Tidbits

My lesson with Cleek didn't happen on Sunday, Sept. 24. Cleek had some sort of family commitment and we agreed to start on Oct. 1.

I sold my Sony minidisk recorder to a musician at last Sunday's Shebeen session because I think that minidisks will soon go the way of betamax VCRs. I purchased an Olympus digital voice recorder model WS-320M, which can store 35 hours of stereo audio (WMA and/or MP3) in its internal 1GB of flash memory. It is a solid state device (no moving parts) and therefore 1 AAA battery provides 15 hours of power. It is small (3 3/4"L x 1 1/2"W x 3/8"D) and light (1.6 oz). File transfer is simple through a USB connector. Lastly, it doubles as an MP3 player.

A good number of session players will be here Friday night for my home ceilidh and I really look forward to the music and camaraderie.

Best Practice

At a recent session, a musician recommended a useful program for learning tunes by ear: 'The Amazing Slow Downer'. It takes CDs or files from them and slows down the music as much as necessary to learn even very fast tunes. I had heard about it some time before, but decided to go ahead and try it. When I found the website and installed the software, I discovered that it only plays the first couple of tracks on a CD until you pay their registration fee of $50.

Rather than spend that kind of money, I did a little googling and found another product mentioned on The Session which did the same thing at no charge. That program is called 'Best Practice'. I installed it and it works like a dream! In addition to changing the speed from 1% to 200%, it allows the user to change pitch and to loop portions (or the whole tune) indefinitely in order to facilitate learning and practice. This great software is available at:

http://www.free-codecs.com/BestPractice_download.htm

Highly recommended!

Going deeper

On September 23, I'll try a private Irish fiddle lesson with Cleek Schrey. Cleek is a well known Sligo-style fiddler and pianist in Charlottesville. He is a busy touring and teaching musician, who has played at the Kennedy Center and with a variety of bands, so I know he is talented, but am not sure how effective a teacher he might be. We'll try it on for size and if we get on well, I will return for additional lessons. My one-hour lessons are tentatively scheduled at 1pm on Sundays, so that I will have time to go from there to the weekly Shebeen session (3-6pm) without feeling rushed.

Excuse me, could you say that again?

While waiting for last night's Richmond session to begin, another fiddler and I warmed up by knocking out a few tunes. We played an air (Captain Kane/Wounded Hussar), a hornpipe (Boys of Blue Hill), and a reel (Banshee), and at some point I became aware that a young woman was standing beside us, watching and listening.

When we finished the set, she asked if we would come and play some Irish tunes at her wedding. She said that we sounded great together and wanted us both. The other fellow I played with is a local fiddler for hire and he made arrangements to play there solo in a couple of weeks. I don't feel that I'm ready to play for money, but it felt nice to be asked.

No show

The older fiddler mentioned in my last few posts decided that he didn't want to participate in yesterday's Shebeen session and I doubt that he returns in the forseeable future. I don't wish him ill, but I'm glad that he wasn't there, since he really detracted from the enjoyment for so many.

Hell is filled with musical amateurs. -G. B. Shaw

At Sunday's Charlottesville session, the same older gentleman fiddler showed up from last week. He began to repeat the same pattern of playing unintelligible tunes at a ridiculous pace. At that point, a very experienced flute player asked him to play more slowly.

The old gentleman said that he couldn't, and the other fellow stated that he was "playing ahead of" himself. The fiddler seemed annoyed at the suggestion, but did slow down a bit. Unfortunately, he was still badly out of tune. At that point, the same flute player interrupted and asked that everyone in the session check their tuning. He was trying to let the older fellow tune without embarassment, except that the fiddler didn't take the hint! When he realized that the older fiddler wasn't going to tune, the flute player insisted and the fiddler did so grudgingly, but then left in a huff a few minutes later.

The old fiddler may or may not return, but I am grateful to that flute player, who had the nerve and standing in the session to express what everyone else was dying to say. I will try to learn from this episode and be sure that I don't play anything at volume which I don't play well.

Slow session

I plan to host a slow Irish session at my house during the last weekend of September, to offer less advanced players a chance to play tunes with others at their level. Often, at the Charlottesville or Richmond sessions, tunes are played faster than I can manage and I can only listen. I'm sure that's the case with others as well.

I have invited a fair number of people, but I don't know how many might attend. If it succeeds, I might do this once a quarter or so.

As Confucius said, "It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop."