In stereo

I have had great fun lately, playing music along with a special CD which I created. The CD contains tunes which I have learned well enough to play along with the professionals who created the original CDs from which these were ripped.

The tune list is pretty short:

Skye Boat Song (Celtic Fiddle Festival)
Dark Island (Celtic Fiddle Festival)
Mist Covered Mountains of Home (Johnny Cunningham)
Cock o' the North (John Turner)
Cutting Bracken (John Turner)
MacPherson's Farewell (John Turner)
Farewell to Whiskey/Whiskey Welcome Back Again (John Turner)
Archibald McDonald of Keppoch (Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas)
Niel Gow's Lamentation for James Moray (Pete Clark)
Niel Gow's Lament for the Death of His Brother Donald (Pete Clark)
Niel Gow's Lament for the Death of His Second Wife (Pete Clark)
MacDonald Lord of the Isles/Romance Air (Bonnie Rideout)
Lochanside (Old Blind Dogs)
Roslyn Castle (Old Blind Dogs)
Captain Campbell (GaelWynd)
The Beggarman (GaelWynd)

Anniversary

If you subtract August, September, and October, when I couldn't play at all due to injury, I have been playing almost a year and have made reasonable progress.

I look forward to the next and all the years after with my music. It has been a wonderful journey of learning and experience.

Sources

I recently came across two great websites which contain hundreds of tunes available as sheet music, gifs, etc.

The first is Breizh Partitions, which contains tunes categorized by origin (Brittany, Scotland, Galicia, Wales, and Ireland) and instrument (accordion, bombard, bagpipe, flute, guitar, piano, and fiddle). I find many of the Breton fiddle tunes particularly beautiful and haunting.

Next, I found O'Neill's Music of Ireland. I happen to have this large and important reference book in my music library, but wish I had found the website first, to save the $35.

Musicians frequently tend to do things merely for music's sake and the folks who put together these websites deserve a lot of credit for their labors of love.