Great Little Session Last Night!

Hiya, Friends!

Dang, I keep forgetting to take photos of us playing tunes at Old Songs! All right, maybe the photo wouldn't be so exciting (not that you're not all nice looking and everything, especially the bouzouki player), but the music is really nice! Thanks to everyone who showed up, and to those who couldn't be there but wanted to.

Our next session will be Wednesday, December 18 at 7:30 PM. The December Learning Tune is Mrs. Crotty's Hornpipe. (Of course you'll all know it by then so I'll have a surprise hornpipe to go with it. Practice your b flats, folks!)

Once again, we had a small but dedicated group of musicians. We worked our way through tunes we've worked on in September and October. Our learning tune last night was The Shaskeen, a nice reel in G. There are a few changes I need to make to the version that's up in Google Docs. There are a couple of C#s in the A part that I neglected to include, and there are some variations in the B part that need to be adjusted. That should go up soon. In the meantime, you'll still be able to grasp the tune with the sheet music that's up there.

Our tune list from last night:

Eddie Kelly's #1 & #2 (jigs) - OK, I found the sheet music for Eddie Kelly's 1, so print that out if you haven't already. This is such a great set of tunes. I think we have Joe Leathem and Amy Schoch to thank for bringing this set of tunes to the session.
Taims in Arrears / Hardiman the Fiddler / Snowy Path (slip jigs) - we messed around with the order on this a little bit, but I think this order is the final for now
Humours of Glen - this is a sweet little jig introduced by Amy Schoch (Amy strikes again!). I seem to recall hearing the Mulcahy Family play this tune. Anyone else have a recollection of who recorded it?
The Shaskeen (reel) - see the notes above about the tune. We played this for a while and had some in-depth discussion about variations and adjustments. It's such a great tune! I hope we can get this back into the repertoire - thanks to Amy Schoch for suggesting this tune as well.
Friendly Visit / The Honeysuckle (hornpipes) - great tunes, nicely played!
O'Malley Waltz - Sweet tune by Tom "Rabbit" O'Hare.
Knotted Cord (reel) - we went over this nice reel, and explored some differences in endings. I will transcribe the ending that Joe Leathem plays, which he says he learned from Planxty on their first album. He gave a different name for the tune. I'll grab that for you soon!

I wish you all happy tunes and friendly faces! Happy Thanksgiving!

See you in December!

Hilary

p.s. remember the Olde English Pub session on the second Wednesday of the month (7:30 PM), and the Albany CCE (Comhaltas) session on the third Sunday of the month (slow session at 2:30 PM, regular session at 3:30 PM).