Digging in with the Gang

Once again, you remain anonymous...

 We were having so much fun working on our tunes that I forgot to take a photo of you! Thank you so much for coming out to work on the tunes. Welcome to our new friend Charlotte and her mom Jeanmarie! We enjoyed having you there - hope to see you in May!

As to last night's fun? We played Gentle Maiden. I guess I ought to put a sound clip of that up, eh? Then we went over Joe Bane's Barndance. I think we need to pick that one apart a bit. We'll plan on that for next month. Then we went over our set of jigs and our reels (thank you Paul for demonstration the difference between hornpipes and reels!). Patrick sent these YouTube links for the set of jigs: this by Martin Hayes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrwWNP1a42M; and this link I sent you before by the Tulla Ceili Band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO4ETP0il5I

Don't you  think it really  helped to dig deep into Joe Bane's Reel last night? It's such a fun tune, but it doesn't sound anything like it looks on the page, does it?

Even though Gentle Maiden isn't really a new tune to the session repertoire, it's new to almost all of us at the session these days. I'm glad we went over it - if you're curious, you can find the sheet music in the dropbox/google drive folders. We didn't get to our new tunes, so we'll be working on those for next month: the Miller of Dronagh and Anne Walshe's Reel. I'll be posting the sheet music and sound clips later today. 

Speaking of the mysterious Anne Walshe, I did a little more poking around, and I found this about herself: https://thesession.org/discussions/22263. Apparently the tune was recorded on a 1960 Leitrim Ceili Band album that includes Joe Burke on accordion and the amazing Paddy Carty on flute (I'll try to find a clip of Paddy - his playing is just lovely). (https://thesession.org/recordings/3513). Of course, no one has posted the tune yet - I will be doing that over the weekend in the hopes that someone will be able to shed some light on its origins.

Some of you have expressed interest in scheduling an additional monthly session to get together to play tunes and keep the momentum going. I'll be sending out a survey shortly to gather information - join the Email List if you are interested in being a part of the extra session group. And always remember that the Comhaltas Slow Session on the third Sunday is a great option for getting new tunes, having fun playing together and meeting great people. (www.albanycce.com for info.)

Keep on playing the tunes! Enjoy the sunshine! See you soon,

Hilary