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Jigs: The Woodcock, Drummond Castle, The Kerfunten

from Down the Lane by Floating Crowbar

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    DOWN THE LANE (2019)
    In making this recording, we decided to prioritize trying to capture the energy we aim for when we play live. It is a studio recording, but the basic tracks of all the instrumental selections were done playing together in the same room, without separation, without headphones, just rolling the tape (or whatever the digital equivalent is) and playing. We generally did three or four takes of each set of tunes and then picked the best. Other instruments, such as bodhrán or pipes, were added to the mix after we did the base recording. Recording the songs is a somewhat different process, as the vocals need to be recorded separately from the instruments. Certain “bits of tarnish” were left for the sake of honesty, as that was the best take we could get. We think the result captures the energy of our group dynamic, and sounds like us on a good night. We hope you enjoy it!

    Below, you’ll find short excerpts from each piece, along with credits and notes about the tunes and songs. For dancers, we have included the tempo (beats per minute) after each of the instrumental tracks.

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about

he first and last Jigs in this set were written by Hammy Hamilton the great flute player and flute maker from Belfast, who lives in Cúil Aodha (Coolea), Co. Cork. Of the tunes, Hammy says:
“The Kerfunten was the first and I wrote it while teaching at a workshop in Brittany. It was in a suburb of Quimper called Kerfunteun–hence the name. The spelling seems to have gotten a bit mixed up over the years, though! I think the spelling with the u is the correct one. There was a guitar player there, who was also teaching, and he was messing about one day, playing a chord sequence, I picked up a whistle, and began fitting a tune around them. Ten minutes later it had evolved into the Kerfunten Jig! The Woodcock I wrote some years later–I’m not exactly sure when, but it was sometime in the 1980s. I was looking for another tune to put with it and I remembered the other jig. There was something about the combination that people seemed to like, and by the early 1990s the set had become really popular. It still gives me a buzz to walk into a pub and hear those tunes being played. I called the second tune the Woodcock because there was something about the way the melody swerved about which reminded me of the way a woodcock flies when it is put up by a dog.”

The middle tune we first heard played by Julie Langan in a session in Westport, Co. Mayo. Her spirited rendition inspired us to want to play it. It turns out that it appears in the Drummond Castle Manuscript, “A Collection of Country Dances written for use of his Grace the Duke of Perth by Dav. Young, 1734.” Niel Gow, he of the lamented second wife, published the tune in his Second Collection in 1788.

All three tunes, though hardly lacking in drive, also have an inherent delicacy to them, which has certainly influenced our approach to the set.

credits

from Down the Lane, released July 1, 2019
The Woodcock and Kerfunten by Hammy Hamilton

Don: mandolin – Morgan: fiddle – Rick: guitar – James: flute, bodhrán

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Floating Crowbar Spokane, Washington

Floating Crowbar plays a high energy mix of Irish instrumental music and songs drawn from traditional and contemporary sources. Coming from a wide variety of backgrounds and musical interests, they bring together their common passion for Irish music, good humor, mutual respect and friendship into a show that will be enjoyed by any Celtic music fan. ... more

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