File: johnstoneroy06-oh-hisinfluence_M.mp3
Speakers:
RJ – Roy Johnstone
KP – Curator Ken Perlman
KP: What affect do you think [your approach] has had on the younger players?
RJ: I wouldn't really think personally I've had a big influence. It's technological change, social change, all these factors coming in, and there's outside influences coming in. I guess I've been one of them. In the old days nobody would ever have thought of making a living playing the fiddle, although even in the old days a fiddler could make a couple of bucks, playing a dance. It was never considered [that] it was something you could do for a living. I think in that sense, I'm somewhat unique; I'm probably one of the few people on the Island who makes a living playing fiddle. Probably Richard [Wood] might be the only other one that I could think of. Like a lot of people who moved from away I brought different music with me, I brought different training B classical training. Although there are classical players on the Island, there's classical teachers – But they are separated in camps, like the classical players stay in their camp and the fiddlers stay in their camp. I bridged a lot of different camps. That's probably because my approach has been B It's more about what I can do with the instrument, than coming from a tradition. Like the players here, they came – They learned from their uncle or their grandfather. And they played as identical as they could, because if they didn't it wasn't right. And the better you got at it, would be to play it more like somebody who was really recognized as one of the best players. But the influences were still fairly limited within the community. Nowadays, with recordings coming in, people listening to radio stations – Which even happened long back, CJFX coming in from Cape Breton; they'd be startin' to listen to Cape Breton fiddlers, they listened to Don Messer. And I think that's a trend. I'm just part of a whole wave of outside influences. Although I try in my own way to be as true to the tradition as I can. But I'm not from the tradition. I really can't play identical to the way somebody else does. It's pretty near impossible now. So I try to get the sound as appropriate – And also be aware of the rhythmic power of the music and try to get that across.