Posted by fiddlepogo on Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Going through my preliminary Irish list, there were some that I really like, but they just aren't working yet- most 3 and 4 part tunes, fall into that category. And I've been going through the tunes on Concertina.net and looking up some on thesession.org, looking for likely replacements. I also fired up an old Windows 98 computer that had some lists of tunes I liked and wanted to learn. One of the things I realized is that I require a certain minimum number of tunes to get proficient in a style... I've got about 50 Irish tunes that I'm working on now, and that's enough to keep me from getting bored as I practice them. Too few tunes in a style, like the token Irish tunes I've been doing up to now means I get tired of those tunes and never practice that style. Any improvement in one jig tends to improve them all, and likewise with reels and hornpipes. This is actually the first time in my life that I've been working on a good selection of reels. I'm trying to avoid too many bow-rocking reels; it's weird, I can do the bow-rocking part, and I can do the rest of the reel, but it's hard for me to make the two work together... I tend to fall apart in the transitions. And for another thing, they tend to sound really similar, and I don't want to do too many similar sounding tunes at the St. Paddy's Day gig. Once I get a bit more solid on my Irish tunes, I think I'll try going to the big Irish session for the first time in nearly 5 years! If it gets to be a regular thing, well, I'm sure I'll learn lots more tunes!
Monday I had a volunteer gig- it happened to be St. Valentine's Day.
Two problems... for one thing, I had totally spaced out on working up an appropriate St. Valentines Day setlist and for another, I was really eager to give my better Irish tunes a try in public. Well, I did my best 3 or 4 Irish tunes on fiddle, and they were shaky, but I got through them okay... then, that inspired me to do a couple of Irish songs. One was "Star of the County Down" that is a pretty positive love song, in a way, and then "Goodbye Muirshin Durkin" talks a lot about courting!!! Oh yeah, then I also did "The Lakes of Ponchartrain" where he falls in love, but doesnt' get the girl, yet maintains a positive attitude. Then, once I got rolling on those, I got inspired as to which old country songs met the St. Valentines Day criteria- POSITIVE love songs- no "Your Cheatin' Heart"! And actually, no "Red River Valley" or "Tennessee Waltz" either!! And no Turkey in the Straw or She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain!!!
It was actually kind of nice to have an excuse to leave out the old favorite chestnuts!!!
1 comment on “Attempt at Irish Trad, part IV, and a bit of St. Paddy's on St. Valentines Day!!!!”
mudbug Says:
Thursday, February 17, 2011 @1:43:56 AM
Ahhh, romantic love, the muse of poets and songwriters through the ages. Love lost, love attained and love yearned for but never gained. ........ .still a few millian songs waiting to be written
You must sign into your myHangout account before you can post comments.
Newest Posts
'The Eyes Have It?' 2 days
'What is this?' 3 days
'The Buffalo Song' 5 days
'James Price RIP' 6 days
