Track with samples taken from Spiro Agnew resignation speech. Speech is in public domain, federal employee performing in official capacity. No other samples used.

Thrived On Adversity (Washington Still Lives)

Irish Traditional Air. Version with Pipe and Drums, uploaded piano version earlier.

Down The Hill (Pipe and drums Mix)

Did a stripped down "de-make" arrangement of a swedish traditional folk song mainly to try out keyed fiddle. Keyed fiddle (Nyckelharpa), Glockenspiel, side drum. My arrangement. 

If I'm not mistaken, translates roughly into something like "The Falcons' Flight" or "The Buzzards' Flight". Fjällvråk would refer to what we call in English the "rough legged buzzard" or "rough legged falcon".

Picture CC BY 3.0 (free for share with necessary attribution)
By Karsten Evers - Own work (My own picture), CC BY 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3779257
Title: Nyckelharpa built by Eric Sahlstrom. Picture by Karsten Evers.

Fjällvråkens Flykt

v18 guitars, drums, piano, electric piano, upright bass. Original, no samples.

Picture public domain NYPL collection
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. "Lake view with canoe." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1917. digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d4…00a18064a99

Lonely Vacation

Depending on who you ask an Irish traditional tune or derived from a French Bourrée (dance tune). Famously covered as an air by Solas.

I tend to think the Bourrée is a setting of something by Carolan or someone after him that came to Central France by way of Brittany but it could have been a more recent original as is claimed, though I tend to doubt it.

My arrangement is more keeping in an Irish traditional style but uses the  3/8 time signature of the Bourrée. Arrangement is mine and completely original.

Flute, fiddle, viola, bouzouki, cello, electric bass, cajon, tambourine, piano

The Crested Hen

Irish Traditional planxty by O'Carolan. My arrangement. Uillean pipes, Fiddle, tin whistle, synth. Sometimes erroneously claimed to be a waltz. ss1b3

This particular piece, likely Carolan's first, literally means "small and big". It's generally taken to be about 2 hills near where Carolan's patron at the time resided in Lough Scur because sí can mean faerie, e.g. as in "bean sí" anglicized "banshee". There were folktales that they had two warring factions of fae. The Lough had settlements dating back to the stone age and a rich real (as well as imagined) history.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lough_Scur

Turlough O'Carolan(1670 – 25 March 1738) was a blind early Irish harper, composer and singer whose great fame is due to his gift for melodic composition.

Although not a composer in the classical sense, Carolan is considered by many to be Ireland's national composer. Some of Carolan's own compositions show influences of the style of continental classical music, whereas others such as Carolan's Farewell to Music reflect a much older style of "Gaelic Harping".

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turlough_O_Carolan

Image public domain, publicdomainpictures.net

Sí bheag, Sí mhor

v2 alterations to the tin whistle. Added additional cuts and strike

Ancient Irish song. Author unknown. Got it on a read through of the Goodman manuscripts/tunebook (1860). Seldom recorded. AFAIK this is only the second recording. It can be found in Norbeck and page 129 of volume 1 of Tunes of the Munster Pipers: Irish Traditional Music from the James Goodman Manuscripts ed. Hugh Shields

The quite talented Mick O'Brien, Emer Mayock, Aoife Ní Bhriain were the first with their markedly different (though also good) arrangement (uillean pipes, flute, fiddle) thus having beaten me to the North Pole.

My own arrangement. Tin whistle, harp, irish bouzouki, electric bass.
Picture public domain.

Regarding the manuscripts - 
James Goodman (1828−1896), a native of Dingle, Co. Kerry, was a canon of the Church of Ireland and Professor of Irish at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). During his lifetime he compiled an exceptional music and song manuscript collection which was deposited in TCD Library following his death.
Now in collaboration with TCD, ITMA has digitised and made freely available online the six manuscript volumes. They contain over 2,000 melodies and upwards of 80 songs or poems compiled by James Goodman from oral, manuscript and printed sources at his disposal in mid-19th century southern Ireland.
This notable digital project enhances the published scholarly editions Tunes of the Munster Pipers Volumes 1-2 edited by Hugh and Lisa Shields (ITMA, 1998 & 2013) and interactive score access via port.itma.ie.

