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Session-style recording recommendations?
I have been missing my usual sources of plain-old session style music. Fancy studio performance embellished versions of Celtic songs with introductions etc are very lovely, but I’m trying to train my brain to focus on “play with the group, stick to the program” music where yes, you can add rolls and accents, but it’s all the same to work with a live group playing together. Anyone have any good recommendations of straight up session-style recordings or videos? I have been desperately missing an old podcast I used to listen to years ago that was recorded at weekly sessions in (Scotland, I think it was), and you could hear people chatting and laughing in the background, glasses clinking together. Ahhhh… I’m really missing that session atmosphere. ? It doesn’t even have to include harp (although that would be excellent, obviously!), but I play fiddle and my husband plays mandolin too. We both really need to flood our ears with the basic roots of the music. Thanks in advance!
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9 Replies
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I just discovered this site!
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And this too – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hin_unmqFBc&fbclid=IwAR000tm3WZZFTQ3UvaZKzr6DVhEvNEew4-Z7IoLTHmDorXq90hDcKKc8Hig
And Shannon Heaton has been doing some slow, guided sessions on her youtube channel with flute and guitar: https://www.youtube.com/c/ShannonHeatonMusic/featured
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Thank you SO much for the recommendations, Tiffany! Also, if you or anyone else ever comes across a podcast that has no pre-recorded music or a “DJ”/host (literally someone just bringing a mic to a session and hitting record), please let me know! I used to download those to my phone and would walk and run and focus on the music/study it…. not only was it good for my brain musically, but man… it made those workouts fly by!! LOL!!!! (also, it didn’t eat up any data, since I could just download it and then remove it when I was finished with one.) It seems all the podcasts I’ve been finding are all music shows and interviews with musicians.
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That podcast you were talking about sounds great! Wish it was still around.
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Oh it was sooo fun! You really felt like you were “there!” It was called Aff the Cuff (there’s an unrelated one that has/had the same name) I believe it was. I found their old Facebook page. Can’t tell if one of the members passed away, and they moved on or….? I mean this was ages ago, so moving on happens. (Although my local friends’ session has been going on and on and on and on, until everything shut down that is. They’ve started doing online stuff, and we keep getting invited to play along with the session leaders while muted, but these guys are so good it would just leave me behind in the dust and feeling frustrated. Which is why I’ve dragged my feet forever with joining in on a session, but I know that – especially with hubby learning mandolin – I need to push myself, because once things do open up they are soooooo going to be like “come join us! come on!!!!” and oh my gosh their level of playing makes your confidence go whoosh ??and you suddenly feel like you’ve never played an instrument in your life as your brain goes blank. LOL!!!!) Okay, that got long and babbly!!
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And yeah, I really need to go back through the backlog of the Online Academy of Irish Music channel. I see their weekly Zoom sessions of a tune, and I look up their lesson info from time to time, but I forget to look for things like you posted!
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Also, for anyone curious, my husband follows Barron Collins-Hill’s Mandolessons. He will sometimes do a play-along video (going back and forth swapping between melody and chords)… admittedly he’s more folks-y and not as Celtic Trad, but he’s also usually solo playing and I’d like to hear multiple different instruments to see how their playing together affects each other when they throw in accents and embellishments.
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Oh! And here are some with harp:
Michelle and Louise Mulcahy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq9RKe9BmZg (I don’t know why this is coming up as age-restricted. It’s just flute and harp.)
Joe and Antoinette McKenna https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCLjbPQUduc
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Thanks again for more links!! (and yeah I know, sometimes links do weird things like that, but no worries!) ?
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