Hiya, Friends! What a spring and summer I had. All is well and I'm ready to start up with tunes and fun with you all.
Each month, we'll focus on a couple of tunes that are either classics the world around or are being played locally at sessions (or both). Once we firm up the repertoire this week, the tunes for the season will be posted. Sets will be adjusted as we go, because we're going to find out what people like and don't like and how best to arrange the tunes.
This season's dates are:
September 18
October 16
November 20
December 18
All evenings are from 7:30 - 9:00 pm. We may be downstairs or up, depending on what classes are being held in the building this fall. Tonight we are upstairs.
We'll start tonight at 7:30 with tunes from last year's repertoire and some new tunes from Amy Schoch's Thursday night medium session. Bring a recording device to capture tunes you don't know yet. Bring your tune lists.
If we have new people, tonight's Learning Tunes will be:
Moon Coin Jig - jig
The Flax in Bloom - reel
Taims in Arrears - slip jig
If everyone knows the above tunes,then here's tonight's list of tunes to get us started:
Friendly Visit/Honeysuckle (hornpipes)
Garrett Barry's/East of Glendart/Behind the Haystack (Munster Buttermilk) (jigs)
Trip to Birmingham/Torn Jacket/Earl's Chair (reels)
The Butterfly/Snowy Path (slip jigs)
Christie Barry's 1 & 2 (jigs)
Belles of Tipperary/Limerick Lasses (reels)
The Cameronian/The Shaskeen (reels)
Off to California/The Harvest Home (hornpipes)
and we'll fill in tunes as we go around the circle.
See you tonight at Old Songs!
Hilary
The Old Songs Irish Slow Session
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Slow Session on Hiatus til Fall 2013
Hey, Gang,
Sorry for the short notice, but due to personal reasons, I'm going to postpone the Slow Session until the fall of this year. I hope you'll take the opportunity to listen to lots of great live music as well as play some yourself.
Check out the Old Songs website for information about this summer's Old Songs Festival (www.OldSongs.org). I'm really excited that fiddler Oisin Mac Diarmada and accordionist Seamus Begley will be at the festival this year! This is a not-to-be-missed duo of high energy and consummate talent and skill. Besides, they're really nice guys. Go have some tunes with them!
And I hope you've got The Catskills Irish Arts Week on your schedule as well (www.catskillsirishartsweek.org) for this July. Our own Tom Wadsworth is involved, and there will be plenty of great people and music!
If you're interested in playing Irish music on a more regular basis - or getting your feet wet with a friendly group - consider joining Amy Schoch and friends on Thursday evenings for a house gathering of learning new tunes, practicing old ones, and getting sets together. You can reach Amy at amyschoch@me.com.
I wish you all the best for a fantastic summer and hope to see you again in the fall, if not sooner!
All the Best,
Hilary
Sorry for the short notice, but due to personal reasons, I'm going to postpone the Slow Session until the fall of this year. I hope you'll take the opportunity to listen to lots of great live music as well as play some yourself.
Check out the Old Songs website for information about this summer's Old Songs Festival (www.OldSongs.org). I'm really excited that fiddler Oisin Mac Diarmada and accordionist Seamus Begley will be at the festival this year! This is a not-to-be-missed duo of high energy and consummate talent and skill. Besides, they're really nice guys. Go have some tunes with them!
And I hope you've got The Catskills Irish Arts Week on your schedule as well (www.catskillsirishartsweek.org) for this July. Our own Tom Wadsworth is involved, and there will be plenty of great people and music!
If you're interested in playing Irish music on a more regular basis - or getting your feet wet with a friendly group - consider joining Amy Schoch and friends on Thursday evenings for a house gathering of learning new tunes, practicing old ones, and getting sets together. You can reach Amy at amyschoch@me.com.
I wish you all the best for a fantastic summer and hope to see you again in the fall, if not sooner!
All the Best,
Hilary
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
April Slow Session Cancelled
The Wednesday, April 17 session has been cancelled due to a family issue. We hope to see you in May!
All the best,
Hilary
All the best,
Hilary
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Thinking about tunes...
Hiya, gang! What a great session last night! Sorry for any confusion -
I forgot that the Blogger posts take a day to go out, so please nobody
show up at Old Songs tonight looking for tunes! :-)
We had a great old chat about bands to listen to when you're first starting out playing the music (this is a post for another day), and we also talked about a tune that was on our list from last month: The Old Bush. I have a CD of uilleann piper Willie Clancy's music, and on the first CD in the set, there's a lovely rendition of The Old Bush. In contrast, I have a lovely CD by my friend Pat O'Connor, The Humours of Derrybeha, that features a gorgeous track of Sporting Moll and The Old Bush. Pat's version is the closest to what I hear played around this area these days. I encourage you to buy the CDs, but if you want to hear the contrast between the two versions, you can listen here:
Willie Clancy - The Old Bush is listed as the third track, and if you roll your cursor just to the left of the number, a little play arrow icon will show up. Click it and you can hear a sample.
