tunes-i-like

Breakfast at Rudy’s

Rudys
Here is a set of tunes that the Mariners are expecting to play in Switzerland this summer. I put together this recording as a reference track for them.

The title comes from our St. Patrick’s Day tradition of cooking breakfast in the parking lot outside of Rudy’s in New Haven before the parade. Good times.

I learned both of the tunes off a Kevin Crawford album called In Good Company.
 
In Good Company

He actually plays them in different sets on the album. The first is called The First Pint. I believe the second is called Mouse in the Mug.

I don’t own a bodhran so the percussion in the second tune is me tapping the back of my guitar.

tunes-i-like

The Roaring Bar Maid

I was going through my files and found this rough cut that I recorded a month or two ago. I learned this tune from Lunasa’s Otherworld album.
 
otherworld

Incidentally, this 1999 album was one of Green Linnet’s fasted selling albums. Also, on their web site you can listen to the track. They happen to call the tune the Butlers of Glen Avenue but I prefer the title The Roaring Bar Maid.

In any case, I don’t have any real plans for recording a more polished version of this tune. I was just experimenting with the guitar and trying to get it to sound decent with my recording equipment. I just happened to use this tune for the experiment.

tunes-i-like

I’ll Mend Your Pots and Kettles ‘O

snare
 
O.k., a new high def TV and a vacation have stolen me away from blogging in the last two weeks. I know, I know. Lame. The upside is that I have been productive in the Pigtown Fling Studio (the new name I’m giving to my studio space). I have been working on a march called I’ll Mend Your Pots and Kettles ‘O. I learned this tune from the playing of Jimmy Marshall, an accordion player from Worcester, MA, though originally from Ireland. Jimmy and his brother Eamon, who often plays at John Stone’s, have both been playing the accordion since they were children. They are close in age and Eamon is retired, so I suspect they have been playing for fifty-plus years apiece. They are both great and a wealth of tunes.

I started playing this tune on the guitar about a year ago. I always envisioned a nice harmony part to it. In this recording I experimented with using the penny whistle as a melody and using the flute for second and third voice harmonies. I rewrote the arrangement several times before I was happy. In addition, I recorded it three different times in the last two weeks. I have had a lot of fun with both the arrangement and experimenting with how to get a good recording of my guitar. Where I am at with this version is the guitar track is made up of four tracks. On the first two tracks I played identical part and panned one track all the way left and the other all the way right. I then played a melody track that is an octave up and sits in the middle. Lastly I added some light harmonics on the B part.

I also added a snare drum and a bass drum to the mix in one version. Unfortunately I do not really have any decent drums to play on and, oh yeah, I really suck at drumming. For the snare I used an old Eames Drum that my Grandfather gave to me when I was a child. All the snares were off it and I had to jury-rig them back on just to do the recording. It needs a lot of work. The bass drum is a real quality instrument. I found it at the local dump. It is a Magnum ProSound and is part of a children’s drum set. It has that great ringing quality that shouts out, ‘hey, I’m cheap, I’m plastic, but I’m guaranteed to drive your parents nuts!’. My wife was thrilled with this find.

prosound
 
Together the two sound like I’m beating a bag of wet bananas. Good enough for me. It gave me an idea of what a drum track might sound like. I will have to solicit the help of Captain Dan, Biscuits McGillicudy or some of my other drummer friends if I really want to make the drumming work.

Below is the version without the drums. I would love to hear what people think about adding drums. Should they be included on the track or should I nix ’em?

new music

Castaway: Blackwater Tide / Licking the Moss

blackwater
 
Back it 2001 I was on a kick where I would go into a studio once a month and record. The one month interval was working well since it would give me time to both save money for the session and plan out what I was going to work on. After several months, however, I got a bit lazy and found myself unprepared for a session I had the following morning. Slightly panicked, I pulled out the flute on the evening before the session and was inspired to write the first of the two tunes included here. The first tune in the set I named Blackwater Tide. The second tune, which I wrote in ’99, is called Licking the Moss. This is one of those recordings that is part of the Castaway album.
 
bw1
 
Blackwater Tide seemed to be an instant hit. The Sudbury Ancient Fife & Drum Companie started a new medley, called Blackwater Indeed, with the piece. The Company of Fifers and Drummers included the tune in their latest music book with a drum part written by Dom Cuccia, a former Hellcat. Most recently the Bluff Point Quahog Diggers Fife & Drum is working it into a new medley that I think they are preparing for this summer!

It is fun to see a tune make some rounds.

For the first time I am publishing the harmonic arrangement for this tune. When I get a chance I will record the arrangement and post it here as well.

song

Amadán – Caledonia

Caledonia_img
 
Here is a song written by Dougie MacLean that I recorded with Amadán back in ’99 called Caledonia. Sarah Kennedy was our singer at the time. Just to avoid confusion, she is not the same girl that is in the picture of Amadán from my Amadán – Scotsman / Paddy Clancy’s post. She was a tough Somerville chick but I really loved her voice. We had planned on recording The Foggy Dew, which I once heard her silence the nÓg with, but when we got into the studio she changed her mind. Such is life.

Damon, our fiddle player, and I had never heard Caledonia, which is a romantic name for Scotland (thus the photo above from flickr), until that day. So, we improvised all the instrumental bits. For the instrumental break I asked the engineer to play the song while a worked out a flute part. Once I figured out what I wanted to do I asked him to roll tape. He said “I’ve been rolling all along, do you want to take a listen?” I did and decided my job was done.

