Where have I been?

When I started this blog, the one thing I promised myself was that I would never, ever create on of those rambling blogs you find everywhere. You know, the blogs that are essentially a window into people's pretty mundane lives: here's what I did today, what I ate for breakfast and who I wish would sleep with me. To me, these blogs are
not very interesting unless you know who these people are. Even then it's marginal reading.

What I wanted to do with this blog is essentially provide readers with an idea of what it's like to learn the uilleann pipes. This is the kind of thing I was looking for when I started: something that could give some idea of what I was getting into.

The problem is, this is a pretty narrow subject so there's only so much that can happen from day to day. I feel strongly that I'll only post something when milestones are reached or if I think of something I think is relevant. This means they are going to be randomly timed. Whenever I think of something to write, I'll post it.

So, here's what I've been up to: as some of you have noticed, I've started a website: tradtionalireland.com This is an effort put forth by Paddy, Seamus and myself to provide an online resource dedicated to all forms of traditional irish music (oh, is that all?). This rather large endeavor has managed to eat up most of my free time as well as much of my practice time on the pipes. We plan to serve rather obscure recordings from unknown musicians and old timers that people would otherwise never get a chance to hear. These are the people who play on the street, in their kitchens, in sessions or just about anywhere. Many of these musicians are just as good (if not better) than many of the famous record artists out there.

Except Liam O' Flynn, nobody's better than him (what about Tommy Reck? Shut Up! Willie Clancy? Look, I'm not telling you again...).

That's the great thing about Irish music, some of the best people playing it are people just down the street, in the pub or on a street corner. Many are quiet people who just want to play irish music, they have no interest in becoming famous or going on tour, but could play the pants off of most anybody they meet.

So, to readers of my blog, if you or someone you know would like to submit a tune for our archive, feel free to email me or post a comment here and we'd be glad to serve it. It is our goal to one day offer payment, but for now, it'll need to be out of the goodness of your heart. We'd also like any articles about irish music that you may care to write.

Currently the website is in its larval stage and I'm still creating the mySQL database that will serve these tunes. That is taking up the lion share of my time. When it's done, you'll start to see tunes appearing all over it, and you'll be able to search.

On another topic: I've had a lot of interesting experiences with the pipes over the last few months. I'll be posting those very soon.

Thanks for staying with me and thanks for all of your great comments!