Pat O'Connor - This version is a bit smoother and less piper-y (for obvious reasons). It's very obviously the same tune, but the pacing and the phrasing is a little different.
I want to give a shout out to Colleen O'Sullivan's Comhaltas Slow Session! Clayton mentioned that you guys had played Eddie Kelly's #2 on Sunday. Joe and Amy remembered it and played it along with Eddie Kelly's #1 for us. Then Clayton dug out the sheet music for #2 and we played that a bunch of times. What a great tune! We're going to work on Eddie Kelly's #1 for next month.
After a bit of a delay (the photocopier was being cranky), we finally got around to playing Tonra's jig (dmix)/Anthony Frawley's (gmaj)/Kerfunten (dmaj); Shoe the Donkey (thank you Gary Mehlum for straightening me out on how to play the b part!), and Fermoy Lasses/Sporting Paddy. We had some nice discussion about tunes and a few variations, and made plans for next month.
Regarding The Kerfunten, I understand from notes on TheSession.org that the tune was composed by flute player Hammy Hamilton, who apparently wrote the tune in G, not D. Anyway, I originally learned it in D, and it just fit the set well in that key, so....we're just gonna do it that way for now. You can access both versions on the Tunes page. It just seemed right to mention the composer and the proper key, out of respect for the man and his wonderful music.
On the list for April 17*
Jigs: Eddie Kelly's #1 and #2
Polkas: As I Went Out on the Ice and Forde's Polka
Reels: Crooked Road to Dublin and Man of the House
Gary Mehlum will be giving us a Scandinavian Schottische, and I'll be digging up an Irish one to share.
*I'll post these tunes as soon as I have them.
Thanks again for a lovely evening! Hope everyone had a great St. Patrick's Day weekend...
Best,
Hilary
We had a great old chat about bands to listen to when you're first starting out playing the music (this is a post for another day), and we also talked about a tune that was on our list from last month: The Old Bush. I have a CD of uilleann piper Willie Clancy's music, and on the first CD in the set, there's a lovely rendition of The Old Bush. In contrast, I have a lovely CD by my friend Pat O'Connor, The Humours of Derrybeha, that features a gorgeous track of Sporting Moll and The Old Bush. Pat's version is the closest to what I hear played around this area these days. I encourage you to buy the CDs, but if you want to hear the contrast between the two versions, you can listen here:
Willie Clancy - The Old Bush is listed as the third track, and if you roll your cursor just to the left of the number, a little play arrow icon will show up. Click it and you can hear a sample.
Pat O'Connor - This version is a bit smoother and less piper-y (for obvious reasons). It's very obviously the same tune, but the pacing and the phrasing is a little different.
I want to give a shout out to Colleen O'Sullivan's Comhaltas Slow Session! Clayton mentioned that you guys had played Eddie Kelly's #2 on Sunday. Joe and Amy remembered it and played it along with Eddie Kelly's #1 for us. Then Clayton dug out the sheet music for #2 and we played that a bunch of times. What a great tune! We're going to work on Eddie Kelly's #1 for next month.
After a bit of a delay (the photocopier was being cranky), we finally got around to playing Tonra's jig (dmix)/Anthony Frawley's (gmaj)/Kerfunten (dmaj); Shoe the Donkey (thank you Gary Mehlum for straightening me out on how to play the b part!), and Fermoy Lasses/Sporting Paddy. We had some nice discussion about tunes and a few variations, and made plans for next month.
Regarding The Kerfunten, I understand from notes on TheSession.org that the tune was composed by flute player Hammy Hamilton, who apparently wrote the tune in G, not D. Anyway, I originally learned it in D, and it just fit the set well in that key, so....we're just gonna do it that way for now. You can access both versions on the Tunes page. It just seemed right to mention the composer and the proper key, out of respect for the man and his wonderful music.
On the list for April 17*
Jigs: Eddie Kelly's #1 and #2
Polkas: As I Went Out on the Ice and Forde's Polka
Reels: Crooked Road to Dublin and Man of the House
Gary Mehlum will be giving us a Scandinavian Schottische, and I'll be digging up an Irish one to share.
*I'll post these tunes as soon as I have them.
Thanks again for a lovely evening! Hope everyone had a great St. Patrick's Day weekend...
Best,
Hilary
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