Okay, it’s the same repeating thread that changes every time we have it! What’s the tune(s) you’re working on just now!?
And we might as well throw in the "what’s your current favorite listen" question in while we’re at it, I suppose.
The Curlews & Jug of Punch, here. And I think I’m about to go into one of my Liz Carroll spates of listening.
Willie Coleman’s and Paddy’s Return
Ridees six temps, Crock of Gold. Favourite listen at the moment - Hudel, but as I listen to it 20 times a day it seems I will get fed up soon.
Richard Dwyer’s… the A dor one that Sharon Shannon does on "Every Little Thing"
Kissing and Drinking, The Cauliflower
Gravel Walks
Planxty Live at Vicar St. 2004
It’s not going to be Liz Carroll. I think it’s going to be The Magic Square again, I got sidetracked on the way through my cd rack…
Working on: "Frog in the Well" & "Cook in the Kitchen" A tasty combination that would go well with a bit of garlic, n’est pas?
Listening to and loving: "Memories from the Holla" on loan from another TheSessioner.
Working on the Road to Lisdoonvarna.
Current favorite listen, Kevin Burke, Up Close.
Sara
D dorian, Jim, but I only know that right now because I’m working on it too. 🙂 Usually I’m hopeless at keys…
working on mulhaire’s reel (forever, it seems)
fave listen: verena cummins & julie langen, fonnchaoi
sarah in portland/seattle
Working on Collier’s Reel and McDonagh’s. Heard so many great new tunes at a session Sunday night I don’t know where to start next. Probably a set with Maple Leaf/Man from Aran.
Currently listening to a couple of new CDs I just got from Topic. Leo Rowsome Classics of Irish Piping, and "Mantle So Green" by Margaret Barry and Michael Gorman.
On whistle, I’m working on The Ashplant and The Otter’s Holt.
I’m starting to play my first Irish tune on fiddle…Planxty Fanny Power. It doesn’t sound great, but I’m able to get through most of the A section without sounding like crap (I’ve been playing fiddle a grand total of 2 1/2 months…lol).
Favourite tunes? Tam Lin (my absolute favourite…the day I can play THAT on fiddle I will be a very happy person), Julia Delaney, The Ghost (Liz Carroll), Brendan’s Reel, and Toss the Feathers (e dorian version).
Oh and favourite listens of the moment? Liz Carroll’s Lake Effect and Lost in the Loop, Tommy People’s Waiting for a Call…and any of the first four Solas albums.
I’m working on the Steampacket, and Bonnie Kate. Current favourite listen is "Live at Mona’s" with Patrick Orceau, Ivan Goff and Cillian Valleley, among other great musicians that play in this particular New york pub.
This is "Learn the tunes that everybody else in the world knows but me" week:
Kesh
Jackie Coleman’s
Snowy Path
Brenda Stubbert’s
Burnt Old Man
They didn’t really require "learning", as they seemed to be lurking in my brain waiting to be played.
But I am learning Burnt Old Man because it wasn’t lurking and waiting.
Listing to Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas "Fire & Grace"
I Feel a Smile Coming On - Chris Wood tune played by the Two Duos Quartet
Also all the whistle tunes I knew - but now on the concertina
The Torn Jacket and The Morning Thrush.
The Thrush In The Morning (reel)
The Curlew (reel)
The Dub reel
Just picking at whatever tunes sound vaguely familiar on whatever CDs I listen to. Current CD(s): Frankie Gavin "Fierce Traditional" and Eamonn Coyne "Through the Round Window".
Squaring away Mtn Road and Silver Spear on my new obsession, the flute.
Bob in Birmingham,bygod, Alabama
Catharsis - deadly tune!
I’m now working on MA dissertation, which is due in a week, and had no time to play flute today. But I’ve been enjoying "Dan Breen’s Reel" (Catherine McEvoy version) and "Fox on the Town" (Richard Dwyer’s). As for jigs, "The Kilmovee" and "The Castletown Connors (G major one) sound great on my flute.
I knew I forgot a favourite tune…I LOVE Catharsis.
*waves at Bill* Hope all is well at the Ft. Wayne session! I miss you guys there!
Palmer’s Gate, Ashplant, Bank of Ireland, Drag Her Round the Road, Lump of Pudding.
And Glass of Beer!
Trying to learn all the tunes on Open Hearth by Andrew & Mary MacNamara.
Listened today to Mary Rafferty: "Hand Me Downs", Tommy Peoples’ & Daithi Sproule: "The Iron Man", and The Bumblebees: "Buzzin’". Yesterday listened to "Open Hearth", Andrew MacNamara: "Dawn", The McNamara Family: "Leitrim’s Hidden Treasure".
the bride’s favorite and athole highlanders
good choice on Lietrim;s hidden treasure!!!
Julia Delaney, Green Fields of Erin (it’s a reel and that might be the name), Siuil a Run, and County Down.
