Here’s a set of Scottish tunes I recorded this afternoon. A few bum notes, but you get the idea.

Here’s some fiddle videos I’ve uploaded recently. They represent about 2 years of me playing fiddle.

3 Reels:

3 Jigs:

IN 2 weeks I will be playing a gig for the first time with the band I’ve joined. Saoirse (seer-sher) was formed when Eamonn, a guitarist from Ireland, asked me if I wanted to play with himself and Heather (who plays the uilleann pipes) after I played at the Bournemouth Folk Club accompanying a young singer called Fi Harris. On the Sunday 14th March, a couple of days before Paddy’s night, we’ll be playing support at the Bournemouth Folk Club. We’ve been practising since August and have a 30 minute set which still needs some work. Hopefully it will be recorded so I’ll upload the video if it goes well

I’m a lucky chap. I’m getting on now (I’m 33 yesterday) but I still have a great family who always manage to get me some really fun presents. Wii was definitely a feature of this year’s gifts and tonight I’ve been playing Wii Fit Plus. There’s some great new games in it, although my favourites are the juggling and the kung fu. I also got Mario Kart, Colin McRae Dirt Rally and another fitness one (can’t remember the name of it).

My folks paid for half of my new fiddle for me. A week ago today, I went to John Dike’s Violins in Sherborne and managed to find one stand out fiddle. In fact, the rest I didn’t much like but I liked this French fiddle that had been recently repaired from a sound post crack down the back. It cost £800, but my parents have kindly offered to pay half, so that was my very generous present from them.

Yesterday evening I went and saw the new Pixar movie, Up. It was really good. I could see myself in the old man, Carl. We saw it in 3D too, which was really great. Caroline wasn’t so impressed with the 3D, but I thought it worked well. It’s a reason to actually go to the cinema rather than just wait until it comes out on Blue Ray! We ate beforehand at TGI Friday’s a gorgeous, if somewhat oversized, meal before using our vouchers to get in the film for free

We’re off out tomorrow lunch for a meal with my parents and sister. I’m not sure if we’ve decided where to go yet, but we’ve also got various shopping tasks to do too before going to a fireworks do in the evening. Sunday evening we’re off around a musician friend’s house for another bonfire do. It’s a busy weekend!

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

For Christmas I was a very lucky boy. I got myself an Rochelle anglo concertina. It’s like an small accordion – in fact, it’s more like two harmonica’s tied together with bellows. It was pretty confusing to play at first because each button plays a different note depending on whether you are drawing air through the bellows, or pushing air out of the bellows.

Anyway, for the past couple of months I’ve been trying to get a bit better, and I’ve now posted my first recording on YouTube.

The tunes are two jigs – The Swallowtail Jig and Out on the Ocean.

I found that to play the anglo, you have to clear your mind of anything and do your best not to think about whether to draw or push the bellows and just let your arms work it out — that’s why there’s a blank look on my face most of the time!!

The music is available on The Session, although I’ve scored it out below, if you want to play along.

The Swallowtail Jig

Out on the Ocean

As with all the multi-track videos I do now, this was recorded into the computer first (while videoing onto tape) and mixed into an MP3. The video was then captured and synched up. This time I was trying out the trial version of Edit Studio 6 which is why there’s a watermark on the video.

Here’s a couple of jigs I recorded a few weeks ago. The first is the Milltimber Jig, a Scottish Jig in D that I learnt for a Cape Breton workshop I was participating in. The second is a jig called The Rambler that I learnt quite a few months ago when I was learning to play in the key of E.

Milltimber Jig

The Rambler

No, no. No baby on the way. I’ve now been playing the violin for 9 months. I realised I haven’t done a violin video since way back in April, so I thought I better fix it. So here’s two Irish polkas: Dan Mack’s (also known as the Newmarket) and Tourniore Lasses.

The video was created from the first take of both guitar and violin parts; I guess if I’d done more takes I might have gotten them better – particularly the A-part of Tourniore Ladies!

Tourniore Lasses and Dan Mack's Polkas

Here’s some music for you that I recorded on my week off last week. It’s called Wild Mountain Thyme (or sometimes Will Ye Go Lassie, Go) and is a modern variation of a traditional Scottish folk tune called The Braes of Balquidder.

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Meadow

The lyrics are:

Oh the summer time is coming,
and the trees are sweetly blooming
and the wild mountain thyme
grows around the purple heather

Will ye go, Lassie, go
and we’ll all go together
to pluck wild mountain thyme
from around the purple heather.
Will ye go, Lassie, go.

I will build my love a bower
near yon pure crystal fountain
and on it I will pile
all the flowers of the mountain

Chorus

If my love she were gone
I would surely find no other
where the wild mountain thyme
grows around the purple heather

Chorus

I recorded it using my cheap Wesley guitar that I’ve tuned down to DADGAD tuning so that I can learn that tuning. The chords are pretty simple; mainly D5, Gadd9 and Bm7. These are pretty easy chords on DADGAD (I might do a future post about DADGAD), but here’s the chords:

My Roland Juno 106 provides a pad backing, and my Ozark bouzouki provides an counterpoint melody as well a duet with my Scandalli accordion during the middle break. It’s all recorded and mixed in Cakewalk Sonar and was picked up mainly with my Zoom H4, although the accordion was recorded with a Microvox pickup.