Sunday, March 17, 2013

Happy St. Patricks Day!

Although I'm the fraud at the Irish Arts Center who despite going undercover and dying my head red(dish) have no known Irish descent, I do enjoy Irish culture a great deal. I have some Guinness chilling in the fridge and spent part of today jamming on my penny whistle. I haven't been practicing much lately (to my detriment), so it was fun to get back to it. I hadn't been planning to record a song again, but then the teacher gave us a set dance (although I play it like a jig) called "St. Patrick's Day." It seemed inappropriate to not at least attempt it.

You can see my attempt here. I screwed up a few times, but I was loathe to do a second take because unlike when I usually practice (on my lunch break when most neighbors are working), I could hear people walking around overhead. It always makes me feel a bit self conscious, added to which the tin whistle is a fairly squeaky instrument when played in the upper register. As a good neighbor, I could really only subject them to the same song so many times, St. Patrick's Day, or no.

Dinah was a popular addition to the first video, so I wanted to include her a second time. Unfortunately, being a cat, this really required me to go to her. Which, in this case, was the floor. Another reason to not do a second take was because shortly after I finished recording, she was reduced to a melancholic stupor on the floor. It was all very cute (see Exhibit A, below), but impossible to record on my laptop with me in the shot, unless I played the whistle while resting on my elbows. I took it as a sign to move on with my day. Of course, now, as I'm writing this, she's peacefully meatloaf-ed next to me on the couch in a perfect pose. She's likely not destined to be one of the animal acting greats anymore than I am destined to be a tin whistle virtuoso. She's sure cute though.

Exhibit A. A common response to tin whistling.

Anyway, I should probably get back to lazing though the remainder of my weekend, but I just wanted to stop in and wish you a happy St. Patrick's Day from Dinah and I!

4 comments:

  1. The tiny hat is a nice touch! Good work.

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  2. No Irish descent??? I was once told that the name Terry Teague was quintessentially Irish! Play that whistle proudly. Actually, you did! It looks like you know the tune by heart, but I wonder if off screen...

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  3. Really? I thought we were German? Is this something I've always been wrong about? Also, I learn all the tunes by heart because I'm stilly pretty bad at reading music. It tends to just mess me up more. Luckily Irish music is pretty focused on learning by ear.

    Beth--While this has been only my second opportunity to wear my tiny hat, I still maintain that it was a worthwhile purchase.

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  4. I remember being told we were partly Irish, but I also feel like as a white person you can pretty much depend on it.

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