Fiddleminded

Apparently Judy Plester comes from Michigan and is an active emissary of traditional Irish music in the area too. It’s been about a decade since I looked at the case, but here’s what I recall (mostly trivia):

This was my first introduction to a mostly fiddle cd when I was probably 14 years old. Two of these tunes are percussion only (I think bones and bodhran). One was called Father Kelly’s, another might have been a “secret” track.

The track listing is somewhat mysterious to me, I think it was originally printed for cassette tape and then reproduced as-is for the cd. There might be a secret track of just percussion inserted in the middle of the CD.

Tracy’s Bow is an original tune by Plester. If I recall correctly, it was written for her daughter of the title’s name.

The cd came sealed with the image of a claddagh pressed into foil.

Two warnings for those who may try to learn by ear from this CD:
1) I REPEAT: The track listing printed on her cd is rather confusing as it was originally intended for cassette tape. I grew up not knowing half of the names of the tunes I tried learning from the recording because of this.

2) For classically trained musicians, many of the tunings are far from the typical A=440 HZ set up so you may need to tune the fiddle down if you want to play along with minimal dissonance. I wisened up when I realized I could play the tunes without having to play so many flats and sharps if I just transposed everything I heard up by a whole step.

That said, I learned some fiddle and even fell in love with several good tunes by listening to this CD.