sorry if this has one been done before, i couldnt find it on a search , so hopefully not. i seem to be going back towards thin picks, though this one may be a little too light at 45.
That sounds awesome
Very nice! I really enjoyed that. I checked it out on You Tube too and was pleased to find you have quite a few other tunes to listen to also so I subscribed. I always found thin picks sounded thin but yours doesn't. Must be yout technique.
It sounds a little thin to me indeed but it is well played as every time, Lawrence. It was fun to listen to.
Great stuff Lawrence - good to see you posting again!
Another slow jig. Unfortunately I don't seem to be able to play Lawrence's original, so I can't tell how much slower. The observant will notice that the video features not Lough Gowna but the pond in our garden (did I mention that I have a pond?) People always asked if we were getting fish - to which the answer was that the pond was for the wildlife already in the garden, as well as others who might be attracted, such as amphibians. These seemed more interesting than some ornamental carp. So here is a photographic record of our garden residents enjoying the "beach," as well as the frog, who will no doubt be honoured with a tune of his own at some point.
Inspired by Lawrence's and Richard's versions of this fine jig which is a staple at many sessions I've rocked up at over the years, I decided this morning to make a recording. Listening to others play a familiar tune sometimes provides opportunities to rethink how I approach it and it never ceases to amaze me how much scope exists for making a tune different and personal within just 16 bars... In the tune learning videos which I make at my YouTube channel and the sound files I make at my website, I attempt to play a tune very straight and - as far as possible - as an accurate and faithful representation of the sheet and tab which I provide. And then it's up to the player who accesses that material to individualise the tune once they've got the bare bones. Peter Horan is once reputed to have said to Gerry Harrington when they were making an album together something along the lines of "You've got the notes. You'll soon get the tune." When I'm not making tune learning material, then it's my chance - for better or worse - to make a tune out of the notes...
I missed Lawrence's rousing jig when it was first posted over four years ago, then here are two very different versions from Richard and Aidan. It reminds me of the old observation about waiting for a bus to come along. Lawrence, you delivered such a rousing performance of this jig and the pick did not sound thin to me. Probably the larger body depth of your instrument helps with creating a great tone, along with excellent picking technique. Richard and Aidan, the slowed-down versions you two provide are beautiful and so well illustrate the comment that Aidan makes about getting the notes, then learning the tune. All three of you have made the same tune very personal to yourselves by your different approaches. Great tune and great playing, all.
Hi John... Thanks very much for that. Just a quick word or two to expand on Peter Horan's attributed comment, cos I think they are very wise words and I very often call them up to remind me what he was actually saying. But they are perhaps a tad oblique in the way that people from my neck of the woods are inclined from time to time to be a little cryptic... What most of would think of as "learning the tune" is actually what he meant by "getting the notes". That is to say, a lot of us (myself included) pride ourselves on learning the tunes (i.e. "getting the notes") when we can play the piece through without recourse to dots or abc or tab or sol-fa or re-listening to a recording again or whatever prop we use to gain us entry to the tune in the first place. "Getting the tune" is next-level. If we think of dots, abc, etc. as a map, then "getting the notes" is a little like doing a journey from A to B for the first few times. Our focus is on the road, on making sure we don't take a wrong turn, watching out for junctions, sharp bends, etc. However if we extend that analogy, then "getting the tune" is akin to making the journey for the umpteenth time, when we know the route and its quirks and we're able to focus instead on the scenery. Perhaps we will make that little detour off to the left cos there's a lovely view a few miles along and we know that if we follow the detour we'll come back to the main stretch again in another few miles. Maybe on this journey we aren't under any time pressure and we'll take it nice and easy cos it's a nice day and we're enjoying the feel of cruising along... Hope that analogy isn't too forced. It's kind of worked for me on several occasions when I've tried to explain, to sight readers in particular, the difference between being able to play a tune sight unseen from a score and being able to play it competently without a score through to "owning" the tune (and being owned by it)... Pseuds Corner beckons me again. Talking about music is harder than playing it!
Thank you, John and Aidan. I still can't play Lawrence's video, though others are clearly able to. Aidan, I think your version is great and addresses various problems that I had with mine. Notably, you play a version with more notes, which fills the long pauses of the dotted crotchets in the B part, that I tried to fill with triplets. The unforeseen hazards of playing slowly...
Richard,you may try this link for the video in question https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eQHxQ7XAto or Lawrence’s YT channel https://www.youtube.com/@lawrencemolloy9990
Aidan, I like your playing of the jig and also can go with the clear sound of the undistorted electric instrument. And: Yes, it sounds definitively different to my playing while sight-reading the sheet music of a tune. Even though the sheet music is often in my head recently.
Pseud's Corner is for those who do not really have the commitment to follow their own words. You are certainly not in that category, Aidan, being deeply intent on your aims of making Irish music more widely known, and the chats we develop in these threads can be really enlightening. Let's keep them going.
Thanks, Frithjof, but for some reason I still can't play it directly from YouTube. Something to do with my location perhaps?
Although I wasn't aware of this particular quote, I'm aware of the difference between playing the notes and playing the tune. In fact, it's the transition I've been trying to make over the past few years. There are growing pains in this process, which most recently caused me great difficulty in even learning the notes to new tunes, and even greater difficulty in enjoying the sounds that came out of my mandolin. This is basically why I hadn't posted in a while. I'm also aware of how, once a bunch of different people have mastered the tune, we get very interesting and unique versions of the same tune done in different ways. I call it the Song-a-Week-group effect. We have a very clear demonstration of it here, with three very nice recordings of this pleasant tune.
I think many people will be familiar with the process you're describing. I've been there many times. Without knowing intimately your own particular circumstances, I can only speak from personal experience and say that such crises of doubt can often be associated with a time when I've been making a step change in my approach to music. I'm beginning to hear music differently, to play music differently, to have different musical ambitions. And therefore playing "like I used to" sounds jarring, "old hat", unambitious. But although I have a playing goal in mind, and have started some way down the road towards that goal, I haven't yet quite mastered it. Therefore I'm in a limbo. I've already made a decision to dispense with the services of my "old" musician and I've left him behind mentally and yet I can't quite dispense with his services just yet because my "new" musician is still learning/rehearsing and it may be several weeks/months/years before that new musician is ready to take centre-stage. Does that feeling ring true? (I once had a friend who played in a (non-trad) band who was a superb guitarist. Something of Richard Thompson about his playing. Very fluid. Very "sweet". Intricate and yet seemingly quite simple due to his superb playing. He could have been someone, even in that very crowded profession. However he used to refer to his guitar as "the enemy" and went through long periods when rehearsing and gigging was a real struggle. And then he'd have some sort of breakthrough/epiphany when he'd have long periods of revelling in his music... Before, again, being "at war" with his guitar/himself for a while.)
It's not the same thing for me, but it does ring true as something that could happen. As you say in the other thread, it may be happening to you right now. Progress isn't linear, so it's just about persevering. It's not a race.
