Lucy is surprised that suddenly It's September!

How did it get to be September so fast???

Before the month closes, I'm going to plaster my response to Andee's query here and elsewhere.  She asks if we're to contain ourselves in one post-per-month (plus any comments, of course) and the answer is YES, that is the idea, to keep it neat. You can edit, add and subtract etc. your once-a-month blog as long as you are signed in.  There should be a pencil symbol at the bottom of it.  Click on that and when you're done hit 'Update'.  I date my entries normally (not this one, of course).  It will automatically roll over into a new month because I've set it up to do that.  

I'm mostly practicing the tunes for this gig on September 20, but of course, I find myself getting easily distracted...   I am finding I am missing Michael Rooney these days - I LOVE every tune I have ever learned from him in a workshop and I find that, at last, some of the ones I learned years ago are finally beginning to sink in, none of them are all that easy.  He has such a special sound.  I hope he and June can come over sometime before too long, or that I can get over to Ireland.  That would be dreamy.

The harp tunes for the gig are:
The Piper's Picnic/Leslie's March
Fanny Power (probably start this alone)
Joe Bane's (slow reel) (start this alone)
Accompaniment:
Three hornpipes:  Mrs Crotty's/Humours of Tullycrine/Cronin's
I may do another accompaniment, not sure......

All the other tunes, and there are many, I'll be playing on the concertina.

Right after the concert the Irish music class taught by Hilari Farrington and Benedict Koehler starts up again for six weeks.  Again we'll be focussing on a region, last time it was Clare, not sure what it will be this time.

I don't have a musical photo to post right at this moment (although I will - we took a photo of ourselves for the gig)  We're calling ourselves The Flies in the Porter - which is slightly gross but the lads all liked it.  Anyhow here is a photo of a fawn raiding our blueberry bushes!

20 September

I've been a bad bad bad blog admin person, I admit, but I've been wildly busy with both music and my RL - school starting, things coming to a head with a big writing project, and preparing for this concert in the 'bandshell' in Richmond this afternoon.  My biggest worry was the weather, but we are getting handed the most beautiful early autumn day imaginable - it should be lovely and the harp will be happy with temps in the mid-seventies and not humid.  So all that is good!  I've got my checklist handy and am about to go wash my hair and figure out just the right casual but slightly special outfit..... not my strong suit!  Ha ha.  

I am playing the tunes listed above, plus a boatload of concertina - really mostly that - I love my posse and am counting on their support and warmth to get me through the harp tunes (only one solo - the first round of Joe Bane's) and the brief concertina solo as I start "The New Custom House" one of my favorite reels.  For some reason though, I have almost no problem playing the concertina publicly.  It feels like a dear little pet in my lap, not this big imposing thing.  People get so excited by the harp, their eyes light up and they go 'Awwww, a harp!" and I am afraid of disappointing them!  No one feels that way about a concertina.  The cats howl and want to go outside or else they come and try and make me stop!  I am an expert at playing c'tina quietly, in fact.  

So I'm nervous.  Yep.  I'll get Knox (spousal unit) to take a photo of us, maybe even a little clip would be cool, and I promise to post it here as soon as I am recovered. 

23 September

So far the spousal unit has hogged any media on his smartphone....  In the meantime, the concert went very well, it was actually fun!  I must be maturing or something.   We didn't get to play anywhere near all of our tunes and I'm thinking of taking the harp to the Thursday session which I never do..... but I think I have to.  

Meanwhile, the Harper's Escape is coming up - I am going although I dread the long drive.  It's an hour less for Somerset, and I appreciate that!  I have my CD somewhere although I can't remember what I did with it, which is kind of bad of me, eh?  Looks like fun. 

29 September 

Don't know if I mentioned that I was 'trying out' for a regular gig in the lobby of our local (Burlington, VT) hospital (Fletcher-Allen).  I 'got it' and I start this Thursday afternoon.  Then the next day I head south on the long trek to Harper's Escape in New Brunswick.  I wish it wasn't so far away!  I ALWAYS get stuck somewhere in some ghastly traffic jam (one time it was right in NB within a mile of my destination).  I had to take a crazy cross-country route.  For once I would like to arrive not frazzled. 

My non-harp Irish music class has started up again - Regional Styles this time, Leitrim this week.  Fun!

I'm tackling Limestone Rock on the harp because one of my flute friends is dying for me to learn it to play with her.  We do Miss Johnson's, then George White's and she wants to add Limestone Rock which she usually plays after GW.... that should be quite the set!