Great wee video and playing, BH. Nothing to be scared of if you are producing material like this; you are a very welcome addition to the SAW group. Mike, the SAW points came about, I think, from facetious comments some of us were making about our playing, and encouraging each other to go on to greater things. I would say BH has certainly moved into the very high points category with this latest offering. It is all about having loads of fun and as many laughs as we can generate, but never forgetting that each time we post we learn something both as posters and as audience. We are all in this for the benefit of the other members, and also to give ourselves a platform to display our playing.
It really IS all about the right hand! I'm all about the DUD but I learned these on the fiddle and would have to go to re-education camp to undo my pick direction. Marla Fibish probably would slap my right hand. This was a warmup take but little did I realize my SD card was full and failed to recored the good one for the ages. Such is life.
I hadn't heard of SAW points either until Simon mentioned them the other day. As Barbara says in the group blurb, it's not a contest. So you can award yourself any number of points you like and then decide where you want to go from there. It was great to watch your video. As you will have noticed, some members have become experts at creating really nice images to go with the music. But I also like the close-ups of the player, where I can learn something about technique - in your case, your right hand. Very rhythmic and fluent. You mentioned that you didn't know this tune, but produced a very good version in a very short time. Hats off!
Mike - nice warmup. I think I played it a bit differently, as I just used the ABC I got off the Session and tried to play note for note. It's kind of funny, but I probably tried to play this tune 20 times before I recorded it, and I still can't get how the tune goes in my head. I am putting it on the bottom of the pile. Gelsensbury - I think the SAW points that Simon brought up were intended as humor, at least that is how I interpreted them. I can assure you, if this were any type of contest, I wouldn't be posting. For me it is a way to have a bit of fun and to share and learn with other people who have the same interests, and it has certainly proven that way to me. Thank you all for the nice comments.
It is kinda a difficult tune to warm up to, Bad Habbits. Maybe works better in a set than on its own ... hence I put it in a set!
Dennis you have a rare, subtle and complex layered sense of humour my friend! Really nice fluid version Mike, this tune is great for it’s ambiguous phrasing, and letting the player decide. It’s good to see more people posting. Thanks. On another note. It’s interesting, there are some tunes I can play with a metronome and never have to think about it and others where I’m constantly sliding off the beat. I’m wondering if those tunes are asking me to go into free tempo. (If that’s what it’s called)
I recently had an experience where humour came across badly, which can easily happen in written online communication. So please excuse what may have seemed like an overly earnest way of explaining. I'll give myself 10 SAW points for that!
Great picking, Mike, and a lovely smooth transition between tunes.
Thought I’d throw this one in. -I really wanted to add a drone and a drum! https://youtu.be/_kg_cCQHAro -I ran the audio file through BandLab with a click to make it what they call ‘CD’ quality, but it’s just a simple recording with the mobile telephone.
Nice, Simon! I need to pay more attention to who is reading and who plays without music. Lots to learn from this group. Simon, I appreciate your sharing technology used as I try to figure out my own.
A well-played jig with a strong Irish flavour, Simon. Sherry, it is not always clear from watching the videos whether sheet music is in use or not. Many of us play from the notation but have it off camera when doing the recordings. Have a look at the eyes of the player to see if that gives you a clue. Martin Jonas will regularly have his music stand in the picture when he makes a video recording. Many of the tunes I post, especially those that I am playing from the song choices, are played from the music as I do not often take the time to learn those tunes but just record them.
Once agsin: the relaxed wrist masters some speedy jig-picking, hats off!
Thanks Lady and Gents, the music sheet is just out of the picture though this time I decided to try to record it from memory. I find that if I look around while I’m playing I lose focus so if playing from memory I’ll look down, so that’s something to work on, maybe watch a film while playing? Yes John, I always thought of this as an Irish tune, it does seem to want to be played fast and has a rolling feeling to my fingers (probably based on what I have learned so far) CC.
I used to start this jig off from time to time at various sessions and was surprised that only rarely were people able to take up the baton... Still, you gotta persist, no? Perhaps it's the fact that there are so many A Dorian jigs floating about that players can't be bothered adding yet another to their kitbag, even a very straighforward jig like this which a lot of people wold be able to pick up in 5 minutes? And I suspect that there's a certain amount of anti-jig snobbery at play in some of the circles I've mixed in - or, perhaps more kindly - some of those players may feel that if they're going to invest time in learning new tunes, they'd rather invest it in learning reels... Oh well ... I'm a man of simple tastes and simple pleasures. And this jig appeals to those sensibilities. There's not a wasted note, nor a wasted pause, throughout... I've backed the tune with a spartan, drone-y bit of keyboardery. Which I *think* works well with the tune.
I may just decide to learn it now. It's nice!
:-) Scatter that mud...
What a delightful tune. And the dronery works (although I was a bit confused, as I thought for a moment that my back-up disk was misbehaving noisily).
Sweet playing Aidan and thanks, I think this was the second or third tune I tried to learn, believing it to be simple. It is a simple enough tune in terms of repetition and number of notes but the finger flow is non-standard. Talking about mud though, that’s what I did today! Cycled down to my local hypermarket this afternoon and - blow me down with a pair of piano accordions - there was a 15 kilo bag of spuds for 5 euros! The big bags were covered in dried mud which was why they hadn’t been taken. I grabbed the bag and the mud ended up everywhere… and on the pretty cashier’s conveyor belt (‘oh, la, la, monsieur!’)... Outside I strapped the bag onto my bike and sloped back home in the warm rain very happy. I was thinking: chips, mash, fried, au gratin, hashbrowns, roasted, dried, pickled, thyme and rosemary gnocchi, pancakes, blitva, spicy hot wedges, potato bread, pancakes, soup, stuffed, crunchy olive oil croquettes… oh yeah!
Sounds like the most nutritious mud scattering ever!
@Richard. Many thaks @Simon. Thanks. All the tunes are simple once you know them ... all are hard when you don't. Or so says a session-mate of mine. A good point, well-made.
