Salient point: Play reeds that are easy enough to maximize your fingering ability but still remain crisp. Playing a harder reed the other day in the Gellaitry’s (happy birthday and aggie war hymn came off okay), but my solo stuff was coming out awful. I was a bit disappointed with the playing as I hadn’t really taken that big of a break since my last bout of rehearsals\/recordings. So, the fingering got a little mushy but not as bad as I thought, just need to play a reed that lets me think about the fingering in the big solo competition tunes and not about keeping the reed going.<\/p>\n
First we have some jigs, because it’s been a while since I’ve played a few. Key things to work on here are GDEs (Paddy’s), rodins (Saut), F doublings (Paddy’s), and holding the quarter notes a little longer.<\/p>\n
Kenneth MacDonald’s Jig, Donella Beaton, The Curlew, I Laid a Herring in Saut, Thief of Lochaber, and Paddy’s Leather Breeches<\/a><\/p>\n Then some strathspeys to show how sloppy all my doublings are. Reel wasn’t too bad.<\/p>\n Shepherd’s Crook, Dora MacLeod, Ewe Wi the Crookit Horn, Rejected Suitor<\/a><\/p>\n Then a R\/H\/J with some birls from C because I needed the ego boost, or not. One of these days I WILL get the 2nd part to Rakes down.<\/p>\n Lochiel’s Awa to France, Lucy Cassidy, Rakes of Kildare<\/a><\/p>\n Finally, we have some relaxing Irish jigs where it becomes immediately obvious, if it wasn’t already enough, that my D grace notes to C are a little lax. The first part of Kitty is inspired by the playing of the tune on fiddle and uilleann pipes on the “At First Light” album, the second part is all Terry Tully.<\/p>\n Kitty Lie Over, Drops of Brandy, Kesh Jig<\/a><\/p>\n Critique away!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Salient point: Play reeds that are easy enough to maximize your fingering ability but still remain crisp. Playing a harder reed the other day in the Gellaitry’s (happy birthday and aggie war hymn came off okay), but my solo stuff was coming out awful. I was a bit disappointed with the playing as I hadn’t … Continue reading Technique, Critique, and Easy Reeds<\/span>