The Laird of Drumblair

Here's a Scottish strathspey I learned from the playing of Donegal fiddler Tommy Peoples. It's a quick and easy one to learn. (Don't be fooled by the fast notes, they're just up-and-down the scale.)

The Fox in Town

Here's a reel from Brendan Mulholland, Paul McSherry, and Brendan Hendry's album "Tuned Up." The fiddle is tuned up a half step.

Mother's Delight

I learned another tune off of Frankie Gavin and Alec Finn's old recording.  They list this tune as Sean Franks, but that's actually a different tune (the album is notoriously mislabeled.)

Killavil Fancy

Today, a reel off of Frankie Gavin and Alec Finn's duo album.  The track is called Ryan's, and it's a set of two reels.  I learned the second of the two, Killavil Fancy or Ryan's No. 1.  I tuned my fiddle up a half-step (sort of) to play along with the recording and keep it that way for my video.

Johnny McGreevy's (By Golly)

According to my sleuthing (mostly on thesession.org) this tune was recorded by Johnny McGreevy, who I guess says, "By Golly!" a lot, hence its other name.  He likely learned it from Jimmy Neary, a Chicago-fiddler who maybe wrote it (?) and brought it back to Ireland.

The Lark's March

Today I searched for a tune to learn by going through some of my favorite trad albums, and decided upon a track from Noel Hill & Tony Linnane which they called "Geese in the Bog."

Troy's Wedding

It's thrilling to witness a huge pipeband play a good tune.  The blaring highland pipes and those super cool snare rhythms absolutely move me.  The thrill is worth the 2 days of ringing ears that will inevitably follow.  Today I learned a Scottish pipe tune that was suggested to me by one of the subscribers to my youtube channel.

The Old Tipperary

I had a really hard time deciding on a tune today.  I've been given quite a few suggestions and all of them are great!  I'll get to them in the next couple weeks.  I heard this jig and it's such a cool, windy melody that I wanted to learn it right away.  It's from the album Geantraì, which is a compilation of a bunch of trad artists playing live session tunes.  This jig was played by Noel Hill and Tony Linnane on concertinas.  They played the tune in Ab so I was obliged to tune my fiddle up a half step to learn it and play along.