The Gracious Fair Lady (An Fhinne-Bhean Mhodhamhuil)

Swedish folk/traditional song. "Home from Gesunda" 

Nyckelharpa, violins, upright bass, stomps. Pic public domain off wikipedia.

Hem från Gesunda

Chicago style blues. 12 bar. Key of E. Usually would be guitar, but eh. Original.

upright bass (meatbass), piano (sonivox eightyeight), Swirly Drums brushes. Using programmed 2x per bar, not modwheel.

picture public domain publicdomainpictures.net Chicago Skyline at night by Petr Kratochvil

Jazz
Show more

Chicago medley for Piano trio

More period accurate on tempo than v2

English dance piece by English Baroque composer Henry Purcell. Off the Barnes book, dated as 1698 there, though that is likely not the composition but the publication date of the Orpheus Britannicus, the post-humous collection of Purcell's works collected by his widow. Henry Playford, John Playford's son, was the publisher.

Henry Purcell (1659 - 1695) was an English composer. Although incorporating Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, Purcell's legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music. He is generally considered to be one of the greatest English composers; no other native-born English composer approached his fame until Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, William Walton and Benjamin Britten in the 20th century.

For more: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Purcell

My arrangement. Played slightly faster than would be period accurate but if you don't start feeling like dancing I did it wrong, v3 is probably closest, straight harpsichord recorder arrangement same tempo. Recorder, gamba, harpsichord. Has gamba back unlike v2 105BPM.

See also:
The Dressed Ship (common time)
https://clyp.it/gb301qox
The Dressed Ship (cut time)
https://clyp.it/bvuttcxh

Henry Purcell - Hole in the Wall v4 (gamba mix)

Set/Medley loosely adapted from On the Ocean, The Banshee and Kesh.

Electric guitars, piano, electric bass, irish bouzouki, drums, violin, tin whistle

B-side
Chasing After Youngsters
https://clyp.it/i4gtuvuy

Ocean of Ghosts

Listed as Dañs fisel no. 1123 in Monjarret. A traditional Breton gavotte or dañs tro. Dance "title" is actually the specific kind of dance and indicates origin. Title not given, number as per the Polig Monjarret tunebook catalog order(#1123). My arrangement. Not a very traditional instrumentation at all. 
Flute, fiddle, whistle, bass, piano

Brittany is a cultural region in France and one of the 6 ancient Celtic nations which are (Brittany (Breizh), Cornwall (Kernow), Wales (Cymru), Scotland (Alba), Ireland (Éire) and the Isle of Man (Mannin).

Polig Monjarret was among the world's foremost authorities on traditional Breton music.

Polig Monjarret, Paul Monjarret à l'état-civil (31 juillet 1920, Pabu - 8 décembre 2003, Ploemeur), est un musicien, collecteur et membre du mouvement breton, créateur de la Bodadeg ar Sonerion, principale association de musique traditionnelle bretonne.
Ses activités se sont aussi portées dans le développement de l'interceltisme, notamment en favorisant la création de jumelages entre des villes bretonnes et des villes irlandaises ou galloises, mais aussi en permettant des échanges culturels via son implication dans le festival interceltique de Lorient ou dans d'autres programmes.

PIcture public domain, “Gavotte,” illustration by Randolph Caldecott from Bretonfolk, 1878

The Fiddler from Fisel

Old Scottish Strathspey. Not played particularly traditionally. My arrangement, played loosely. picture public domain publicdomainpictures.net Ken Kistler

mandolin, fiddle, bass, guitar, drums, whistle

Harvest Home

A Phrygian, Rumba inspired ballad. Original.

Brushes (SwirlyDrums), piano, acoustic guitar, upright bass (Meatbass), strings (pads).

Picture publicdomainpictures.net Sunset Couple Ocean View Karen Arnold, public domain.

Rendezvous in the Latin Quarter v1

fixed string harmonies @1:30-1:50

tin whistle, flute, trumpet, irish bouzouki, drums, more drums, strings, electric bass.

