Wednesday, September 21, 2005

 

Catching Up 2

The trip up to MA to visit Anders and Kim was musically fruitful. Anders and I got a lot of arranging done. Kim was very excited about some new songs I suggested for her (and one she picked for herself), so we got started on some of them, and she was sounding great, and was making progress on bodhran too!

Since then, Kim has indicated a reluctance to be in the band for now, but I'm hoping I'll eventually be able to convince her to stay. She'd be an incredibly valuable asset, and I think the issues that concern her can be easily accommodated with a little work on my part.

Ligonier went reasonably well. I took a 3rd in the fiddle contest w/ a pretty respectable performance. The pipe contests were complicated by the fact that I had accidentally registered for Junior! I managed to find judges that let me switch contests, and though I didn't place in the 2/4 because I was stressed out over the mistake and clenched too hard, I took a very close 4th in the full score piobaireachd. The judge actually wrote 3rd, but scratched it out. I'm guessing the two tiny chokes were what cost me.

Fiddle lessons are up and going again. Elke and I are going to work on backing, harmonies, variations, and improvisations this year, and she's got me doing circle of fifths. The keys of B, F#, and C# are not my friends. But it'll be a very valuable exercise for my intonation and comfort level with arpeggios/chords for every major key.

The New Hampshire Games are this weekend; that should be a lot of fun.

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