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The Wire and Fanny Poer

Ellen — Mon, 19 May 2008 05:52:27 +0000

So I’m practicing tonight and going through some of my older tunes, the ones that I used to have memorized but need to refresh now and then.

I decided to work on some Celtic stuff tonight, after I practiced my daily list, and made it through 99 March, The Banshee’s Wail, Blackwater Reel, Blind Mary, Bobby Casey’s Hornpipe, The Britches ala Martin Hayes, Caisleean na n’Or, and Cup of Tea.

I hit Turolugh O’Carolan’s Fanny Poer and suddenly the HBO series The Wire is in my head, which I haven’t watched for some time. But somehow the yearning and struggle I heard as I played manifested itself as The Wire to my brain. Isn’t it interesting what instrumental tunes can do?

Technorati

Ellen — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:17:17 +0000

Setting up my Technorati Profile.

What I’m practicing

Ellen — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 05:17:32 +0000

Part of my reasoning behind starting this fiddle blog is that I want to keep track of what I learn, when. The backwards building thing is a great way to learn songs but if you let too much time lapse between playing them, the edges of memory start to fray.

John had a practice grid he gave me that I modified a bit for my own purposes. I’ll upload it later. Basically, it serves as a reminder to practice tunes you’ve memorized periodically. You can practice them less and less frequently as time goes on, while you practice the newer tunes more often. So I broke my list into a “daily” list and a “weekly list.” But now I’ve got enough tunes in my head that I need a monthly list as well.