Paul Fackler's Musical Web Site

About Me

I started playing the fiddle in New England when I was 17 and have played traditional and neo-traditional music for contra dances in Maine, Minnesota and in the southeast U.S. I play a mix of mostly Northern (New England, French Canadian, Irish-American) tunes with some Southern Appalachian tunes thrown in for good measure. In 1998 I traveled for the first time to Cape Breton and have since been learning the Cape Breton repertoire and style (see tune collections below). The Cape Breton repertoire is great both for listening and dancing and forms the backbone of the tunes I play with my wife Marilyn in our band Skylark. In 2004 I formed Kylebrack, an Irish band with flutist Alison Arnold (and now with guitarist Don Lively) to play the lovely, lyrical music of the Irish counties of Galway and Clare, widely considered to be the center of flute and fiddle duo playing. In my non-musical life, I work for NC State University doing mathematical and computational modeling in economics and finance.

Kylebrack in Wilmington	On the porch at Camp Sertoma (a few years ago)

For more information contact me at: paul_fackler@ncsu.edu

Bands

Contradition – with Tim Smith (piano, flute & concertina) and Don Lively (guitar & mandolin)
Contradition is hard-driving, good-time contra dance band. For bookings, contact me at paul_fackler@ncsu.edu

Skylark – with Marilyn Hartman (piano)
Skylark is both a concert and dance band with an eclectic repertoire from Cape Breton as well as Ireland, Quebec & New England. We also play many of my compositions. Visit our website for schedules, booking information and sound samples.

Kylebrack – with Alison Arnold (flute) and Don Lively (guitar)
Kylebrack specialized in Irish music, especially the lyric music of East Galway and Clare. We took our name from a town in East Galway, Ireland, that was home to many fine musicians, including a number of noted flute players associated with the Ballinakill Traditional Players. Visit our website for schedules, booking information and sound samples.

Tune Collections

A Cape Breton Collection:
A collection of 201 tunes played in Cape Breton that I've transcribed mostly from currently available recordings.
Table of contents
The Tunes
ABCs

The Fackler Collection: a tune book containing original compositions of mine, including "The Pleasures of Home", "Beyond Our Reach" and "The Mabou Harbour Reel."
Updated 8/15/2001 - Contains new tunes including Marilyn's Waltz and Kinnon Beaton's Reel.

The Stanley MacNeil Collection: four tunes by Stanley MacNeil, a wonderful mouth organ and fiddle player from Mabou, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

Tune for Therese – an MP3 file of a tune composed for Therese Fitzgerald.