James Troy, I start Jug of Punch on the A on the G string, so there. 🙂 Actually, that’s not *quite* true, I generally use the G as a pickup.
tune: pressed for time
haven’t been listening to CDs, I’m too overwhelmed by Milwaukee Irish Fest!!!!
Ciarán’s Capers
Mountain Road and McFarley’s as played by John Simí Doherty.
help!
-Pádraig
Lads of Laoise, I think I’ve nearly got it, sort of. Also Flowers of Normandy. I keep commimg back and having a go at several eg Lady Mary Hayes, Tommy Tarbukas.
Like some of the others above, I have strayed from the strictly Irish: The High Level hornpipe.
The tunes Ive just finished learning are off Flooks ‘Rubai’ album and they are Ramnee Ceilidh (Gordon Duncan) Natterjack’s and Conlagh’s big day. Truely incredible tunes. Dow just posted one of my favourite ever tunes today
https://thesession.org/tunes/344
If you like The Curlew then you’ll love this tune, its another Bm reel written by Jimmy McHugh.
Albums I’m listening to, Flook ‘Rubai’ and ‘Flatfish’ Grianan - cant remember the name of the album but I think there is only one. (its a band with Siobhan peoples and PJ King) and Liz Doherty ‘Quare Imagination’
Eeekk! I tried to post the link to ‘The flooded road to Glentis’ but its going to the ‘bunch of keys’ - sorry about that!
Why bother with a tune at a time - I work on a cd at a time and get it dotted down to practise the lot!
P.S. and I am currently Dancing on Silver - (Tim Collins) - brilliant.
showdaddy Hi! an is high same as high level?
cheers for mt road..me too
aoife played catharsis in past definetly a classsic wonder
for me? newest is Grotts from Chirps Smith or Nelson’the guy from vologlbtrotters Down in Little Egypt
yesto COOk in the Kitchen thz grego, an yes fiddlemouse Up Close I think also is a great cd
Have you ever heard burke with the murphy’s/ tHe same intimacy. the murphys all play harmonicas
an batlady my dear freind just south of the border ia;ways love your posts..one day we will meet
agree with your list of "Everyone Else’s Faves"
sometimes a person has gotta make an Effort to get the job done, me thinks
Hi Geoff,
I dont think Ive ever had an album where I liked every single tune (theres always some c*ap highland or slow air or polka or some other cheesy tune) and I dont bother learning tunes I dont love, there are just far too many tunes that I do love to keep me more than occupied.
Anyhow - Flook tunes are way hard, if I didnt like the tune I just could not be bothered with it. But I admire people who can learn tunes just for the sake or alternativly actually like ‘all’ the tunes on an album.
ok, jus figgured out that "bb" an Beebs of australia are one an the same person……….oooooooohhhhhhhhhhi am such a sleuth!!
hey Eva!! steampacket>>>>
omg i jus made four posts in row ….woopsyipes! To bed with the ol’ bod methinks,,,,,,,,,
love,kisseshugs smooch
an very glad this ain’t IRL cuz you’d all
get germs from me,probably
but i do love you
A "slow jig" that has me frustrated. It is the unnamed jig preceding Emily’s reel with Seamus Egan on flute. I could use some help if anyone has seen notation or could transcribe it. Original is on Three Way Street with Mick Maloney and Eugene O’Donnell. WB
"Temple Hill", "Jimmy O’Reilly’s", "Ben Niven" and "The Snuff Wife".
Listening to "Peter & Wendy" - music by Johnny Cunningham played by him with Seamus Egan and Mick McAuley, among others.
I am currently working on a bunch of tunes I "learned" from Brendan Mulvihill up at Irish Arts Week in the Catskills. I put learned in quotes because in truth do to the magic of minidiscs I am really only learning now—I only got bits and pieces during the week of classes. The tunes are:
Jackson’s jig,
Limerick Hornpipe,
Old Gray Gander,
Bag of Oysters,
Scanlon’s Polka,
a polka he had no name for,
Murphy’s Hornpipe,
Jerry’s Beaver Hat
I’ve pretty much got all those tunes, just getting them into my long-term memory now.
These are the Cd’s that are currently in my fuzzy yellow smiley-face Cd holder which goes with me everyday on the train to work:
Brian Conway’s First Through the Gate,
John Brennan and John McGillian’s As Long as You’re Enjoying Yourself,
Brian McNamara’s Fort of the Jewels,
Liz and Yvonne Kane’s The Well Tempered Bow,
Fiddlesticks Festival of Donegal Fiddle
The Cavan Potholes. Tricky enough, I find, and the people who live next door must be sawing their legs off with frustration at listening to me practice it incessantly. Thanks to jdicarlo for posting it; I’ve wanted to learn it for ages but could never learn it by ear.
Farewell to Chernobyl, Bang your frog on the sofa (both of which have stretchy second parts (on the banjo at least)) and Dusty windowsills which is a great tune although I am finding the third part a bit tricky!
Listening to Gerry O’Connor’s latest "no place like home" which is growing on me all the time - genius
Top tip for dusty windowsills: when you roll the G and it jumps egd, play the e with your pinky on the a string. Much easier bowingt
Learning: The Ivy Leaf.
