Chris,
1) Viols: apologies (silly, subjective choice of words) 2) Nasty synthetic reverb: you have good ears, I agree 3) Jacky Layton: excellent tune but it might be a big ask to get it in your head quickly John, Yes, it takes ages and some bars need more ages than others. In my doldrums days I was asked to play "The Shipley Set" with Alistair Anderson at The Chantry Museum. We had a number of rehearsals (me playing largely by ear aEUR" the dots were hand written (I'm being kind) on 6 sheets of manuscript pasted on a large piece of cardboard aEUR" a challenge even to a seasoned dots reader as not all parts were named or in the correct order). One particular bar in the Rant refused to flow. I remember Alistair's words vividly, "Right we'll play this bar till we drop". I counted the first 84 times through, lost count and after another minute or so looked pleadingly at Alistair, he replied "Kidda, this is what we call work" and we carried on for another 20 or so times through the bar. An eye-opener to put it mildly! Re choice, it depends what your main interest is. Choose a tune you like that you have on tap, listen to it until you can sing it in your head and then you're ready to start and work on it. "Miss Forbes' Farewell to Banff" could be a good one as you already have it on disc and the dots have been published I think by NPS. If any one is interested in more formal methods I can send them the exercises that I give to my Caedmon class members. Not every one's cup of tea but there are two sheets, one for the keyless chanter which gives some preparation for Peacock tunes as well as general fingering, the other concentrates on key-work and should help with tunes like the Barrington. I hasten to add these are nothing special but they are ready to go and might help a bit. The other approach to help with technique is to use a good easy-to-understand-the-pattern tune like "Banjo Breakdown". This is excellent finger exercise and accessible enough to get beyond the dots quickly. It went down well at Killington this year and again I can send the dots if anyone wants them. Cheers Anthony -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
