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Monday, March first, 2010
The first video from Propellor Time is up at The Museum of Robyn Hitchcock:
The lines "To say you're only human,/ To say you're just a man,/ Well what does that mean?" Are reminding me strongly of something but I cannot figure out just what right now...The video is (like The Day Before Boxing Day) directed by Hannah Bird and released on Groove Egg -- now I want to find out more about this.
posted afternoon of March first, 2010: Respond
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Monday, February 15th, 2010
Something I really enjoy with learning traditional fiddle tunes, is figuring out which ones of them go together and creating medleys. Usually the impetus for this to happen comes when I'm playing one song and accidentally fall into a different tune, then I work out how I can make that transition happen on purpose. Here are two medleys I've been working on a lot recently: "The Road to Lisdoonvarna"/"Drowsy Maggie" (a little interesting because the two songs, while in the same key, have markedly different rhythm), and "The Red-Haired Boy"/"Bill Cheetham" (which seem like they might as well be actually the same song, they have so much in common).
posted afternoon of February 15th, 2010: Respond
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Thursday, February 11th, 2010
 So YepRoc has no plans to release Propellor Time in the U.S., in physical or digital format. That's no good! If you are on FaceBook (and it makes a difference to you), go join the FaceBook group Persuade YepRoc to release Propellor Time stateside. That'll show 'em!
posted evening of February 11th, 2010: 3 responses
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Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
Lordy, I thought that was the prettiest sweepingest music that I ever heard. I wanted to holler and jump up and down I just couldn't sit still on that log bench when that tune started snaking around the school house. I let out a yell and leapt off that bench and commenced to dance and clog around and everybody was hollering and laughing and every time he touched the bow to them strings hell would break loose in that school house.
Found a treasure trove today; at folkstreams.net is a huge library of documentaries about... well about folkways; but a great number of them, running into what looks like hundreds of hours, are about American folk music. Learn about the Dallas of Blind Lemon Jefferson in Alan Governar's film Deep Ellum Blues. Listen to Peg-Leg Sam Jackson, one of the last medicine show performers, in Tom Davenport's Born for Hard Luck. Alan Lomax travels through the southern Appalachians, filming dulcimer players, banjo pickers, guitarists, fiddlers and more in Appalachian Journey:
The whole thing is great -- even the last 15 minutes or so, which I found a little gratingly kitschy, has some great music in it. Especially wanted to point out the fiddling of Tommy Jarrell about 20 minutes in. Jarrell is a new star in my firmament, a new sound for me to aspire to.
posted evening of February 10th, 2010: Respond
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Monday, February 8th, 2010
Ruiz Zafón is apparently a composer as well as an author -- I was searching on YouTube with the thought that some scenes from Shadow of the Wind might have been produced with an eye towards making a movie of it -- it seems like it would lend itself well to cinema -- and what did I find but this record of songs composed by Ruiz Zafón to accompany the book:
Well, wow: impressive. I am still thinking this is not a great book, though I'm liking the second half a lot better than the first. But I think it would make a really good movie, and filming it in black-and-white definitely seems like the way to go, and this soundtrack would go really well. It goes nicely with the reading, too.Track listing below the fold.
- The Shadow of the Wind
- Remembering Ghosts
- The Graveyard of Forgotten Books
- I Cannot Remember her Face
- Laim Coubert
- Penélope and Julián
- The Mansion of the Aldayas
- Bea
- Children's Games
- Piano Lessons
- 1919
- Daniel Remembers
- Days of Ash
- Plaza Real
- FermÃn and Bernarda
- Clara Barceló
- Fumero and the Angel of the Fog
- Paris
- FermÃn and Daniel, Detectives
- The Snowstorm
- November 27th, 1995
- The Wedding
- Dramatis Personæ
- The Closing Credits
↻...done
posted evening of February 8th, 2010: 2 responses
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Sunday, February 7th, 2010
This weekend I started working on a couple of new songs, some solo fiddle tunes and a blues tune I could play with John.
I thought I would explore the latter half of the alphabet in my music book a little; paging through the R's I found "The Road to Lisdoonvarna" -- well! I've been to Lisdoonvarna -- on a bike trip in western Ireland, with Ellen about 13 years ago -- and remember it fondly, and I have a shortage of jigs in my repertoire; so I thought I'd give it a try. Looked it up on YouTube to get an idea what it sounds like, and I found Ryan and Brennish Thompson playing it along with two other Dorian tunes:
I like all of these songs and have set myself the task of learning them -- they're coming along pretty well, I think. "Lisdoonvarna" and "Swallowtail" are jigs -- i.e. fast tunes in 6/8 time -- and "Drowsy Maggie" is a reel, in 4/4.
