathing. It’s the rhythms of your life. It’s the expression in time and movement of happiness and joy and sadness and energy.” According to Gerry Spence, the lawyer,  “The way people move is their autobiography in motion.” We can all begin, at this moment in movement, to write our autobiographies with more intent, carrying our own weight with more cooperation and more resistance.

 

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 a romantic fable about a dreamy seaman grappling with the mysteries of love, death and destiny.