thanks folks for the kind comments
Feel free to ignore the mistakes and enjoy the birds. It took a long time to get the timing close to correct. I think it was Townsend who said "Slip jig, slip jig. Realization: there's no easy way to play three."
Nice to see you and your mandocello in full day light. (Seemingly) calm and steady playing. Your right-hand technic looks a lot better than mine. And the birds are incredible.
Yes, nice to see you again Paul, and great playing! You’ve got a good sense of rhythm already. The rhythm does take a while to get, I usually just metronome each tune till I know which notes in each bar need heavier accents. However if I don't ‘feel’ the tune rhythmically then I don’t continue at the recording stage unless I’m recording with a click track. Sometimes I need five minutes of metronome drilling before each recording as a warm up. Nice tone too. What sort of birds are those? -another exercise I used to do was just take 2 bars and lots of repeats over and over using a drum machine with different rhythms to give different accents each practice session.
Good steady pace there, Paul. Jigs and other of the faster tunes are very demanding on the longer-scale instruments, and you handle yours very well here.
I'm not sure about the birds. I get quite a variety in my yard. I got frustrated using a metronome on this so I would just do one measure over and over again until I thought I had it, then try to connect to adjacent measures. A drum track may work better for me than the metronome though, so I should try that.
x-XXxxXX is my favourite for reels at the moment, the metronome I’ve got gives a sort of shunting train Rockabilly (sounds to me) type rhythm. Here’s another, it’s a jig rhythm (1,2,3 1,2,3) that’s slightly flatten towards becoming a 4/4 reel (1,2,3+ 1,2,3+). (As opposed to a jig (1,2,3 1,2,3) that’s becoming a slip jig (1+,2,3 1+,2,3 1+,2,3)) (the plus + means the note is a fraction longer) https://youtu.be/mtg3w7pmz_s
It's still a work on progress, but I wanted to post in a reasonably timely way. If the pareto principle holds, it would take me far too long to eliminate the remaining issues.
Excellent version Dennis. Each day moving up the mathematical curve!
Nice version, Dennis. Good decission to post it now.
Sounds great to me, and such a lovely tone from your mandolin too!
Excellent version, Dennis. I can really feel the pulsing triplets of the slip jig in your playing here. As Jill says, great tone too from your mandolin.
Dennis has got the flow, the jazz, the jibe, the groove!
Thank you! I have a mandolin lesson on Thursday where I'll play this. It's a nice tune.
These are all very enjoyable versions! (How did I not see this thread before now?!)
Here's my attempt at this tune. This is my second jig along side Irish Washerwoman that I learned as a kid. This was a LOT harder than I thought. And with what my Father always called " Of to the races syndrome", it's a little quick. I'm my own worse enemy. Oh' well. Aren't we all. Thanks for listen'n.
Nice!
Nice one, Frank. I like the cool vibe you create here visually!
Fast and smooth picking there Frank, interesting picking patterns too, with the very very fast down picking. Cool indeed.
Much to cool, Frankdolin. I every time get a little dizzy by such speed races.
Thanks All ! Gotta work on that groove. I live in 3/4 and 4/4. Hats off again to John and the guys that really play this music. It's way fun BTW.
This seemed appropriate for St Patrick's Day, with pictures of great Irish fiddlers of yesteryear. Now I discover that many of you had got there first, and relatively recently. It's a great thread (and a wonderful tune, if a bit trickier than it seems, as many have noted).
More nice swiftly played music I really like the suspended chords, gives a feeling of anticipation followed by the full resolved chords.
A fine addition to the thread, Richard. Nice to see all these fiddlers.
Happy St. Patrick's Day! Very good playing as usual.
Thank you, Simon, Frithjof and Dennis. Simon, this tune does have unresolved feel to it, both the harmony and the 9/8 time (which always gives me that feeling that there should be a bit more coming).
Great playing as usual, Richard! BtW, you hold the mandolin pretty perpendicularly.
Thank you, Christian. I changed the way that I hold the mandolin a few months ago, dispensing with the shoulder strap, sitting with crossed legs to get the instrument at the right height, and holding it at a more upright angle. I find that by doing that it is easier to get my left-hand fingertips at something close to a 90 degree angle. I also find it more comfortable - the closer to horizontal the neck is, the more strain there is on the left wrist. (I have no idea if any of this is orthodox thinking, but I was prompted to make the change by watching a video of Marla Fibish, though looking at her play now I see that I hold it several degrees more upright.)
Three years already since we posted our various versions of this great jig, Richard, and one I have rarely played since as we don't often play it at our sessions here. Your revival of it is timely and you play it so well.
