Celtic Night Project #3

Celtic Night Project #3

Well, Celtic Music Night #3 started out with a bit of difficulty, but we had fun nonetheless. Dana seemed in a really good mood, and her playing of “Autumn Woods” which we practiced the week before actually was hard for me to keep up with. She played it a lot faster than I anticipated, and it was really fun. I think it went from being a walk through the autumn woods, to a joy ride. Then the E string broke on her violin.

But we were not to be deterred. She’s learning the mandolin, so I tuned up my mandolin for her, and she switched over. We were trying to talk my wife, Trevor, into playing the Bodhran, who had showed an interest earlier in the week, but she seemed wiped out from work, so we let her off easy. Next week, I’m determined to get her in on the action.

Liam and Ligee, who were supposed to be playing had gotten in trouble at school for throwing rocks, so they had to sit out the evening. I’m hoping we’ll find some more players. I invited my cousin-in-law to come and play bass, but his job has been preventing him from coming. We’ll just keep at it and I’m sure that when the time is right we’ll have the right mix of players.

In my mind I envision a great bustling room of excitement and camaraderie, but as of late it’s only been my family and Dana, which is bustling as it is, and the boys are really doing well with their drums, and Liam also with his bass. Maybe next week we’ll try out Liam on the bass, and Trevor and Ligee can play drums. We’ll see.

Liam was going to video tape for us, but nothing seemed to come out well enough to post. Next time we’ll see what we can do. I sent around the chord chart for Sting’s “Dead Man’s Rope,” from the Sacred Love album. It’s a really cool song, but the bridge is very strange. I think I figured out how to play the bridge, but I don’t have a clue what to call the chords that are played on it. Maybe we’ll give it a shot next week. I think we should start singing some songs.

Yesterday, the day after the jam, Liam bought me a CD of traditional Irish songs at the Dollar Store, and it had a lot of the songs and tunes that we are trying to play. Now we have some sort of reference to hear how they’re supposed to be played. So hopefully soon, we’ll be able to post some of those songs. What I found odd, and maybe it was just a lazy editor, but there are songs that are called one name on the CD, but in O’Neill’s book they have a completely different name. I guess it could be that they made a mix up when processing the CD, or it could be that these old folk tunes are known by more than one name. But I think there are other songs by the same name but with different tunes in O’Neill’s book.