The Sudbury Session: Paddy Clancy’s
Here is a tune that George and I played called Paddy Clancy’s. I learned it from the Bothy – 75 album.
Here is a tune that George and I played called Paddy Clancy’s. I learned it from the Bothy – 75 album.
Here is a great sounding tune from Deidre on the pipe’s called Garrett Barry’s. She had some technical difficulty with the instrument about half way through and had to stop for a strain or two. It doesn’t really surprise me that someone would have technical difficulties with that instrument. The musician has to do about nine things at once and only two of them are related to pitch and tempo. Everything else has to do with harnesses, seat belts, air bags, bellows, barometric pressure, wind speed and what the current phase of the moon is. The fact that anything musical comes out of the instrument is a miracle. In my one attempt to play the beast it sounded like I was squeezing a pair of cats.
Anyhow, before I digress any further…Garret Barry’s.
p.s. I didn’t have any pictures of her playing the pipes, so I settled for this cool one of the flutes.
Here is a nice one from Mark. It is a beautiful old Turlough O’Carolan tune called O’Carolan’s Draught.
In spite of the weather, the turnout for the Sudbury Muster was great. After spending Friday evening and all day Saturday in the rain, the soggy brave musicians slipped into the old bar room at the Wayside Inn for some tunes and good company. Standing room only. Dinner guests, muster musicians, Sudbury Militia, a couple of session musicians, a few Swiss folk all sharing ales, stories and music. At one point most of the room was filled by the sound of patrons playing spoons, sticks and anything else they could find to make noise, and when the music stopped, the percussion didn’t. They were hooked. And we played long past closing time and left very fulfilled and satisfied that the weather didn’t drive people away, but instead, brought us together.
I put a mic in the corner of the room and recorded the whole evening. Every note. I will post a few of the highlights over the next few days. Here is the first. It is called The Roaring Barmaid. Also, the photo’s were taken by my sister Keri. In this photo you will notice that behind us, the bar has closed for the evening. And in front of the bar there is no sign of anyone leaving. Ah, good times.
…finally got around to putting The Marlin Spike into Finale and, I must say, it is much cleaner than the original. You can see the whole tune online here. I have also created a PDF version for download. If anyone is interested in the Finale file, please contact me and I will send it to you. Go nuts.
You know the old line:
Well, I’m gonna try anyhow. I am certain you will enjoy it. |
Now things are getting interesting. First Unstachio sent along his idea for backing. Then, with Luke’s help, I recorded a completely different track. Now Josh has sent me a rough mix that is much more jazzy than the first two. All of them are great and it is really fun to see how the same melody can be interpreted in a variety of styles. The best part is that I don’t think we are done yet!
Luke surprised me this morning. I expected he might take my tracks, slice them up into tiny pieces and reconstruct them into something new. Instead, he went retro on me and added an upright bass line. Super cool. Check it out.
O.k. It has a name now.
Also, here is a rough mix of a new set of tracks. They are a bit faster, include the flute and guitar and are repeated an extra time. The whistle track is a guide track and may eventually be thrown out. I would like to replace it with a fiddle track. If Josh sends me a guitar track, this guitar track will be thrown out. And, Unstachio will use these tracks to prepare a final bouzouki track.
We are making some progress on our tune. I’m working on a final flute track. Josh Dukes tells me he wants to add some guitar backing. Luke is planning on taking my wav files and doing what Luke does. And Unstachio has already put down a bouzouki track on my mp3 whistle track. The sound quality is a bit degraded because he was unable to use the original wav files…but this is just for practice anyhow. It should give you an idea where things are headed.
I hope to have the flute wav files done sometime this week. If anyone is interested in using them for their own experiment please contact me and I will get them to you.