mrs.b
Now living in Blue Mountains NSW.
I play tinwhistle, recorders, celtic harp. Really enjoy listening to and playing Irish, scottish, quebec, medieval, baroque, O'Carolan as he has a strong baroque bias, anything that stirs my blood and my feet really.
In between I have had a lovely time with traditional big choir singing, recorder consort playing, 5 years with a Bush Band doing Whistle and a little percussion, and an odd medley of folk/popular/classical with an ensemble of mixed instruments a in a small country town. Which adds up to about 10 years out of an available 30 odd since schooldays being involved in playing with other people.Sadly there was minimal music in my school times other than school recorder in grade 5&6. My first instrument was an old tallowwood school recorder.
After having sheet music for all of the above to read while playing(except for round the campfire,and palying whistle on long car trips) I am finding session playing challenging, but love learning by ear as I find the tunes STAY PUT in my head.
I have given up playing whistle on long car trips 20 years ago as the thought of it being driven through my brain literallly, orphaning my children, in a collision caused such guilt that I could not in all conscience continue this practice.So when the last kid has grown up....
My tune book is a ragbag of ones I would like to learn, and oddly, ones with weird names. Not necessarily ones I already know, and also some favourites and old friends by other names-the Meelick races deserves wider fame.
Also enjoy Australian Bush Music which introduced me to non commercial /traditional music in the first place.And it is good fun to play for dancers, from rookies to accomplished, while trying to balance the tempo of the sets to the dancing, while keeping enough variety for the players.
.Also a big thankyou to Steeleye Span, whose version of the Morning Dew was the first reel I ever heard played.
And I guess to Bill Gates for this most useful technology, and Jeremy for getting this great resource up and running.
Tunes in mrs.b's tunebook: 67