File: macdougallherb06-oh-houseparties_M.mp3
Speakers:
HM – Herb MacDougall
KP – Curator Ken Perlman
HM: We would have what we'd call house parties
KP: At your house?
HM: At our house, yes. So my mother would probably prepare for a day or so: food, prior to that. And Dad would probably kill two or three chickens. There'd be people from our community Bangor and adjoining communities, which would be Morrell East, and Millburn, and Morrell. I know I'd probably be about six years old. And when I'd hear them tuning the fiddle – Now the fiddle players back then that played was Lorne MacKay. Now you probably wouldn't have met Lorne MacKay.
KP: No but I've heard tell of him. He's in Nova Scotia now.
HM: He was one and the other was Alec MacDougall, he'd be a cousin of ours. Either of those fiddlers was usually the fiddlers that played at our B 'Cause they were close by, within half a mile or so. And of course when I'd hear them tunin' the fiddle I'd be just all tingly inside: just excited me just to hear them tune the fiddle in the beginning. Well then of course when they started to play B And there was usually a guitar player, a fiddle and guitar: that was it, pretty well, for music. I would really enjoy, really enjoy that music, and of course they all danced. I had a little comfort zone I guess you'd call it. I would stand on the wood box, and I would just be the height that I could see over the warming oven of our kitchen range.
KP: You're pointing at about four feet there.
HM: Yes, and I could see the entire folks dancing, you see. So it was really an enjoyable time for me, and I suppose that's why I kind of like the violin.
