Andy Irvine on Balcony TV

Recently Andy Irvine was guest on Balcony TV. He played one of his signature songs, Never tire of the road.

Balcony TV was founded in June 2006. It is a leading daily online viral music show, which features band, musicians and other acts on lots of balconies around the world. You can find more information at: www.balconytvc.om.

Ben's Bouzouki Theme

Ben Williamson from Yellow Springs, Ohio is a Bouzouki player who not only plays Irish music but also Bulgarian, Arabic and New Age music. Here's a video of him playing an original tune.

You can find more information on his myspace site.

Here's the site of his band Orion on facebook.

Tunepal

You've heard a tune, but don't know its name? Here's a little helper. Just go to
http://tunepal.org.
Java must be enabled and you need a microphone plugged into the computer. A player opens and you can play the tune. If you play it good enough tunepal recognizes the tune and here you go! Well, I think this is a great helper. Try it and comment, please!

Guitar accompaniment -also for bouzouki players

Here's a little text I found which deals with Guitar accompaniment on Irish tunes I think it is written by Alan Campbell. Lots of tips for players, which might be useful for players of the bouzouki too.

If you are interested in more information: Here you can watch some videos:
http://www.celticguitartalk.com/assets/guitars/recording/video.shtml


And here is the tutorial:
http://www.celticguitartalk.com/assets/misc/sharing/Accompaniment%20Workshop.pdf

The Doggy Few Tunebook

The Doggy Few is an Irish Folk Band based in the Netherlands. They have a nice website at: www.doggyfew.com.
I'm not really good in reading and understanding the language of the Netherlands. But they have a really good tunebook on the website:


http://www.doggyfew.com/doggyfew_tunebook.pdf

They have a cd out with snippets on the website, and a video on youtube:

SlowPlayers.Org Basic tunebook

This is a tunebook for starters with lots of basic session tunes. All with chords, so it's a good starting point for beginners.
http://www.slowplayers.org/BASS/bass2004tunebook.pdf

Paul Hardy's Session Tunebook

Another Tunebook which provides lots of chords for accompanyment is made by Paul Hardy. He made it for Accordion-players, but it is useful for other instruments too.
http://www.pghardy.net/concertina/tunebooks/pgh_session_tunebook.pdf

Paul provides some more tunebooks (a set tunebook, a basic tunebook, a annex tunebook with tunes which will appear in a later version of his tunebook etc.) on his site, look at:
http://www.pghardy.net/concertina/tunebooks/

The Greene Tunebook

By accident I found this tunebook on the web.
https://www.ceilidhsoc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/CeilidhSoc-Favourites-Book-1-20181024.pdf

Here's the original one, the link has changed since I last looked at it:
http://old.ceilidhsoc.org/music.pdf?Special=23&Type=Group

42 pages with lots of tunes, most of them with chords. A great learning base.

Pennknivsmördaren

Pennknivsmördaren (Penknife Killer" is a traditional Swedish tune. Kruzifinger learded it from Ken P, a member of "Mandolin Cafe", who learned it from Swedish group Vasen. Kruzifinger plays it on his Zouk tuned GDAD, Capo 2.

Andy Irvine - Blacksmith Live

I haven't posted anything for more than a month. How time flies, but I did not find anything, that I thought is so interesting to post. But now my friend Tom gave me the hint to a new video of Andy Irvine.

First there's a video from January 24, 1999 in New Zealand, Christchurch. Live at Maddison's . Andy plays his solo version of the classic "The Blacksmith". Not the best quality but really worth watching.

Tim Browne - The Bold Thady Quill (The Bould Thady Quill)

Another fine song by Tim Browne, one of my favourite Bouzouki players. This is what he writes about the song:

This is a version of the great Cork song written over 100 years ago by Johnny Tom Gleeson. I recorded this version on Mutiny in the County a solo album I made in 2003. The lyrics were published in the 1993 edition of the wonderful Seanchas Duthalla Magazine in an article written by one James Chisman.

It is a mighty song and many versions of it, even one in the Irish language, are known. I particularily like this version because of its Land League component and Chisman mentioned in his article that this version is thought to be the nearest lyrically to the original version. The song has undergone many changes and additions since the original believed to have been written in the 1880's and first published around the early 1920's.

It is a much favoured drinking song possibly due to the references to drinking black porter as fast as you'll fill etc., Some extra lines have been added to this version so perhaps in one hundred years time or so Thade Quill will have become an internationally recognised academic, and maybe even an assissinated President of America................!!!

O'Donoghues covered by kyle25rs

Inspired by the version of Irishlike kyle decided to post his own version. Very interesting to listen to various approaches to one song. Good work!

Irishlike - O'Donoghue's

A new video my friend Irishlike posted. Andy Irvine's song O'Donoghue's. Just the first verse. I like your version a lot, Tom.

Tim Browne

Tim has posted some new videos, so I'm really happy to include them here.

On the first video he plays a guitar shaped bouzouki made by Heiner Dreizehnter a few years ago. As far as I know Tim bought this zouk from my friend Tom from Munich. The newry Highwayman



The Ballad of Ned Jones Toyota


A Youth That's Inclined To Ramble


The Handsome Cabin Boy

Never Tire Of The Road - Andy Irvine with Donal Lunny and Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh

Dingle 2009. This is a real short but powerful version of Andy's classic.