When I finally caught his name at the end of the show all of the pieces fell in place. But when it came time for him to let loose and show the audience what he can do, I realized that he was a first-rate talent. In retrospect, I really respect the way he held back for the better part of the performance, letting other band members take the spotlight. I didn't recognize Billy McComiskey by sight and had missed his name during the introductions, so I didn't realize who he was at first. You can sample his songwriting at his web site. Three guitarists might seem like rather a lot for an ITM group, but the performance would not have been the same without Robbie O'Connell's excellent singing. According to her personal site she has a CD, produced by John Doyle, in the works. It was fun to watch her face as she played she seemed to react to the sounds coming from her instrument in much the same way as the audience did. Her fiddle playing was simply delightful, packed with lift and cheer. Sunday's show seemed to be much better mixed overall.Īthena O'Lochlainn was a new name to me, but as soon as she started playing it became clear that she had more than enough talent to earn a place with such distinguished company. Even at the Irish festival I sometimes wonder if the mixers realize that the guitars are frequently playing accompaniment. The front of house mix was some better, but the guitars were way too high in the mix they frequently drowned out the other instruments.
Mick's albums of song aren't bad at all, but in the end I decided that I like his dance tunes even more.įriday's performance started late due to problems with the monitor mix, which seemed not to be resolved for the whole show John Doyle left his chair several times during the show to have a word with the monitor mixer. But while that CD, and most of the other recordings I've heard from him, lean almost entirely towards song, the Green Fields of America performance had a roughly even mix of songs and dance tunes, and featured local, live dancers for two of the sets. I have heard some of Mick Moloney's recorded music before I just bought the CD which accompanies his book Far from the Shamrock Shore a couple of months ago. Mick (guitar, mandolin, tenor banjo, and vocals).
Green Fields of America is not so much an ongoing band as it is Mick Moloney and his rotating crew of Irish music all-stars.
#CHIFF AND FIPPLE WHISTLE COMPARISON PLUS#
This year the festival spanned several acres and attracted 80,000+ people, plus many well-known bands, and once again Green Fields of America played. The announcer noted that when the festival began 19 years ago and was held in a tennis court, there was only one band the first year: Green Fields of America. I’m still developing my technique in low whistles, so it could be a problem of blowing properly.This past August I caught Mick Moloney's band Green Fields of America at the 2006 Dublin Irish Festival. Perhaps the loudness thing is a problem of mine. When I play at home, though, it’s fantastic. The only ‘regretable’ thing is that it’s not a loud whistle, so I can’t play it in sessions, ‘cause I can’t even hear myself. The first octave is a bit too low, specially the lower notes(D & E). Very nice and ‘fluty’, specially on the second octave. Whistlegirl, I love the sound of the Tony Dixon’s low D. Unfortunately I haven’t tried famous whistles such as Copeland and Sindt, so I can’t make any comparison between them. I strongly recommend the Burke brass bore, it’s a lovely instrument. One of the reasons I chose the bore was because I read somewhere (probably C&F) that it was a bit louder, and I was looking for a good, loud whistle to be played in noisy sessions and even noisier gigs. I just have a wide bore Burke, I didn’t try the intermediate one. And as someone has noted, it really depends what kind of sound you want. You can’t go too far wrong with the cheaper whistles and the Generations are usually in tune for band playing. Whereas I always advise novice fluteplayers to avoid buying cheap flutes "just to learn on", because there are "flutes" and then there are FLUTES. I have heard good players play beautifully on cheap whistles and bad players play badly on $300 whistles. My favourite whistles are still my 20+ years old (almost older than you!) Generation D and E flat and Clarkes C. I have been playing for a long, long time and tried just about every kind of whistle including some of the outrageously over-priced wooden varieties. Best bet is just to get a Generation D and learn to play on that. The Feadog model is OK, but rather inconsistent.
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