Wednesday, June 5, 2013

June (Summer finally arrives in Yorkshire!)

Week 1  Finally we are getting some warm temps and sun here!  I even was able to practice my harp in our back garden the other day.  Getting my harp and me used to being and playing outside in preparation for my upcoming busking (maybe this week?).

Open mic night was last night and it went well.  I played The Foggy Dew / Rights of Man, She Moved Through the Fair / Cooley's Hornpipe, The Downfall of Paris, Were You at the Rock?

Did I mention I'm re-working The Blackbird set dance?  Coming up with some melodic variations as I listen to different versions of it.

Practicing loads today (harp and fiddle).  Learning 'Limerick's Lamentation' on the harp (I already have it on the fiddle).


Mike and I took our instruments to our friends' BBQ on Saturday.

End of June  I *have* been practicing, just not posting.  Today I'm working out a one hour set for my upcoming gig at the Kirkstall Abbey.  I'm trying not to repeat too many tunes from last year and the year before that.  I've got a few new ones, so will only repeat a couple 'greatest hits' and comfy ones in case I need a security blanket.

9 comments:

  1. Oh what a good idea - messing with The Blackbird..... it was one of the first Grainne tunes I taught myself - and I'm afraid I did kind of 'follow the dots' a bit too rigidly in the beginning and have been trying to break free and make it more my own ever since..... Even though I sometimes find my own arrangements as hard to play as ones I've learned, usually I play them better in the end, as in more solidly overall. probably because they are invariably simpler.

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  2. Kathy taught it to me. I'm pretty much keeping the same left hand, but when I listened to a few others playing it (different instruments) I could here some slight variations / ornamentations that I didn't have in mine, so good to have options.

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  3. It all sounds wonderful - wish I could have been there to hear you!

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  4. Glad you are having some nice weather -- ours was nice then it got rainy, then hot, and now it is COLD (and rainy).

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  5. It's still amazing weather and supposed to stay like that all weekend! (about a high of 70 is pretty much considered a heat wave around here--70 is the new 90 for me--haha!!)

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  6. Wow that picture is huge, sorry!

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  7. I love it huge! I need to take a picture at my kitchen session which is tomorrow to put something dynamic like this up - it's good for morale boosting which is what we're doing here, eh?

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  8. Ha ha the bigger the better! I want to see pics from you Pam and Lucy (and Laura--hope you've been mending!)!

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