I thought perhaps some people on this board might be interested to see this video (or maybe not!) It’s me playing at a festival in Orkney, Scotland, during the summer. I had the amazing opportunity to play some of my music with a 10-piece backing ensemble. One of the songs I did is called ‘Butterfly’ and uses parts of the Irish slip jig ‘The Butterfly’ as a theme (although the song is in 5/4, not 9/8, so it had to be twisted a bit to fit the rhythm! Works surprisingly well though, I think…) I’m playing the theme on my favourite whistle, a Shaw A.
I would love to hear any feedback & also if anyone knows of any other similar singer-songwriter types using whistle in their music, please let me know!
wow - really nice piece. must have been great to play with that ensemble. I’m not a huge jazz fan, but I thought the Butterfly theme did work well in that setting. Keep up the good work.
That’s pretty cool! My only complaint is with the sound tech who did
not bring your whistle up nearly enough. I wanted to hear more whistle!
Man, that theme is nice with the sax in harmony, too. 5/4 is an awesome
meter. Now, do Take Five
Are you planning a studio version of Butterfly? I’m listening to the tunes
on your myspace page, and I’m wishing for a CD, but don’t see one.
I’m going to be recording some songs in the studio soon, so yes, I might record this as well, but it will have to be a rather stripped down version without all the wonderful musicians playing on it (although the sax player actually lives quite near me and has offered to work with me some more, so he might be on the recording, fingers crossed!)
Sorry I wasn’t a fan of all those so called wonderful musicians. The whole thing was just clash and bang to my ears. I did however really admire your singing and whistle playing. I’m sure the musicians are fair players, I just didn’t like it.
That’s also true. It could’ve sounded very different to the audience…
Same goes for the image. From the video, I might have surmised that
Summer Glau started playing whistle… (That would’ve been an awesome
episode of Firefly, though!)
I know the sound on the video is crap quality but it did sound amazing live. And I was very impressed by the musicians. We only had two rehearsals and they were pretty much sight-reading my music, so I think they did fantastically well. If it sounds bad, it’s more likely my hastily written arrangements and the sound quality, rather than the musicians.
Incidentally, if anyone’s heard of Mairi Campbell (Scottish fiddle player)… that’s her playing the viola.
I can’t watch the clip as my connection is too slow for youtube vids but my parents used to live in Orkney Snorkney! (Sorry my nickname for it). Lovely part of the world. I remember it being very windy there, I can’t imagine playing whistle outdoors- hope it was an indoor event!
