10.16.2008

Hard to Listen when your ears hurt!

Dear Friends,

I'm home feeling kind of miserable with a couple of ear aches -- and my plan for the trip to and from work was to listen to Mary MacNamara and Yvonne Casey. That's scrapped for today, but probably tomorrow. Mary is an outstanding concertina player from Tulla, East Clare, and Yvonne is from West Clare. They both grew up surrounded by the music, steeped in it, taught by the best of family and friends from their home areas. Unbelievable. So when you get to feeling like you really have to work at it to get new tunes or find the right teacher, don't be too discouraged. None of us had the advantages they had. Keep up the good work!

Mary MacNamara ends her eponymous album with a set of tunes called The Humours of Castlefin/The Glen of Aherlow/The Killarney Boys of Pleasure. I've been working on resurrecting those lately. Also, I've been listening to Trusty have a lash at Tommy Coen's Reel. Ever since Ged Foley said that Vincent Griffin plays at the Catholic Church for Mass on Sundays in Feakle, I've been poking around The Session looking at the tunes he has on his recording. He's a wonderful player and an awfully nice man. I'm going to buy one of his CDs when I meet him again in Feakle in January. If anyone else is interested, let me know and I'll grab you one.

Guys, help me out here! What are you listening to? Please share so I can get an idea of tunes you might be hearing! Here's to Jeff and those other friends of ours who've been feeling under the weather as well. Get well soon...

Oh, and don't forget. November is Sligo night! I've got some great music to play for you, and I'm building up our tune list! If you want to practice a set ahead, go ahead and work on The Killavil Jig and Have a Drink with Me. I believe they're both in O'Neill's 1001 Tunes.

More later...

The Trad

2 comments:

David said...

I've been listening to the Mulcahy family's Notes From The Heart, and learning their version of Her Long Golden Hair -- in Dmaj -- and Cameronian Highlander.

And a lot of YouTube videos posted by Comhaltas. They have an amazing clip of Edel Fox playing Drunken Sailor hornpipe. That sounds like it could take months to learn...

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