Listening: Lesson tapes from Catskills (Mike McHale, Mike Rafferty)
ShowDaddy: I’m curious to know how you are doing on your 40 tunes binge-learning? (re: "Daft…" thread, 18 Aug.)
Working on the bowing and feel of The Earl’s Chair, when I have that down (I’ll settle for a pale semblance of decency) I’ll be able to play the entire set of Rolling in the Barrel/Tap Room/Earl’s Chair off Burke’s live album.
Also working on Farewell to Ireland off of Tommy People’s High Part of the Road. Love the way he starts it off as an air then kicks it into gear.
Also working on the B part of Maid Behind the Bar, mostly Touchstone’s version but for some reason it’s not quite clicking. Mostly the second measure, and especially half-note d at the end of, it’s crying out for a roll or some kind of ornamentation, I think, but haven’t figured out what I like best.
What am I listening to? Mostly the villagers with their torches pounding at my door.
What strikes me about these replies, Zina Lee, is most folks have an idea of what they’re currently learning. Tunes for me aren’t so linear- maybe I’ll hear something somewhere and some time later I’ll sit down noodling on the zook, thinking about nothing in particular, and something comes thru my fingers. Wow-a new tune!
Michael Gill - you lost me (not difficult to do!) What bar of the tune are you referring to?
Thanks for the tip Michael, I think I understand, it will probably become clearer with a banjo in hand - not sure if it will make picking easier in the same way as it make bowing easier - but worth exploring all the same - it is the string and directional jumps which make that bit tricksy so anything that can ease it up a bit will be welcome!
Well, George, there’s tunes that you might hear at a session and want to learn (especially if you’re new to the session and want to become a regular), so then you sit down and learn them without letting them time to sink in. Other times, you may have just heard a tune enough that they can "pop out" through the fingers and surprise you.
Either way, it’s all good.
…I always get something out of this particular repeating thread — finding out about new tunes that I’ve never heard of, Beebs’s tip of a tune that I’ll probably like since I like another tune, for instance, or hearing about an album that I’d missed.
It’s also nice to feel a bit of kinship knowing people halfway across the world are learning the same tunes I am, and listening to the same albums I am — Kenny, I adore Peter and Wendy!
So I suppose that’s why I like seeing this thread enough that if no one else starts it every few weeks, I do. 🙂
Yo! bkessler
- it’s going better than I expected - I found that I knew two of them already before I started! the rest going ok. we had a practice last night and there were a couple of sets I sat right out of, but most of the others I’m pickng up ok.
cheers
Dave
Yay, Dave!
Here are my new ones:
Maudubahn Chapel
Memories of Winston
Andy Renwicks Ferret
Tulloch Gorum
Coilsfield House
The Princess and the Frog (learning by ear)
Gravel Walks
Green Fields of Glentown
The Shetland Fiddlers
hi all-
I just started getting back into tunes again…I just moved into my new gorgeous old (1905ish) house. I have barely had time to unpack a thing and my gig at the Mn Renaissance festival is two weeks into its run (5 more weekends to go). I am weary but seem to be anxious to work on music again. Currently I just started working on Catharsis (there seems to be a lot of that going around) and I am currently listening to Matt Molloy, Seamus Egan and Lunasa. I also really need to pick up a phone a schedule some fiddle lessons again. I haven’t been able to find time to practice lately.
~autumn
has anyone managed to get Catharsis to sound halfway decent on the flute?
Possibly by transposing it up?
Seems an awful shame that such a lovely tune should be wasted on fiddlers 😛
Mwahahaha. /@-[ (That’s supposed to be an ‘evil eye’, Q. I’m going to go home and learn Catharsis just to send powerful fiddle karma your way. (faint Psycho fiddle riff in background.)
I’m working on a lovely hornpipe called
The Man from Gleanntan. It was composed by Terry ‘Cuz’ Teahan. The version I’m learning is from Sliabh Note’s CD called Along Blackwater’s Banks. It sits very nicely on the flute. I’m also working on a reel called Kennedy’s Favourite from a Denis Murphy recording. My lads play this tune a lot lately.
A good friend left a lovely fiddle tune on my voicemail today at work. I will have to learn that one! Sounds like a Paddy Canny tune 😉
Joyce
Dancing on Silver, Tim Collins - superb and
Catherine and John McEvoy - growing on me
tunes for learning right now: still on
Air Reel (Liz Carroll) and re-learning some tunes I half know like Hunters House and Lady Ann
I think we do Cartharsis in Gm. It’s so much fun to accompany on guitar, like being the lion tamer to a couple of wild fiddlers…
Working on The Battering Ram and Besom in Bloom along with Maids of Mitchelstown. Slieve Russell anyone…Silver Spear?
Have to admit…I am a jig "queen"!
Current favorite listen is the Best of the Bothy Band…or Farewell to Evening Dances from Colm O’Donnell. Great funny song about a Bodran on that one.