Our fourth session got underway on Sunday 13th February. Another enjoyable afternoon in a wonderfully busy pub. Great to have been there. Next one up is 13th March, the St. Patrick’s session. Ken, the manager, has also arranged a party for the day itself, the 17th.
Currently, I am reading Mark Mazower’s The Greek Revolution – 1821 and the Making of Modern Europe. The parallels between Greece in 1821 and Ireland in 1916 give food for thought. Both rebellions kicked off on important religious dates: the feast of the Annunciation in Greece (25th March) and Easter Monday in Ireland. The Greek date was agreed on years after the events of late March 1821, but Easter Monday is not in dispute. The leadership of both revolutions contained a variety of level-headed pragmatists, dreamers and hotheads. Chaos, miscommunications, and countermanded orders characterized both risings. Both hoped for support from a foreign power: in Greece’s case, Russia; in Ireland’s Germany – the enemy of my enemy etc. And both countries had endured centuries of foreign occupation. Maybe this explains why Irish and Greeks tend to like each other. Behan’s play, The Hostage, was probably more popular in Greece than in Ireland!
Back to the music. There are about five or six of us who have known each other for years, so we have become a little set in our ways. However, the new blood is already bouncing new ideas off us. One has suggested that we learn the first jig in this set: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMlYvCjglqg – which will be fun. I have set myself the tasks of 1) learning it by ear and 2) converting it to sheet music using ABC notation.
We used to play a Shetland jig, Da New Rigged Ship, a few years back. This has now been revived with a third part plus a reel called Da Full Rigged Ship. One young Greek, new to the music, has persuaded us to cover the Pogues’ version of Dirty Old Town.
Next task is to arrange a practice.