It’s been a while since I updated — it always is I’ve been meaning to post these two videos for a while.

The first I did after seeing Breabach play a concert in Wimborne as part of the Celtic Folk club here. They were fantastic. Ewan Robertson plays guitar and sings, Callum MacCrimmon and Donal Brown play pipes, whistles and flutes and the lovely Pasty Reid plays fiddle. Unfortunately Donal wasn’t there, but another fantastic chap took his place (although I can’t remember his name right now). At the concert we indulged in a purchase of their CD – The Big Spree – and it has since (3 weeks now) been a permanent fixture in the car’s CD player. On that CD the band sing a song called The Rolling Hills of the Borders. It was written by Glaswegian Matt McGinn but it’s Breabach’s version that I really like. I attempted my own version (not a patch on their’s but still fun to do).

I also did another music video recently. It’s a couple slides played on the concertina and the fiddle: The Road to Lisdoonvarna and Two Little Boats Went Out to Sea.

In the past six months or so I’ve been half-heartedly trying to learn to play DADGAD guitar. Tuning the guitar to DADGAD provides a very different timbre for accompaniment to songs or melodic instruments: the strings ring out (if you can be accurate with your fingering) and the deep bass provides a lovely accent when needed.

Back in August I posted a cover of Wild Mountain Thyme, which I used a DADGAD guitar to accompany. I used some basic chord for that:

Recently, I’ve been trying to do more finger picking on DADGAD. The video below is Shi Beg Shi Mhor written by Turlough O’Carolan, the blind harpist that lived from 1670 to 1738. The tune is apparently based on a legend about a war between two fairy tribes. It’s a beautiful tune.

I have also been learning to play Paul Brady’s lovely tune, The Lakes of Pontrachain. Paul actually plays it in DADF#AD (Open D) tuning, but it’s just as easy (easier?) to play in DADGAD. The issue with doing a video of that, is that it requires someone to sing the melody