When Cali Keenan, 8, of Southampton was a toddler her grandmother put a fiddle in her hands and since then, it has found an almost permanent home wedged under her chin, charming audiences and inspiring dancing feet.
Her brother, Campbell, 6, started playing at age 2, too. On many Tuesday evenings you can find them both seated on metal chairs in a Westfield office space with about 16 other fiddlers following their grandmother’s lead as member of The Pioneer Valley Fiddlers. Christine Keenan founded the troupe, which consists of musicians ranging in age from 6 to 76, 25 years ago for fun. The group, which includes family members spanning generations like the Keenans, plays old-timey tunes and timeless classics and performs at fairs and other local events.
“It is sort of uplifting, said Keenan, who is a retired registered nurse. “It is happy music.”
Keenan says she formed the group to share her enjoyment of fiddling.
“When you are learning old-time music it is more fun to have other people to play with,” she said. She put an ad in the newspaper and the musicians quickly came together. They started playing in nursing homes and have performed for weddings and church picnics and have even released a few CDs.
Christine Keenan started learning classical music when she was 10, using an old violin that had belonged to a friend of her parents. Her violin, however, fell by the wayside when she went off to college, but she picked it up again later on, after her two sons were born. It was then she started playing blue grass and old-time music.
She tried to get her boys interested. “I thought it would be good for them to have a musical outlet,” she said. But it didn’t stick. She says Tom Keenan, Cali and Campbell’s father, only plays occasionally, and his brother Jay Keenan rarely does.
But Keenan is happy that her grandchildren have taken to it.
The fiddle isn’t an easy instrument to learn, she says, but it is satisfying when you get it.
“It is little like chewing gum and rubbing your stomach at the same time,” she explained. First, you must learn how to hold the instrument with your chin. Then you begin to learn how to finger the strings while moving the bow at the same time.
Cali and Campbell make this look easy. “They’ve developed muscle memory of using the bow,” she said.
The Pioneer Valley Fiddlers, who meet each Tuesday, tend to find members by word of mouth, but there is also a Facebook page. There are no requirements to join, no cost and all ages and skill levels are welcome. The room where they play is filled with folding chairs and fluorescent lighting. There is a washboard bass and a pair of metal spoons for anyone to play. The fiddlers are accompanied by a guitar player and pianist.
The official start time is 6:30 p.m., but people trickle in throughout the evening, as they did on a recent Tuesday, despite the sweltering heat.
Keenan sat at the front of the room as they unpacked their instruments.
Finally, she said, “Chase me Charlie.”
She looked at her granddaughter, who was sitting next to her brother in the middle of the front row, where the half a dozen other children were also seated. “Ready Cali?” she asked.
Staring straight ahead Cali, along with the others, began to play the lively Irish tune. Her fingers moved easily along the neck of the instrument, as she worked the bow over the strings.
While some of the musicians were reading music, Cali and Campbell were not.
Keenan starts the group off with beginner songs at the start of the night and works into more challenging tunes as the practice goes on, she says, but all are easy enough for them to pick up quickly.
“This is a great group,” said Dawn Day of South Deerfield, who was there watching her 12-year-old daughter, Emily Day. She signed Emily up, she says, and then soon after purchased a fiddle herself.
“Emily is going to teach me,” she said. “This has been a great experience for her.”
Keenan says it is common for parents to get inspired and start learning themselves after bringing in their kids.
“The parents see how much fun it is and they want to get involved, too,” she said.
She’s watched a number of children grow up here, often staying until they go off to college. “People go away and then they come back,” Keenan said.
About half an hour into the fiddle jam, Cali grabbed the spoons, slapping them against her thigh to the rhythm of the song, “Cripple Creek.”
Her father, Tom Keenan, had arrived moments earlier and picked up her fiddle to join in.
Some of the members of the Pioneer Valley Fiddlers have traveled around the state and the country, going to immersive fiddle camps, like The Ashokan Center in New York state, and playing at state fairs.
This summer the group held a concert series at The Historic Summit House in J. A. Skinner State Park in Hadley to celebrate the troupe’s 25th anniversary. The next event on the roster is the Blandford Fair Sept. 2, where the fiddlers will compete against other musicians in the area.
As the recent practice wore on, the fiddlers kept a fast pace through dozens of tunes.
“Fingers tired yet?” Christine Keenan asked, as she grinned and looked out across the room.
“Make sure you all listen to the piano, you are all rushing ahead,” she said when they moved into “Amelia’s Waltz.”
Occasionally, a fiddler fell out of rhythm or produced an awkward squeak, but no one seemed to mind.
This is a low-pressure environment, the point is just to have a pleasant time, Keenan says, and get people on their feet. “If you don’t feel like jumping out of your chair to dance, we are not doing our job.”
Lisa Spear can be reached at Lspear@gazettenet.com