Am-ish. Pic public domain from 19th century French Children's book. Taction3b6a2g1

Facing the Day v2

Irish traditional reel. Piano. 

Arrangement rather heavily inspired after the George Copeland's rather wonderful playing of the piece from 1918 which almost appears prescient of some later jazz and classical influenced Cape Breton style playing in my view.

George Copeland (April 3, 1882 – June 16, 1971)was an American classical pianist known primarily for his relationship with the French composer Claude Debussy in the early 20th century and his interpretations of modern Spanish piano works. 

Percy Grainger is frequently misattributed as the composer. He's not. He just orchestrated a rather popular, though in my view, wholly culturally inept version in 1907 for wind ensemble shorn of most attributes of traditional Irish song. It remains popular to this day with wind ensembles.

It's a Cork Reel off the Petrie, tune 902. Petrie's catalog of traditional melodies was published in 1855, nearly 30 years before Grainger was born.

Molly On The Shore

Bridal Chorus from Wagner's Lohengrin

Small ensemble/Chamber arrangement. Mine. Inspired in part by the CJ Dorn fingerpicked Guitar arrangement/reduction from 1897. Some of his choral reduction for the B part clashed harmonically, so I changed it up a bit and obviously re-orchestrated.

Violin, contrabass, piano, cello. 80 bpm vs 100bpm

picture publicdomainpictures.net Kevin Phillips Bride and Groom

A somewhat slower version for when that person walking you down the aisle has a limp and a cane. Or is just drunk.

Lbcus3_80bpm

"Fixed" B part harmony.

Often played with the unrelated Mendelssohn's Wedding March (or one of several Trumpet Voluntaries) as the recessional, a tradition started or popularized by Queen Victoria in 1858.

Bridal Chorus from Lohengrin (aka Here Comes the Bride) 80 BPM mix v2

3rd after "Cenote" and "Sinking" on bodies of water. Might add sewer samples in background. Probably

808, 303, synths

picture public domain Art and Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. "The Broadway Pneumatic Underground Railway--View Of Car In Motion." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 187-?. digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d4…00a18064a99

I. The Cenote https://clyp.it/fpziogmk
II. Sinking https://clyp.it/ddzzsi1e
III. This
IV. The Island That Disappears https://clyp.it/hyh5j4qm
V. The Currents https://clyp.it/gtlrzol4
VI. Drowning https://soundcloud.com/user-770042232/drowning
VII. Traversing the Depths https://soundcloud.com/user-770042232/traversing-the-depths
Related:
Surf Esoterica https://clyp.it/c4iek23c
Koi Pond https://clyp.it/f5zy1yxn

Sewers - Waterbodies III

English traditional/Playford dance. Off the Barnes book, dated as 1652 there. Likely Playford, Purcell or related.

John Playford (1623–1686/7) was a London bookseller, publisher, minor composer, and member of the Stationers' Company, who published books on music theory, instruction books for several instruments, and psalters with tunes for singing in churches. He is perhaps best known today for his publication of The English Dancing Master in 1651.

Harpsichord, recorder. My arrangement. Quarter comma meantone.

Image public domain NYPL collections:
Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library. "[Ballet à la Cour de Suède]" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1600 - 1699.

Harpsichord, tenor Recorder Gr3d 115bpm

Grimstock

Old English Playford dance in cut time. Harpsichord, recorder, flute. My arrangement. traditional instrumentation. Probably played a bit faster than intended though it's still within the realm of being dance-able. Not really sure because it's written in cut time and I'm not actually sure that's correct as the pick-up bar haa an error/is unplayable in cut. Sounds pretty good tho. Off Barnes. dussprtrd2a

The Dressed Ship

always looking for a mezzo with a Scottish or Irish accent, Gaelic a + for some trad. 
=Other account= https://soundcloud.com/user-770042232

Session Humor
------
A man walks into a Dublin bar with something concealed under his arm during the troubles. The bartender visibly scared asks what the man has under his arm. He says "5 kilos of semtex." The bartender says, "Oh thank God, I thought it was a bodhran."

Big Ron

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