To business

Right, now I've introduced myself, how about some content? Let us begin.

Recently I've begun a daily challenge.

• Take one sheet of music off the bottom of the large pile I own.
• Turn to a random page
• Choose a piece (if possible one I haven't played before)
• Grab an instrument
• Begin playing

I've been doing this for a couple of weeks now, and actually the point of starting this blog was to make a note of what I've been playing, and possibly comment on it.
This is what I've done so far:

• 23/02/2008 Broadside Ballads (Lucy Skeeping): The Country Lass p18 (classical guitar, voice)
• 24/02/2008 The Piper's Dream (Pat McNulty): The Magheracloone Girl p17 (banjo, mandolin)
• 25/02/2008 The Rennaisance Guitar (Frederik Noad): The Parlement p31 (classical guitar)
• 26/02/2008 The Guitar Music of Spain Volume One (Bartolome Calatayud): Can't remember which tune. They all sound Spanish (classical guitar)
• 27/02/2008 Musik Für Mandoline (Beethoven): Sonatine C-dur p5 (on Banjo and classical guitar)
• 28/02/2008 Complete Works of Scott Joplin (Mel Bay): The Great Crush Collision March p149 (classical guitar)
• 29/02/2008 Encyclopaedia Blowzabellica (Blowzabella): Pach-Pi II p35 (melodeon, bouzouki)
• 01/03/2008 Hell Awaits (Slayer): Praise of Death p31 (electric guitar (didn't really suit classical))
• 02/03/2008 Klezmer Collection for C Instruments (Mel Bay): Orientalische Melody p33 (classical guitar)
• 03/03/2008 Lute Songs of John Dowland (David Nadal): Come, Heavy Sleep p46 (classical guitar, voice)
• 04/03/2008 One Hundred English Folk Songs (Cecil Sharpe): Lady Maisry p26 (3 voice arrangement started)

From now on I'll be adding entries on a daily basis.
Today I picked up the following:

• O'Neill's Music of Ireland (Capt. Francis O'Neill/ James O'Neill): The Drogheda Lasses p243 (banjo, mandolin)

This tune is very similar to a favourite of mine The Maids of Castlebar. I've been mainly playing on my electric mandolin "Draconis the mandolock" - an explanation will follow in a future blog, but here she is:
















I'm not Irish, and I'm sure my playing would make any true Celt wince, but I don't particularly care because I'm doing it entirely selfishly and just really enjoying the way the melody flows out of my own fair hands. Well it doesn't exactly flow yet as the B part is tricky, but you know what I mean. These D reels could become stolid and samey, so for future reference I really should look into new ways of approaching the music - swinging the rhythm slightly perhaps, working on unusual trills and flourishes. Well I have slightly swung my playing on this one, and also played it through a Vox AC30 amp with plenty of nice inappropriate distortion. I'm not 100% convinced it works, but if you never experimented you'd never know.
And after about 10 minutes playing the tune I've recorded it on a banjo. With any luck this'll embed properly...

Ah darn it. It embeds in Internet Explorer, but not in my browser of choice, Firefox.
Ah well here's a link to it instead. Very badly played I'm afraid and all manner of errors, but you get the basic idea of the melody.

*edit* At last I have the plug in working in Firefox! Follow this link to determine the arcane secrets behind it.

*edit again* in a fit of keeness with this new blogging idea, I have actually put a little more effort into recording the tune. The performance is still shockingly bad, but I have slowed it all down, swung it a bit more, done a guitar backing and introduced the deeply innappropriate distored electric mandolin towards the end, just to shake things up a bit: