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The Sounds of Freedom

How poetic is it that the first steps towards independence in America happened at a bridge? Standing on one bank the colonists were subjects to a distant king. Fighting their way across the bridge they took their first steps on the shores of freedom. The bridge I speak of is the North Bridge in Concord, MA.

 
NorthBridge

 
On the morning of April 19th, 1775 men from Concord and many surrounding towns gathered on Punkatasset Hill to discuss the movement of British troops. Upon seeing a column of smoke rise from the town, and naturally assuming the Regulars were setting their homes ablaze, they “resolved to march to the middle of the town to defend their homes, or die in the attempt.”[1]

The common belief is that, led by the fifes and drums, the men marched towards the North Bridge, which arched the river between them and the good folk of Concord, to oppose the tyranny before them. What was running through their minds as the beat of the drums steadily marched them towards their great foe in red? The moment must have been surreal and the future so dizzyingly uncertain. It amazes me that, at the brink of certain conflict, music was played at all.

What they played on those fifes and drums, as well as the story in general, is the subject of some debate. The surviving tradition, historically correct or not, is to play The White Cockade, which was a “traditional Scottish tune that celebrated the attempt by Bonnie Prince Charlie to reclaim the throne of Britain for the House of Stuart.” [2] If the story is true, playing the White Cockade represents a “bold taunt of defiance” according to historian D. Michael Ryan.

The fact is, it is not really clear if they played the White Cockade or any tune. There was no mention of the tune being played on that day until 1835. A hundred years after the battle the story was further promoted with a well known article from Harper’s new Monthly Magazine called The Concord Fight.

Regardless of the historical details it is, nevertheless, moving to hear the drums and fifes slicing through the fresh April air every spring on the morning of the 19th as they march down the dusty road towards freedom playing The White Cockade.

general

RSS for Comments, WP Plugins and other Changes…

After some discussion I have added RSS feeds for comments.
 
Comments
 
Incidentally, if you don’t know what RSS is there are lots of good articles to get you started.

Also, I got rid of the music rating on the comment page. Everyone has been too kind and simply gave me fives. Unfortunately this was not helping with my goal of highlighting tunes that are most popular. So, in its replacement I am trying a different approach. I installed a plugin called Popularity-Contest that calculates popularity based on traffic. The most popular posts will show up on the right side of the page under ‘most popular post’. I still need to figure out how to flag most popular tunes.

So, while I’m at it, here is a list of the WordPress plugins that I use on this site:

  1. Popularity-Contest
  2. Akismet – Spam prevention
  3. Contact Form ][ – So you can contact me.
  4. Get Recent Comments – Used to display most recent comments – duh.
  5. Permalink Redirect – Permalink Redirect ensures that pages and entries are always accessed via the permalink. Otherwise, a 301 redirect will be issued
  6. podPress – Makes podcasting simple by automatically adding the necessary podpress elements to my RSS feed.
  7. Ultimate Tag Warrior – I use this to tag my posts and pages as I create them.
  8. Sociable – Makes it easy to link into social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us and technorati bookmarking
site review

Site Review: irishflute.podbean.com

I just came across a great site called Irish Flute Tunes.
 
Irish Flute Site

For those that are looking to expand your tune repertoire this site is a great resource. The site author essentially records tunes he thinks are good flute tunes and posts them. Since the site is hosted by podbean.com all the music is podcasted. I did a quick count and it looks like thirty-one tunes have been posted so far for April. The most recent post includes a tune called My Love is in America, which is a tune that I like playing on the tenor banjo.

The author of the site also seems willing to record slower versions of tunes if requested. Great stuff.

general

Where is your dot?

Google, what a wonderful thing. They’ve created all sorts of cool tools including one called Google Analytics. If you are the admin of a website you can sign up for Google Analytics and they will provide you with interesting information about the traffic to your site. For example, below is a map of the world personalized for me by Google. All the orange dots on the map represent the locations from which people, including you, are visiting my site. Cool!
 
Google Map
 

Now, before you freak out, let me assuage your fears. Google is not giving me your social security number, bank statements or the keys to your car. But what they do give me is a sense of who is visiting and what you find interesting. This information helps me shape the content I provide. For example, here is a view of the top content on my site.
 

content
 

From this I can see that, other than the home page, people are visiting discography most, which is good for me to know since I have not really spent much time on that part of the site. Maybe I should. Other interesting bits of data…people spend only eighteen seconds on the music page but they never leave the site from that page, which implies that they are clicking on a link to music. I’m happy about that.

