Family Affair

ROB ADAMS catches up with one half of the Vass twins musical duo

MIKE VASS IS extolling the virtues of playing in a duo with his twin sister, Ali. With just a fiddle and a keyboard involved, transportation is no problem. They’ve been making music together “forever,” so they have a good understanding.

And the downside? “Well, Ali likes to be right all the time and she’s just that little bit older, so she pulls rank. Often,” says Mike in a tone of mock long suffering. “But the main thing is, I really enjoy playing with her.”

Those who have caught the Vass twins live will have concluded that the feeling is mutual. There’s a spark between the pair, a sense of one encouraging the other, driving each other to creative heights and revelling in the music they make, that communicates strongly to an audience.

It’s now half their lifetimes ago since Mike and Ali made their live debut as a duo. They were eleven years old and were given a platform at their mother’s aunt’s Golden Wedding anniversary.

“We played for about thirty or forty minutes, which is quite a lot for eleven year olds,” says Mike. “But we practised for weeks beforehand. It was quite a big thing for us.”

Bigger things weren’t so far off. Three years later, in 1998, and by this time joined by their younger sister and brother, the Vasses supported banjo wizz Alison Brown’s group at Celtic Connections, receiving lavish critical praise in the process.

“We actually played quite a bit as a quartet until the other two lost interest and got into other things,” says Mike.

People like songs – it’s easier to communicate with an audience through songs, especially story songs

Mike and Ali, being twins, were always close, and sometimes close rivals. Born in Inverness, they lived in Durness and then spent three years in Duns, in the Borders, before their father’s work as a primary school headmaster took them to Nairn.

By this time they’d had their first musical falling out. At the age of six they both started playing piano.

“It was more of a miniature keyboard,” Mike remembers. “But Ali was better than me within about two weeks, so that was the end of music for me until, a couple of years later, I got a violin. Our uncle had played violin with the orchestra of Scottish Opera and I thought that was quite cool, so he was my inspiration.”

Classical violin lessons at school were quickly supplemented by learning Scottish tunes at home and with fiddle tuition from Ian Hardie of Jock Tamson’s Bairns, another inspiration, Mike began competing successfully at various music festivals including the National Mod. Between the ages of eleven and fourteen, he won two Mod gold medals and was voted Most Promising Musician at Oban Music Festival.

He also played with the Highland Region Youth Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, and went on to teach fiddle at Balnain House, the former centre for traditional music in Inverness. More recently he has been kept busy tutoring for Feis Rois’s primary school initiative.

Meanwhile, Ali had continued on piano, had won the Best Instrumentalist title at Inverness Music Festival, and was heading for Newcastle University, where she’s now completing a Masters degree on the traditional music course.

“Ali’s busy at Newcastle until September but once she’s finished there, we plan to really make a go of the duo,” says Mike. “We’re at a stage where we don’t have enough work to say no to other offers. So we’ll both be doing other stuff – for instance, Ali will be working with Shona Mooney, who won the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year 2006 title later this year. But we’re both committed to the duo and are hoping to make a CD later this year too.”

One of the things Mike most enjoys about the duo is the space both musicians get to express themselves.

“The fiddle’s a very expressive instrument, I think, certainly compared to, say, fretted instruments, and you can get a lot more out of a tune on the fiddle,” he says. “So although I don’t consider myself ready to be the main focus all of the time, I get to mess around with the tune quite a bit, which you can’t really do in a bigger group.

“I enjoy playing in bigger groups, too – Ali and I did the Young Scottish Traditional Musician of the Year tour for the finalists last November and December, and it was great to play with all these guys. But I hear a lot of groups where everyone’s playing too much and I’ve played in a few bands where people who aren’t used to the idea get really offended if you ask them to sit out for half a tune.

“Ali’s a really responsive player and knows when to hold back, although she’s pretty much unlimited in what she plays and she can really knock out a tune on the keyboard too. So we share the focus and that seems to work with us.”

Both siblings contribute ideas about what they’re going to play. Mike, since he’s had more time over the past few years, finds most of the tunes, and Ali, whose singing is gaining in confidence, is the song source.

“We both have to like something before we’ll work on it, and once we’ve decided to go ahead with a tune, we’ll play around with it until we find a way of playing it that’s fun or just sounds good with just the two of us,” says Mike.

Although there are no plans to expand the line-up, they are likely to expand their repertoire to include more songs. Mike has taken up guitar over the past year so that Ali can concentrate on singing and make more of her voice without having to worry about the accompaniment.

“People like songs – it’s easier to communicate with an audience through songs, especially story songs,” says Mike, “and you have to be pretty special to hold people’s attention for an hour by playing solely instrumental music.”

Mike and Ali Vass play at Glenurquhart Public Hall on 17 March.

© Rob Adams, 2006