St. Anne's Reel - another collaboration with John Kelly. I hope you enjoy the match up of the French Canadian song with the Quebec based Cirque du Soleil acrobats. Both seem to be bouncy and fun - although it pains my body to see the maneuvers they do. I couldn't bend that way even if I was made of rubber.
I had forgotten we had collaborated on this one, Ginny, and it is quite a different version from the one we play at home here in Scotland. Great idea putting the Cirque Du Soleil photos on the video - they really suit the music.
Very nice, Ginny! Relaxed, confident, melodic, and without a finger put wrong at any point. I've forgotten what model of mandolin you play, but you're getting great tone from it. Around here, this tune is usually played faster and with less swing. Your version goes perfectly with those carefully selected visuals. Yes, those acrobats ... I won't get into that kind of physical shape in this lifetime! A couple of members of one of the local sessions confused me once by jokingly referring to this as "Stan's Reel".
Thank you very much John and Dennis. I suppose I took a bit of an easier version...John and I did this a while ago - even he forgot we had done it. I find some go for speed instead of accuracy..I'm not so good at speed. This one was played on my Larrivee mandolin ( a Canadian brand originally) I now usually record on my Northfield. Simon says he's about to do it too - so let's keep the pressure on him...you're up next Simon. There are so many variations to this tune..I think I have at least four.
I like the different rhythm Ginny and John and thanks, I’d forgotten that I was trying to learn this. Soon to be posted. I’m not into speed either. I went for a jog yesterday. But seven and a half miles, and 1500 feet climbed, and in just the one and a half hours, and with a backpack, and for a sixty year old is not bad. -and it was cold and sometimes icy, and very muddy and slippery too. All that mud. Who needs the Cirque de Soleil when your life can be a circus?
Fine playing Ginny, very accurate!
Later I actually played this perfectly (for me), quite a few times (promise), but by that time the scaffolding crew (the following act) had decided to get serious and break out the hammers and chainsaws, they then did shouting... and it was a pretty impressive amount of noise for just three human beings This is the take I did just as they arrived...
Here is a "Scottish" version I recorded about ten years ago, to let you hear the differences in styles found in those tunes. The one I did with Ginny (above) has a quite different feel to it. The second tune here is Willafjord.
Ginny - nice collaboration with John. You certainly have a sense to find amazing images to produce your vids. Simon - I appreciate your backpack jog as well as your recording. No problem with the hammers and chainsaws of the scaffolding crew. Wasn't it you who announced a punk version of a tune???
John - thanks for your own version too.
Fine playing and lovely sweet second tune John. Both sounding very Scottish too (or dare I say Northumberland). Frithjof thanks, yes it was I who made the bold statement, ok will be posted soon -I mean not in ten years time. That’s not soon.
Thanks all...I quite enjoyed the other versions. I also enjoyed Simon's back-packing- up hill both ways- slogging and jogging in the cold, wet snow story - plus at what point did you not want to scream at the contractors and say...."SCUSE ME...RECORDING GOING ON HERE FELLAS !!! Great playing btw.
The joys of home recording, Simon. That really good version we play is so often the one where we forgot to hit the record button, or the phone rings,etc. Fine playing and a great sound, by the way!
Good one Ginny, though different from the one I play sometimes (see below). Simon, I like recordings made under distracting circumstances for their unique, irreproducible character. You did well and of course you're doing even better undisturbed. John, yours is most near to mine. I recorded this as the last tune in a set (from 3:21) ages ago in a (then pathetic) attempt at a Billy-Gibbons-impersonation:
Wow! Mr Cool personified. Nice set, Bertram. Is that electric tenor the one you brought over to Scotland? It really sustains!
Yes John, that's the one. Sustain is easy when strings can't get rid of their energy on a massive lump of wood.
That's quite the production Bertram. Nice video editing too. Like a rock music video U2 can be a star !
Yes nice one but I noticed that, Bertram, you do a vid where you play two tunes and then you get Bono to play the third? And you pretend that it was you? -we don’t do that sort of thing on Song a Week!
Four fine versions with a glorious finale!
Yes, they're all great! Well done for playing through all those distractions, whether externally imposed or home-made...