Some other things I’ve noticed…it took about a month before someone from Ireland finally noticed that I have a site about Irish music. I guess I have to work on my marketing strategy. Also, I had a dot suddenly appear in the Pacific Ocean one day. I though, ‘hey, turtles from the Galapagos are check’n me out!’. On further inspection it appears to be surfers from Hawaii. Surfers love slip jigs.

So, tell me about your dot! Do you play traditional music? Fife & Drum? Just passing by? Leave a comment and let me know!

Lastly, is anyone willing to fess up to which dot is sending me all the spam about Viagra?

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.
 

new music

Sketch

Sketch
 
I once took a painting class where we were asked to do ten paintings in thirty minutes. The rules were simple.

  • No more than three minutes per painting.
  • The entire painting surface had to be covered at the end of three minutes.

What one quickly discovers is that there is no time for detail. Instead you focus on the bones that define the structure of an image. Bad bones, bad painting, and one that is not really worth details anyhow. What you also discover is that details is not where the energy lies. The good stuff is in the most fundamental elements of the image such as line, balance and color composition.

I painted a lot of ugly three minute sketches. Keep at it long enough, though, and suddenly a good painting pops out. You then realize that the ugly ones were just part of the process of getting to the good one. The ugly ones are where you explore all your good ideas. It is where you separate the wheat from the chaff, as they say.

The image above comes from one of those sketches that, at the time, I was not really all that happy with. Fifteen years later my wife found it, framed it and put it on the wall. I love it. It reminded me that sketches, serving most often as a means to an end, occasionally have the power to stand on their own.

A lot of what I have been musically producing lately is what I would consider audio sketches. I have not focused too much on details such as set arranging, voice leading or instrumental variation. Instead, I have been focusing on melody and tempo, the basics. Going forward I will group these sketches under the internet album title of ‘Sketch‘.

Yesterday, after changing the strings on my borrowed bouzouki, I became mesmerized by its exotic sound. I was noodling around and a melody in minor started to take shape. I envision that it has a second strain but I am not sure what that would sound like yet. Or, maybe it is an intro to a song or even a set of tunes. I don’t really know. For now I have given it a working title of ‘Crosswinds’. That could change too, though I do like it. What I do know is that it has a couple brush strokes that I wish it didn’t but enough good ones where I will continue to push the paint around. It is a sketch.

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Workspace Photo Essay

It appears that my friend Ned blogged about artist’s workspaces just as I was posting pictures of my studio the other day. So, after reading his post I decided to snap a few pictures and give you a closer look at my workspace.

Let me start by saying that I have many workspaces. For example, I have a workspace where I do most of my music writing. For some reason it just seems to be the car. I’m not sure if it is because it is the only time in the day that I am sure I won’t be interrupted or if it is the ever changing scenery. What ever it is, that is where my best ideas come from. I pull over a lot to write down ideas.

If I am going to write harmony, I work in my home study at night when all are asleep. I love this room because the colors make me feel calm, which is helpful when thinking about voice leading.

study

When I am done recording I mix in the dark. I don’t want to be distracted with anything visual at this point. I don’t have a picture of this workspace because, well, it would just be dark.

The following pictures are of my recording workspace and it is really the most interesting one.
workspace
This workspace is not ideal but it is as far away as I can get from everyone else in my house so as to not disturb them. It’s chaotic looking. I like that. It is the last vestige of chaotic space that I am allowed to have. Chaos is good for creativity.

I have lots of things in my crazy workspace that are actually aesthetically pleasing to me. Here is a painting back from my Museum School days, circa 1988. It is a picture of the kitchen in my Brookline apartment. It was depressingly stark, with an orange vinyl upholstered chair. The painting reminds me of a time when I was very much on my own and really didn’t own anything, not even that ugly chair. The fish bowl, and the fish sitting next to the bowl, did not really exist. I think I thought it would be mysterious to have the fish out of the bowl. How did he get there? I always imagined foul play. Also, I like the water pipe in front of it. Generally speaking, there is something I like about strong vertical and horizontal lines.

brookline

Here is another painting, from twelve years later, that I used for the cover of one of my books. Notice the vertical lines?

flag

I also like old things. Sometimes people call them antiques. More vertical and horizontal lines. Isn’t that cool?

antique

I also have a few pictures. Here is a picture myself along with some of the Ancient Mariners around 1994. Those guys in the picture are some of the very best fifers in the world. They are helping me perform Mandy Lynne and the Maiden Voyage, which was a fife trio that I wrote (and still need to post). Yeah, I know, there are more than three guys. Some of the voices were doubled up. I am the one standing behind the guy with the long hair…who happens to be John Ciaglia. He writes beautiful arrangements. Check out the cool stripes we have on.

