A New Life: A busy piano tuner trades Dublin's fumes for Lisdoonvarna's future singers, writes Fiona Tyrrell
The secret of life change is to open up to "unexpected sources at unexpected times in your life", according to Lisdoonvarna-based Archie Simpson who abandoned a successful 20-year career as a piano tuner to become a singing coach.
Little did he know when he made the decision in a Friday night traffic jam in Maynooth to abandon Dublin, that within a few years he would be conducting a choir of 75 Co Clare singers at a sell-out concert of Mozart's Requiem in the RDS concert hall in Dublin.
Like most big life changes, the decisions that led Archie to this point in his life came in stages.
The Scottish-born music lover started out as a piano tuner in his 20s. He quickly became a well-known and respected tuner in the music industry, working with the likes of MCD and Dublin's major recording studios.
The on-the-road life of a piano tuner appealed to the outgoing Archie as did the variety of people he met during the job. From having cups of tea in a family cottage in the country to preparing a piano in some of the State's most exclusive venues for top performers, the job was different every day.
After 20 years of Dublin life, however, the discovery of an "old ruin" of a farmhouse prompted a decision to move to Lisdoonvarna, Co Clare and begin the difficult life of commuting to Dublin every week while undertaking a renovation project.
In his spare time in Dublin Archie had decided to fulfil a life-long ambition and began having his voice trained.
"It was nothing serious. I did it for the joy of itself and didn't know where it would end up," he says.
Eventually, the hard route of not only commuting to Dublin from Lisdoonvarna but also driving around Dublin and greater Dublin for work began to take its toll and Archie knew "something had to change".
The breaking point came one Friday night as he battled exhaust fumes on the N4 with an antique bath sticking out the back of his old Volkswagen on the way home to Co Clare. A call came through asking him to turn back and tune a piano for a Daniel O'Donnell concert and Archie decided it was time to say "No".
He took the bold step of telling his corporate clients in Dublin that he was no longer in the business and downsized to just his private residential customers.
At this stage, at the request from friends in Lisdoonvarna, he had started teaching piano and singing to some local children in the area.
"I certainly didn't class myself as any kind of great teacher. I was just sharing with the kids what I had experienced myself."
However, this informal type of teaching changed, following a chance introduction to the work of the Spanish music teacher Eduardo Sanquez, whose innovative teaching technique involves moving sound around the body by the use of defined hand movements. He was very impressed with the technique and the results - particularly with young singers.
Archie began to take his life as a singing coach much more seriously and around the time of his 50th birthday he pulled out of piano tuning altogether and "totally abdicated from Dublin".
"I was elated about the decision but I was also in no doubt that I had to be prepared to take a huge drop in income.
"However, I was prepared to drive an old banger of a car and never had great material aspirations," he says.
Meanwhile, a small community choir, put together for a Christmas recital in 1998, began to grow from an initial group of 20 to a membership of over 70, ranging in age from seven to 65 years.
The choir also became ambitious and eventually undertook the huge task of performing Mozart's Requiem in front of 800 people in Ennistymon Church, Co Clare on Good Friday, 2004.
With the support of building contractor and Clare man Bernard McNamara, the choir, The Lismorahaun Singers, went on to perform the same concert in the RDS in June.
When talking about his music, the choir and particularly his younger students, it's clear how much Archie enjoys watching the talents of singers blossom.
"To watch young people and teenagers grow in confidence in all aspects of their daily life is a great joy. They realise that if they can do this, they can do anything. There is a knock-on effect in all parts of their lives. It's more than just singing, it's about self-expression and finding talents."
Despite a few bouts of nostalgia for his days on the road as a piano tuner, Archie is delighted with his decisions and where they have led him. The excitement of meeting new people has been replaced by the joy of being part of a community and an exciting journey that led people, including himself, to do things they never dreamed they would do.
The fact that so many people feel tied to careers they no longer love and fail to explore their passions is a terrible symptom of modern society, he believes.
Making the move involves a "degree of courage and a degree of calculated risk", he says.
"The secret is to say 'I'm going to do it now' and to trust yourself."