Not long after this recording Amadán parted ways and I have not heard from Miss Kennedy since. Hopefully she is still singing.

tunes-i-like

Amadán – Scotsman / Paddy Clancy’s

After my last post it occurred to me that in addition to recording Paddy Clancy’s on my own, I recorded it with my old band Amadán back in 1999. The two versions are quite different. This one, being the second tune in the set, is quite lively with a bit of impromptu harmony the second time through by Damon our fiddle player. The set starts with a nice jig called The Scotsman Over the Border.

Here is Amadán, during our Vermont tour, mugging for a shot in the foundation of an old abandoned farmhouse somewhere near Grafton. That is me in the upper left.
 

Amadan Photo
 

The track below, as well as four others, came from a CD that we recorded as a demo album. The cover artwork, as I recall, was actually a close-up picture of a pig’s belly inverted and then colorized. I don’t believe I ever told the band where the image came from.
 

Amadan cover

 
We were not very well organized and would typically sort out what we were going to record the night before the session. Then, once in the studio, we would inevitably record something that we had not planned. It was lots of fun. Incidentally Amadán is the Gaelic word for ‘fool’, which, given the high cost of studio time and our general lack of preparation, was probably apropos.
 

tunes-i-like

Firebox Studio

About a month back I bought a FireBox from PreSonus for doing some home recording.

The Firebox

I finally got it all set up and had a chance to play around with it. Here is a picture of my luxurious studio, which now includes my new FireBox.

My Studio

Between the FireBox and my computer is a new air filter for our house. I was using it to block some of the noise from the laptop. I know this is not ideal but I was really just experimenting.

The FireBox has two microphone/instrument preamps, which means that I can record two tracks at once. Since I only own one condenser mic I decided to try an experiment. I plugged my mic into one input and I plugged my guitar, which has its own internal pick-up, into the second input. The result was that I was able to record two tracks simultaneously. Below is a screen shot of Cubase LE, the mixing software that is bundled with the FireBox. You can see the two tracks at the top part of the image.

cubase

Due to the fact that they were very different inputs the result was two tracks of entirely unique tonal quality. The track that was created from my pick-up has a much more electric feel and a very full bass sound whereas the mic’ed track sounds acoustic. I mixed the two together to achieve the final result. I am not a recording engineer so I feel I still have quite a learning curve ahead of me with regards to understanding how to mic and mix this stuff.

The tune I recorded for this experiment is called South Wind. I have also seen it called Martinmass Wind. This is my adaptation of John Renbourn’s beautiful version that I ripped off from his lovely Wheel of Fortune album, which through the years has remained as one of my favorites.

wof

I am playing in a DADGAD tuning whereas John plays it in DADGBD.

tunes-i-like

The Call and the Answer

hammered dulcimer

Have you ever heard a song for the first time an yet it felt like you’ve known it forever? I guess you might call it ‘love at first listen’. Well, the hammered dulcimer player at John Stone’s, whom I’ll refrain from naming in this post, sang a song a couple months back that fits that bill. I was able to convince her to sing it again at last night’s session. Man, what a beautiful song. Once she finished singing it I asked her to sing it again. She ignored my second request, and rightfully so. Who really wants to sing a song twice in a row? But I would have listened. And today, it’s all I could do to get the melody out of my head. Or at least my fading recollection of what the melody was.

So, here is the deal. I spent a couple hours recording a melody that is probably not at all what the melody actually is but instead how I remember it. I can get away with this because, after all, it is folk music. Besides, that is how these things evolve. What I recorded is really just a sketch, a placeholder, impromptu harmony and all, until I can convince our hammered dulcimer player to show me how to really play it and record it with me, which I also requested.

The name of the song is ‘The Call and the Answer’. What I have dug up on the song is that it seems to have been written by Phil Colclough, whom I honestly know nothing about. It was recorded by De Dannan on an album called A Jacket of Batteries, which I don’t own and have never heard. So, I suppose I can not truly endorse that album, although I do generally respect De Dannan as very talented so I’m sure it is probably quite good. In any case, here are the lyrics for the chorus. Take a listen to my interpretation of what I heard and I hope to have a guest recording sometime in the near future by our hammered dulcimer player.

You are the call, I am the answer
You are the wish and I am the way
You’re the music, I the dancer
You are the night and I am the day
You are the night and I am the day

new music

Calliope House / Stone’s Mongrel

Home recording has never been easier. Recently I have been experimenting with some equipment and have found the audio quality to be quite stunning. The experiments have looked something like this:

recording

I record in my basement in between the furnace going on and off, which is a real pain since it has been so cold lately. Nothing like a perfectly good track ruined by the boiler firing up.

The track at the bottom of this post is made up of two tunes. The first is called Calliope House and is a tune that was written by Dave Richardson of ‘The Boys of the Lough’.

The second tune is one I wrote in January of 2007. I have been attending a session at a pub called John Stone’s Public House. After hearing lots of A minor jigs this tune fell out of my head on the way home from the session. I am quite sure it has to be a mix of all the tunes I had been listening to. The thing I like about the tune is that the A strain has ten measures … two more than is typical.

Stone’s Mongrel

For those interested in the recording details, I used the following equipment:
AKG C1000S microphone ~$200
into a
Pesonus TUBEPre preamp ~$100
into an
Echo Indigo IO ~$150
into the pcmcia slot on my laptop, which is not at all optimized for recording. It has a Pentium M processor, 1500 MHz and 1 GB of RAM.

I used free software called Kristal Audio Engine for mixing tracks, adding reverb, EQ and such. I also added additional effects such as compression from Kjaerhus Audio. They provide a set of free VST plugins.