Lonesome Road

Today's tune is:
A Complete Guide to Learning The Irish Mandolin (Padraig Carroll) - The Lonesome Road to Dingle (Acoustic guitar)
No recording today as my effort wasn't really worth it, but I was experimenting a little with playing chords along with the tune at the same time, trying to emulate the style of American flatpickers. I didn't really succeed in this as this tune is a Slide (Single Jig) which rarely get this treatment, so I'm not exactly overwhelmed by examples to copy.
It's occurred to me that most of the sheet music I own is for Irish/Folk tunes. My favourite kind of music, which I end up listening to 90% or more of the time is metal, and my interest in folk has only recently spread outside of the one week a year that is the Sidmouth Folk Festival. In the last few years though I have acquired more and more folk instruments, and have mastered none!

Last night's rehearsal was excellent - I noticed ages ago that if you want to get a dynamic effect out of an amateur chorus you have to really over exaggerate the dynamics in practice - I'm doing this in one bit in Iolanthe where I want the sound to grow out of nowhere, so I'm getting them to going from whispering to almost shouting across the course of a couple of bars. It sounds amazing though.

I also started writing a new tune at work today. Working title is N34 (how original) and it's scored for Alto Sax, electric guitar, bass drums and voice. Not sure where it's going yet as I've only written about 12 bars.