MP3 Playlist

Music Room ^ Song Instruments Autoharp Banjo Concertina MP3 Playlist The Literary Page

Without practice, there's no music.  And without check-and-balance, practice is not as effective as it should be. So, in this day and age of fast processors and user-friendly software, I use my PC as a recording device to check my progress in learning new pieces. I also use it to communicate my musical ideas to friends in cyberspace.

Some of the recordings are quite presentable, so I will keep a few of them here for the entertainment of my visitors. Just click on a title to hear the MP3 recording on your standard MP3 player.

"Waltzing Matilda" Probably the best known Australian song - a sort of unofficial Aussie national anthem. It was written around 1895 by a young couple. She had heard a tune at a band concert, and he thought he could write a good song to it. Legend has it that she played the tune to him on her autoharp - so here am I singing it to my 1895 Zimmermann "Favorite" model autoharp! See the "Antiques" photo on The Instrument Page)
"Das Deutschland Lied" Yes, another national anthem, this time an official one! The German one, of course. The theme is from the adagio movement of Haydn's "Emperor" string quartet, and is known in British church circles as the hymn tune "Austria". I'm playing my arrangement of it on my nylon-strung open-back banjo (see The Banjo Page)
"Slemish Mountain Rag" This is a composition of mine for 5-string banjo, based on the tune of a song that I wrote. I'm playing it on the nylon-strung open-back banjo (see The Banjo Page)
"The Skye Boat Song" This is an old Scottish song, written about an episode in the life of Bonny Prince Charlie, who fled from the Outer Hebrides to the Isle of Skye to escape his English pursuers. Lady Flora MacDonald arranged the boat, and disguised the Prince as her maidservant. My instrumental autoharp arrangement tries to capture the movement of a small sailing-boat on The Minch, one of the roughest stretches of water around the British coast. If you get seasick listening to it ... my arrangement is more vivid than I thought!
"Der Spaziergang" This is a little song I wrote. It didn't require much imagination or creativity - I just transcribed a short conversation I heard at the office. Our department usually clubbed together to go to the canteen at lunch time, and two male colleagues (the singer and "Holger" in the song) called at the office next door to ask if the two attractive, young women colleagues ("Anja" and "Petra" in the song) if they wished to join them for lunch. "Holger" put the question, and "Petra" answered rather coolly that she would eat later that day, whereupon "Anja" said that she would eat later, too, in that case. The "I" of the song then sighed and said, "Holger, you've annoyed Petra, and since Anja doesn't want to go without her girlfriend, I won't get to eat with her today!"
The tune came to me on the autoharp, so here it is, accompanied on my OS 15 B 'harp.
"The Lea Rig"

 

 This is one of Robert Burns' love songs. At a time when town poets were discovering the beauty of the ruddy country lass, and writing poems about chatting her up while she milked the cows, Burns was writing authentic country love songs. A country boy himself, he knew that the time to be near a country girl was in the evening after "buchtin' time" - the time when the animals were shut up for the night, and the boys and girls had time for each other. For example on the bank in the water-meadow - in Scots: the lea rig.
"The Minstrel at the Feast"

 

 A filk song written by me. No, "filk" is not a typo. That is, it was at one time, when used in a newspaper article to describe the songs sung at a Science Fiction and Fantasy convention. The SF&F fans adopted it as the proper term for home-made music from their scene, and it now embraces music by and for Live Role Players. This song predates the filk era, but it does put the singer (me) in the anachronistic role of a minstrel, or bard. Actually, it's about my experiences of singing at people's parties in the late 1960s.
"Sligo Rags"

 

 The autoharp is an instrument that lends itself to improvisation. This improvisation was played on my old, black Oscar Schmidt Model A 'harp, 1958 vintage, converted to 21 chords. For the autoharp aficionados: the 'harp is tuned "straight up" to an electronic tuner at A=440, and I'm playing it with 3 metal finger-picks and a plastic thumb-pick.
"Ännchen von Tharau"

 

 For me, one of the most beautiful German love songs! Music by Friedrich Silcher, the great 19th-century promoter of choral singing. The autoharp arrangement is my own, played on my upgraded vintage OS Model A autoharp!
"The Man on the Road"

 

 I composed this tune to the guitar to explore the possibilities of diminished-seventh chords, and the spiritual  lyric followed later. This recording is accompanied on the autoharp, but guitar and banjo accompaniments are also satisfactory. For the lyrics, see "The Literary Page".
"Down by the Sally Gardens"

NEW!

 This is my arrangement for Anglo Concertina of the traditional Irish tune to which W. B. Yeats' poem of that title is usually sung. For more about the instrument, see "The Concertina Page".