As you know, I am not an accompanist, and I am generally reluctant to put chords on the music. Also, I've been giving out spots and not ABC for the most part. We found out tonight that Nancy has been gathering chords for the music, not just for our session but for a wide range of genres that she plays. It turns out that Paul has been taking her information and creating ABC files and turning them into PDFs.
This is great news for those who don't learn by reading music or who want to work on accompaniment but aren't sure what the chords are. A huge thanks goes to Nancy and Paul for gathering the materials. Also to Gary, Nancy and Paul for seemingly always having sheet music to everything.
Here's what we worked on: Miller of Droghan, Joe Bane's Schottische (or Barndance as we have it), Anne Walshe's Reel, our Jig set (Hole in the Hedge/Seamus Cooley's/Kerfunten), Gentle Maiden waltz, the polkas from last year (Egan's-Kerry Polka/Maids of Ardagh/Knocknaboul #2 - 3 part), and a new/old set of reels (Silver Spear/Merry Blacksmith/Sally Garden).
There was a lot of discussion tonight, which is always enjoyable. Folks talking about chords, approaches to accompaniment, discussion different tunes, etc. After we played our sets, we discussed the tunes that we are going to learn/work on for this summer. We also discussed meeting at John's house during the summer. The schedule has to be finalized, so we will release dates and information shortly.
We also got feedback that a second monthly slow session at John's would be welcome. John is checking to see if the scheduling works. Perhaps it will be on a different day of the week? That will be determined and the second monthly session date will begin in the fall.
OK, now for the fun part...TUNES! Here's what we've picked for our summer learning list:
Jigs: Carraroe (also called The Portrowe by Martin Mulvihill) followed by Rambling Pitchfork
also Butcher's March and Moloney's Wife
Reels: Imelda Roland's/Gregg's Pipes
Slow Tune: Lord Inchiquin
Tune sheets, ABCs and sound files to go up soon.
By the way, if folks are interested in gathering somewhere for a slow session down in East Durham, the Wednesday would be a great day to do it - Pauline Conneely is holding a CD launch party down there somewhere on the Wednesday evening, and I'm hoping to get to it. Perhaps Colleen O'Sullivan would be interested in co-hosting a slow session that evening at The Rose Motel and we could do a potluck or something and all go the concert together.
Thanks very much for a lovely evening, everybody! I'm looking forward to next month already.
Cheers,
Hilary
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