Dominique Dodge

Mar 11

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My guest today is harper/singer Dominique Dodge. Dominique has a deep love of the music and song traditions of Cape Breton, Ireland, and Scotland and has a passion for melody-driven dance music and responsive, rhythmic accompaniment, as well as for songs, airs, and 18th century harp music. A former Fulbright Scholar, Dominique has an MA from the University of Limerick in Irish Music Performance and a BA Honours in Scottish Music from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow. She is also a dedicated learner of Scottish Gaelic. Dominique has extensive experience in traditional arts education and maintains a busy and vibrant teaching practice. She has been performing, recording and teaching traditional music on both sides of the Atlantic She has a new CD this year all in Scottish Gaelic called, Canan nan Teud, The Language of the Strings. This year also marks Dominique’s fifth year directing the Somerset Folk Harp Festival’s, Youth Harp Program.

While Dominique was living in Cape Breton she lived on a farm and during the pandemic while she can’t tour she is engaging with the land and spending more time farming and out in the wild and working with the land and singing Gaelic songs in the garden. It’s also allowed her to pick up another instrument, the concertina. In our chat we discuss her love of traditional music, community, teaching, and sharing her knowledge to keep the tradition alive. The selections of music in this episode are from Dominique’s newest album which is available for purchase and download on her website.

On her new album:

“I took sets of dance tunes and combined them, just as a fiddler might combine sets of tunes. I do it in a way that’s new and unusual. I play and sing the melody at the same time on the harp and I also accompany. And I brought in some wonderful Cape Breton musicians to do that with me. I’ve got two fiddlers and a percussive dancer and a whole group of singers. And I also included some archival Gaelic songs on that album.”

She spent all of her childhood summers learning traditional music and dance and song in Cape Breton.

On the Scottish Gaelic language:

“The culture and the language were this beautiful foundation and way of being out of which the music and the songs and everything I love, the stories, all of that springs from there. And that those things are very inseparable and very intertwined and also very fragile and very precious.”

Where the album was recorded:

“Part of the sound of Cape Breton music is the wooden houses and the wooden halls and that was actually as much of that character as the musicians and the instruments themselves. I want the sound of an old village dance hall.”

Traditional Musicians:

“Traditional musicians make music live. We make music in real time. And when we do that we’re continually responding to each other and it does come out a little bit different every time. I think sometimes people don’t realize the deeply improvisatory nature of traditional music and that it is so incredibly responsive and it’s responsive within its structures. But, I find that’s like the magic for me and so I wanted that reflected in my album.
Everything that you hear on that album happened in real time with extremely minimal editing if any at all. And the sound that you hear is the sound of the hall.
We had a percussive dancer on the album as well and you cannot get the sound of one of those beautiful old hardwood floors anywhere else….that leather sole on the hardwood is just so beautiful. I was so happy to capture that.”

On the term Lift:

“I love that word lift. I think that’s so important…that’s what gives a character and a life to the music.
We come to music, “for the life and the experience and the resonance and that sort of responsive sense that it brings.

On Being Nervous About Performing:

“Whenever I’m in a position of being on the stage and feeling that, ‘who am I to be here? I’m not good enough for this’, I always just reconnect to the very deep and abiding love I have for the people who have taught me and the people who taught them and all of the hands that have carried and touched the music that I am playing and that I am carrying myself. And that works every time… It makes you realize that with traditional music, it’s not about being the best or the flashiest or the fanciest. It’s about having respect and love and care for what you do and I think that shines through anybody who has a deep love of their music.”

Passing on the Tradition:

“My goal as a musician is to be a tradition bearer. And part of that role is not just to learn, but it’s also to teach and of course it’s to play and to share.”

Music and Community:

“I love the sense of showing people that this music is part of a greater whole. And that it doesn't just exist all by itself…that it is relevant to song and to dance and to music, but more importantly, to community.
I think community is the driving force behind traditions of any kind and what motivates people to be part of them and to carry them.
We don’t just make music all by ourselves in our room. It needs to be shared. It needs to be heard and that circle needs to be completed.”

The Harp Comminity:

“The harp community is wonderful and internationally bound, which I really love.”

The Love of Teaching:

“The awareness that the music I learned from my teachers goes back to their teachers and their teacher’s teachers and through many many hands and that I am a link in that chain and I am passing that forward. And hopefully the hand that I pass it on to will do the same in turn and will carry it."
I really enjoy just being present with a student and responding to what they need in real time…I respond to how they are in that moment and I give them some agency in choosing their music.”