Nice Session!

Thanks to everybody who came out, especially George for teaching us tunes. It was great to see Pete and Diane again, too, and welcome to Sean and Dick! Jeff, Karen, Dave, Karin, and Colleen were there, too, so you see we had plenty of talent and a lot of laughs! There's room for more bodies, so if you see something on the list below that you like, plan on joining us for next time.

To our new friends, I should mention that usually we're a little bit more of a lively group, but I think we were all half asleep, so come back next time and I promise to be more cheery!

October 10
We worked on tunes by ear this time -- the photocopier doesn't like me...
Colerain Jig (with all the sharps!)
The Peacock's Feather (Dmaj) Hornpipe
some waltzes, including Gentle Maiden and Southwind. I think there were more, but I can't remember names. I think we all liked Gentle Maiden, so I'll bring copies next time.

Thank you to Pete and Sean for bringing treats....

I enjoyed getting the chance to really learn a tune by ear instead of blasting through it on paper. Keep practicing the tunes from this month, so you have them for next! I told Elaine in an e-mail that Trusty Companion and I loved King of the Fairies so much that we are playing it now in gigs!

Learning Tune List for November 14:
Reels: Father Kelly's Speed the Plough
Hornpipes: review of Peacock's Feather (DMaj) and we'll learn the minor Peacock's Feather
Set Dance: Jockey to the Fair
Waltz: Gentle Maiden
O'Carolan: Morghan Meghan
Jigs: still open for someone to pick! Send me an e-mail or comment on this post!

Just so we're playing the same version anyway, let me pull together some music for y'all to check out. I'll bring spots to the session next time, and not try to rely on the Old Songs copier. As I said, it doesn't like me much...I'm feeling kind of the same way about the copier, frankly!

Best wishes to Julie and her family on their trip to Kazakhsthan! We look forward to seeing you in November!

And don't forget, the East Coast Pipers Tionol (www.eastcoastpipers.com) is coming up on Oct. 26-28 in East Durham (Gavin's Golden Hill Resort). Don't miss a great concert, a chance for fiddle or pipes classes, and plenty of session action!

Happy Playing Y'All!
The Trad

October Tune List

This month's Slow Session is in two days. Wednesday, Oct. 10 (My friend MaryAnn's birthday!) at 7:30 PM. $3, $4 if we make a lot of photocopies.

I'd like to propose, in the absence of last month's notes, that we work on Boys of Ballisodare and The Five Mile Chase (a couple of reels we should have been working on since August), the waltzes -- let's go over Josefin's, but also do the others listed on the Sept. list. Also, let's do Colerain jig, and, when people send me their replies from tonight's frantic e-mail request, I'll post up what people suggested.

I'm also doing a survey: "What were the first ten tunes you learned?" Please answer that by posting a reply to this post!

I'm looking forward to seeing everybody, and I'm pretty sure George will be back, as well as Karen White and hopefully Colleen!

Happy Fall Everyone! -- Hilary

Piece of String

OK. We made an observation the other day: Cat has fun playing with piece of string. Needs no other moving parts. String perfectly sufficient for complete amusement.

Humans have fun watching cat play with string. Probably humans have MORE fun watching cat than cat has playing with string. Humans talk to cat, who ignores them and plays with string. Humans talk to each other about how cat plays with string. Humans laugh at cat -- cat playing with string is ridiculous. Oblivious to reality. Doesn't know how silly it looks. Humans mock cat. Cat focuses on string. Continues ignoring humans. Continues playing with string. Cat has nice experience.

So...

Which are you? Cat....or human? Are you actually playing with string? Or just watching?

Thank you. That is all.