I’ve been working on putting together some tunes that are particularly demanding on each hand and while I’ve got two that give the right hand quite a limbering up (The Jolly Tinker and the Bucks of Oranmore), I’ve only got one for the left hand that really fits the bill (Dinkey’s Reel). So, I was wondering if any of you folks had any suggestions for tunes that incorporate a lot of fast left hand action. Thanks in advance for all responses. Jon Michaels
A tune that will give you the same kind of right-hand “action” that you get in Dinky’s is a tune sometimes called The Castle Reel but most commonly known as Dick Gossip’s.
If you play rolls, then are dozens of reels in G that will give you a good workout. Try Trim the Velvet, Sean Reid’s, Kiss the Maid Behind the Barrel, etc. etc.
A really good workout for rolls on A and B is The Longford Tinker.
Also any reel that does a “rocking pedal” figure with a C-natural bass is very good practice for the left hand, no matter how you play C-naturals. Try The Maid in the Cherry Tree (2nd part), Chicago Reel (1st part). I can suggest others if you want.
And here’s a tune that screws just about everybody up - I’ve seen very experienced players come a cropper with this. The Maid (or the Hag) at the Spinning Wheel - a four-part jig. The first few bars of the fourth part are unlike just about any other passage I know of in an Irish tune. It’s a simple repetitive passage ( Afd Bfd Afd Bfd ) but in the context of the tune for some reason it seems to fry the brain circuits.
Happy working out,
Steve
Two tunes that I like is two polkas in “A” is Britches full stitches and Bill Sullivan’s
The group I play with we always play it in A
and JC’s tune finder is linked below to Britches.
http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/cgi/abc/findtune?P=britches+full+of+stitches
Once I got use to using only three fingers on the left hand for most of a tune, I really like these two tunes.
Hope this helps
Mark
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“In any corner of the earth where solitude and imagination go hand in hand, people learn soon enough to love music.”
Stendhal (1783-1842) Life of Rossini
[ This Message was edited by: MarkB on 2001-11-05 19:28 ]