Another song I took a look at last night, which I think will be great to play with John, is "If the River Was Whiskey", Charlie Poole's version of "Hesitation Blues." Here are The Dough Rollers playing it: or you can listen to Poole at
lala.com. It's a great fiddle part, a lot of fun, and it'll sound great with John's guitar.
posted afternoon of February 7th, 2010: Respond
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Saturday, February 6th, 2010
John and I played for a couple of hours this afternoon -- it seems to me like we're getting better, more in sync with each other, a good deal faster than I expected/hoped we would. Of the songbook tunes we played, every one was just right -- sounded like I hoped it would sound in front of an audience -- except for "California Stars", which was the first song we played and sounded like we had not warmed up yet. Two songs are ready to upgrade from "songs we're working on" to our songbook, namely "Preying Mantis" and "One of These Days"; and two songs which we played for the first time today -- "Pack up Your Sorrows," by Richard Fariña, and "On My Way Back to the Old Home," by Bill Monroe -- seemed like they could be included in the songbook straight off by virtue of how natural they were for us to play. We played "Shady Grove" for the second time, and I was happy and excited to realize that this is the source for the melody of my song Fair Elaine -- it has been nagging at me for a couple of years now to figure out where that came from.
posted afternoon of February 6th, 2010: 1 response
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Tuesday, February second, 2010
What!? I sit down today to link to the video David Rawlings and Gillian Welch made for NPR's Tiny Desk Concert, and I discover that I have never written about them here -- or if I did, I did not include any intuitive search terms like "Rawlings" or "Welch".... Anyway: the David Rawlings Machine is a band that I've been loving ever since I heard them last year -- before last year I had a vague impression that Gillian Welch had a good sound and I ought to listen to more, but wasn't getting around to it -- but last summer Dave gave me a ticket to see them at the Beacon, and I fell in love with them instantly. So anyway, here is a great show, an interesting synthesis of old-time and brand-new.
posted afternoon of February second, 2010: Respond
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Sunday, January 31st, 2010
Here is a recording I made of "The Boys of Blue Hill":
-- by way of comparison, a recording I found on YouTube. This is James Galway and Matt
Molloy, in 1977:
 Update -- as long as I'm recording some fiddle tunes -- I added a take of "The Growling Old Man and the Carping Old Woman" to this post. And here is a tape of Graham Townsend playing the tune:
posted morning of January 31st, 2010: Respond
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I spent a lot of time practicing my fiddle tunes yesterday. These tunes -- generally Irish or Appalachian tunes, mostly in 4/4 time, mostly with two sections of 8 or 16 bars each -- I mostly play as a sort of étude, just getting used to playing the violin fast and clear and with a constant beat; something nice can happen when I have played a tune enough times, become familiar enough with it, that it will metamorphose from a practice tune into an actual song... when this happens it is as if I start hearing actual expressed meaning in the notes rather than just the bouncing melody. That transformation took place yesterday with the Irish song "The Boys of Blue Hill" -- suddenly that song is a part of my consciousness, not just a melody in my ear. Here are the fiddle tunes I feel familiar enough with that I think of them as songs:
- Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine
- Bonaparte Crossing the Rocky Mountain
- Bonaparte's Retreat (almost -- I still don't totally understand the B section)
- Old Joe Clark
- The Irish Washerwoman (the odd man out -- this song is a jig, in 3/4 time)
- The Growling Old Man and the Carping Old Woman
- The Boys of Blue Hill
The transition from étude to song seems to have a lot to do with rhythm -- when I am playing a tune for practice I am very focussed on playing it straight, with beats falling at the correct place and durations of notes accurate, etc. When I am playing a song there is more room for syncopation and swinging.
I am thinking I should try and build a songbook of fiddle tunes, similar to what John and I are doing with our songs. (I am wanting to do recordings of some of these, hopefully before to long I will upload some mp3's.) Below the fold, a list (in no particular order) of songs I am working on, that are getting close to inclusion in the songbook.
- Harvest Home (this works great as a medley with Boys of Blue Hill)
- Whisky Before Breakfast
- Bill Cheatham
- The Red-Haired Boy
- Devil's Dream
- The Girl I Left Behind Me
- Angelina Baker
- The Halting March (another odd man out -- this song is 4/4 but its structure is very different from all the rest of these.)
- Haste to the Wedding (jig)
(The fact that most of these titles are in the first half of the alphabet may give you an idea of how I approach my alphabetically-organized book of fiddle tunes -- generally to sort of let it fall open at random but biased toward the front of the book, and turn pages until I see something that catches my eye.)
↻...done
posted morning of January 31st, 2010: 3 responses
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