fifesoloe

Here I am on the left at about 19 with my buds. More cool stripes. That guy standing next to me was once a bounty hunter. That guy on the far right was in a Pepsi commercial. The guy with the Flock of Seagulls hair cut now owns a lovely sail boat called Indigo.

buds

Here I am with my beautiful wife. Actually, we were only dating when this picture was taken…in 1988. No stripes in this one unless you count the clapboards behind us. I almost died water skiing the day this picture was taken.

wife

I have a variety of other things in my workspace. Here is a fish lantern. I like fish, sort of like I like stripes. I don’t have a picture of it here but I once did an etching of fish with stripes.

fish

I also like Phish. Here is a ticket to one of their very last shows I attended that is hanging, vertically, under my fish.
Phish

Speaking of Phish, I’m kind of a hippie at heart, even though I don’t look like one. I have a good friend named Andrew, you might call him a hippie. He once owned a VW Bus. I like old VW Buses. Splitties. He had the coolest bus. It was painted like an American flag…lots of stripes. AAA used a picture of his bus in an add once. Here is a picture of Filmore from Cars. I think I appropriated it from my kid’s happy meal one afternoon. It reminds me of Andrew and his bus. Andrew once lived in Alabama. While driving home to visit his parents in Connecticut he would usually get pulled over. Not because he was speeding, he couldn’t drive faster than fifty five, but because he drove a bus painted like an American flag and I suppose they thought the vehicle might have been constructed entirely out of grass. One time the officers had him empty his whole bus on the side of the highway. When their search turned up nothing they left him there with all his belongings strewn about the roadside. Sometimes it is a hassle being different. Another funny thing about driving around in a bus painted like an American flag is that other people are all too willing to roll down their window on the highway and show you their bong.

bus

I am also a software guy. Here is the first piece of software documentation I ever wrote. I was in seventh grade and the software was written for the Apple IIe. It just kills me to read this. Ironically, I was failing math in seventh grade and as a result, was ultimately banned from the computer lab, which was my only access to a computer. The computer lab was run by the director of the math department who, incidentally had me hack a protected copy of VisiCalc for him. So, he promoted piracy and then denied me access to the one thing I really loved in seventh grade. Now, that is educators shaping the minds of the youth for ya. I continued to fail at math throughout high school, which kept me out of the computer lab and, consequently, I didn’t use a computer again until my junior year in college. For the final twist of fate, I now work at a company called The MathWorks as a software analyst for our web site. Regretfully, I am still not very good at math. Fortunately for myself and The MathWorks, math is not the skill they are asking me to use. They have lots of other brilliant people for that job.

doc

Check out the stripes on this dude. This came from my Grandfather Peterman. He was a good man. He had it hung up in his basement. It has sentimental value to me. Plus, this guy can balance beer on his arm! I’m envious.

grandpa

Here is my Buderus Boiler. Why am I showing this to you? Because it is an integral part of my studio and has proven to be a royal pain in my … as you can see, diagonal stripes. I hate diagonal stripes. When I record on cold nights it generally turns on five seconds before I have completed the most perfect track ever. I got into the bad habit of turning my Buderus off. Not only was my family unhappy about seeing their breath indoors but a week later the damn thing stopped working. Mind you, Buderus is the Toyota of all boilers. It is what other boilers hope to be when they grow up. Our maintenance guy talks about our Buderus like it is a Harley…’listen to ‘er hum, she’s f’ing gorgeous…’ Well, it stopped humming and it took four guys from our oil company, including the Electrical Engineer owner and a couple of Buderus consultants to fix it. Not to mention, this all transpired while we were supposed to be in Vermont. Needless to say, we didn’t go to Vermont. The woman in the picture above was not happy. The kids were not happy. I also don’t shut ‘er off anymore. So, if you hear humming in my tracks, you’ll know why.

boiler

What else? Oh yeah, instruments. Here is my Bacon Banjo. Bacon Banjo Company was one of the most famous banjo companies in the early 1900’s. As far as I know, I have no genealogical connection.

baconbanjo

Someday I would like to build a banjo. It would be a Bacon Banjo. I have lots of other instruments (see the fifes, flutes and whistles vertically organized at the top of this page).

So, that is the tour of my workspace and I guess a little bit about who I am. Now I need to get back to making music.

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.