Showing posts with label folk music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label folk music. Show all posts

Tuesday 22 April 2014

a long break

I haven't written anything substantial in a long time, this is true. However, I have a legitimate reason! The sunshine, Easter holidays, a trip to an organic pig farm and a whole lot of flute playing. All this stuff kind of got in the way.

I've been getting back into trad music, so for the first time in a  long time (really, about a decade) I'm playing at sessions and practicing a lot in my free time, trying to expand my repertoire. A trad musician is only as good as his repertoire, and, while my technical skills are pretty good (an outstanding teacher in the form of a neighbour who happens to be an internationally renowned Irish musician), boy have I missed out on ten years of tune accumulation. And it shows. I'm there rocking all the tunes of days gone by, many of which were not even popular in Ireland, let alone Denmark, and folk music does in fact evolve, however slightly.

But I'm trying my best, stealthily recording as many tunes as I can to greedily devour later. My trust flute, absolutely rudimentary in design, sounds as beautiful and reliable as it did when it was purchased for me age 12/13. It's still as sleek and black, the tone still as consistent, and I'm still unable to deviate from G and D Major without some serious finger bending.

Music is a fantastic thing. And playing the music yourself really heightens already thriving emotions. I've been so happy since I started going to a pub on a Friday evening, to have endless bottles of Coke poured into me and play the tunes of my youth.



I don't actually own this photo, it belongs to Martin, a wonderful man from Northern Ireland that places an impressive range of percussive instruments. Needless to say I'm the only female in the shot, with flute in hand.

I'll write a bit more on the last couple of weeks shortly, but for now it's off to the local Kommune to register to vote in May (grumble grumble Representative Democracy is inadequate grumble), and then it's back to Danish class. I think I have forgotten all my Danish words.

Have a great day, internet!