Hello harp friends. As the admin. and instigator of this blog it is shameful that I have been so unpresent of late. I have no excuses either although I have not spent that much time on the computer this August.
Practice-time has been more focussed on the concertina and working on the tunes--mainly reels--that I have been learning from Benedict and Hilarie, it just seems nuts to half-learn these tunes!
In Scottish news, the other day at the session I go to sometimes in Montpelier (run by B&H and Sarah Blair) who should turn up but Alasdair Fraser. It was really something! He played with us for about a half-hour. He and Benedict played a Scottish air, name has fallen right out of my head, to die for. If it comes back I'll come back and add it.
I've worked very hard on the two Vincent Broderick tunes, The Whistler at the Wake and ....uh... the other one. Also on Bonnie Jean, a Conellan tune that I learned from Kathleen Loughnane. Maeve taught several marvelous tunes as did Edel Fox - one or two of those are suitable for harp too. So I have been practicing!
It's been quiet this year playing gigs. Last year we had several over the summer, but everyone was too busy this year to organize anything, myself included. I miss the practicing that goes on for those events, however, and hope we get back into it soon.
That's pretty much all my news for now. xx's to all.
Wow Alisdair Fraser! Funny I just started listening to one of his CDs again lately (a big deal for me since it isn't Irish haha!) It is a beautiful CD that was actually put into my bag more than ten years ago when I was buying CDs at Tower Records. It was a gift from the fairies haha!
ReplyDeleteDo you find it helpful / a good thing / makes it a tiny bit easier when you learn a new tune on both instruments? I sort of do. Not sure quite how, but one instrument informs what you do on the other and vice versa.