All Covered with Moss

A simply fantastic duet album with great lift and drive. Ferocious fiddling and tight piping with a deft touch on the regs. I think the pipes might be in B or B flat. Served neat, with no reverb or other studio feckery.

Listening to a couple of tracks on soundcloud… sounds great. I noticed the tune ‘All Covered with Moss’ in O’Neills recently and had a search for it on this site. It’s a surprisingly little-recorded tune, given how nice it is.

Cheeky Elf said: “I think the pipes might be in B or B flat.”

Found a couple of tracks on Soundcloud, and he is definitely playing a B flat set on those anyway.

My last post doesn’t say what I intended, and it’s too late to edit it. What I meant to say is that the pipes on the SoundCloud recordings is definitely a flat set, pitched in B natural. Sorry for the confusion!

I love this album.

Thank you everyone for the kind words, and to Cheeky Elf for posting this!

The cd is being officially released on October 25th and will be available through CDBaby, iTunes, and Google Music then, both physical and digital copies. In the meantime, we’re actually on tour and you can get the cd from us in person before that date.

The entire album is in B. I play a couple tracks on a lovely John Gallagher B flute, and the rest on my Joe Kennedy B uilleann (or union) pipes. Alison plays an old fiddle given to her dad many years ago, and tuned down to match the pipes and flute.

For more info see our website at pipesandfiddle.com

You can also hear the sound samples mentioned above at our soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/nicolaslbrown

FYI, the CD is available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/alisonperkinsnicolasbrow

(also adding this comment to make a proper link to the website: http://www.pipesandfiddle.com/ )

Will it be available on iTunes?

“dunnp” - Just looked - it is in “iTunes”. Don’t know why it’s not showing up on the top right, but this happens sometimes.

Yes, it’s on iTunes, Google Music, and CDBaby - there’re a couple others, too, but those are really the main ones. It wasn’t on iTunes when it got put up here (some people got it early through Kickstarter), so that’s why it’s not showing up, I’m sure.

(edited the recording and now it seems to be catching iTunes)

Nico very generously sent me a digital download of this recording for possible use on our local community radio programme, [ see past discussion “DJ Kenny” ]. I’m listening to the tracks right now and I’m hugely impressed. I think it’s going to be our “Album Of The Month” come January, and we’ll play one track from it on each programme throughout that month. This is one of the best duet recordings I’ve ever heard - a fine selection of tunes, many of them new to me, and played at a lovely tempo by 2 players in perfect harmony with one another’s music.
Can’t recommend it enough !

Great CD. Inspired me to buy a concertina pitched in Ab/Eb and then buy a set of reeds to convert it to B, so that I can play with pipers who have run out of air. (They B flat) Sorry…. Buy this CD. It’s lovely.

Hey David - Thanks for the kind words!

Regarding the concertina - what kind did you buy? Also, just a note that we’re not at “B” relative to A440, but a bit flat (maybe a quarter of the way to Bb, or so) - the “A” note (concert pitch F#) was at about 366 last year, and still seems to be sitting right around there on my pipes. I hope that helps with the tuning! (Also, check with Anthony on his new set. I’m hoping to have a few B tunes with him this July)

Hi Nico - I bought an Edgley concertina originally tuned in Ab/Eb. I contacted Frank and he sent me a set of A/E reeds -- in trade for the Ab/Eb reeds that the concertina came with -- so that I could replace the reeds and play along with Anthony and his “B” Wooff set. It took some time to get it right, but it’s fine.
I seem to be in perfect tune with Anto’s set, which is in tune at B and not below that. I have also been playing along with some tunes on your CD and didn’t have any problems with the tuning. Did you raise the pitch for the CD? Or am I unable to tell that you’re a bit flat?
I also hope to go to the Catskills this July. I haven’t been there in 15 years or so. Milltown Malbay and Willie Week was just a half hour from us in Clare. I look forward to meeting you there.
David

Thanks to Jeremy’s new feature I edited the tracks so all tunes that have a link should point to the correct tune page. There are a couple exceptions:
-Love and Whiskey points to the 3/2 hornpipe it came from, but it’s actually a five-part hop jig (I would create a new tune page for this)
-The Satin Slipper we play is different from either tune page that exists, so a new setting or page should be created (I’m not sure which)
-The Dusty Miller, Hawk’s, The Hag with the Money, the Piper’s Picnic, and Banish Misfortune are all quite different settings that don’t exist yet, but would likely all be on the tune pages that are linked.

Nico, in the case of the Satin Slipper, if the tune that’s on the recording isn’t in the database at all, you can make it so the recording doesn’t link to anything: set the tune ID to be blank.

Hi Jeremy,

The A parts for all three (the two pages that exist and the one we play) are fairly similar, it’s the B part that differs the most. I am ok with it going where it does for now, I just have to decide if creating a new page or adding to the existing one makes the most sense.

https://alisonperkinsandnicolasbrown.bandcamp.com/album/all-covered-with-moss