Simon Thoumire Make Good Art

I was planning a track to record this week when the The East Neuk of Fife sprang to mind from J. Scott Skinner's 'The Harp and Claymore' Collection. I was just going though the variations when I noticed the tempo - 136bpm! It is ridiculous. I actually think it is too fast - I preferred 130bpm but in homage to the great man and composer here it is at 136 :-)

A couple of weeks back I was lucky enough to be teaching at Feis Rois Adult School. What a great bunch of people. Anyway in our morning groupwork class we were learning an old tune of mine - starjump and whilst we were talking about arrangement I came up with this little bridge. It has now become its own entity and I hope you enjoy it!

Last Sunday I played with my son Charlie at the All Scottish Fleadh where lots of young people (and some older) compete to win through to the All British Fleadh. This is one of the tunes we played in the bodhran competition. All players in the competition were great but I was chuffed to see Charlie win!

This is a wee noodle of a tune that came to me very quickly! It's a wee conversation between myself and the concertina. Sometimes I know what to say sometimes I don't!

This is a version of an air from my piece The Merry Lads of Ayr which is being premiered tomorrow night (Friday 8th April) in Stirling Tolbooth as part of the Distil Showcase. I put this together for last Saturday's concert in Ennis, Ireland. If you would like to come along and hear this and many other new pieces performed by Mr McFall's Chamber you can get the details here http://tolbooth.stirling.gov.uk/tolbooth/whatson/april2016-3/distil16.htm

As I practice for my Saturday concert and workshop at CONSAIRTÍN (http://consairtin.ie) in Ennis this weekend I thought I might play Atom Blaster. It's an old tune by jazz guitarist Barney Kessel and I recorded it on YouTube a few years back. Not that I was thinking it at the time but with today's announcement by UK Govt that they are planning on sailing 700kg of Nuclear Waste from Dounreay across the Atlantic Ocean without heed to any of the dangers a spillage could cause - Atom Blaster is probably quite a fitting tune.

After a week of writing my string quintet for Mr McFall's Chamber (to be performed at Distil Showcase on 8th April, Stirling) I still felt I should make something different and totally rockin... So here it is - 32 seconds of pure rock. At last here is something to compete with the 140k streams of Dave Milligan and my's Freedom Come All Ye Track.

This is an idea for a new piece I'm writing based on reel The Merry Lads of Ayr from the Athole Collection. If you listen carefully you will hear the alarm telling me to turn the chicken...

This is a track I wrote last year in a caravan in Pitlochry. Ian Carr and I have been playing it on our tour this week. I really like it - he's not so sure... More music at www.simonthoumire.com

A tune about a goat's house.

Here are a couple of reels from Neil Gow's book. Can't beat a bit of Bb and F in reels. I can't see a concertina in this picture - it must be outside the picture.

It's good to find things that are sore! This definitely was - better spruce up my technique :-)

Want to hear something beautiful? Listen to Dave Milligan's wonderful rendition of Freedom Come All Ye! Dave and I recorded this on the beautiful Steinway Grand at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall last week before we performed with Altan at the Hillhead Bookclub for BBC ALBA. If you enjoy this content please consider supporting my Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/simonthoumire

On Saturday 23rd January we performed our suite of new music - Strathspey and Surreal Society. There were four composers - Jenn Austin, Aidan O'Rourke, Shona Mooney and myself. This is my piece of music. It's called Deil Amang the Fiddlers and it was performed by 21 amazing fiddlers. The music is based on a famous set of reels - Mrs Macleod's / Fairy Dance / Deil Amang the Tailors. Most of the ideas come from the first three notes of Deil Amang the Tailors from which I wrote everything. If you want to try it you can read the score here http://musichub.scot/musicsheets/deil-amang-the-fiddlers/

This is my first make good art of 2016 and my goodness it was difficult! I made the decision to not worry about it too much and make some noise! More of my less noisy music at www.simonthoumire.com

My final track of 2015 is a... Christmas carol. Seems fitting! Originally written in Latin as Adeste Fideles, Oh Come, All Ye Faithful is a Christmas carol which has been attributed to various authors, including John Francis Wade (1711–1786), with the earliest copies of the hymn all bearing his signature, John Reading (1645–1692) and King John IV of Portugal (1604–1656). Thankyou Wikipedia!!

This is a little Indian improvisation. Actually it's not but it sounds like it...

As the UK parliament voted for more air strikes on yet more innocent civilians (the terrorists never really suffer) I was practicing my concertina and I came up with this little recurring theme. It's recurring in the way that we start bombing yet again and nothing really changes. This piece starts off with a simple theme that gets confused and doesn't end up where you think it will. I probably didn't have an end plan before I started it.

This is the very first notes I played this morning on my concertina! It's a busy time at the moment with planning for this years MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards (www.scotstradmusicawards.com) and I wasn't sure if I was going to manage this week with a new piece of music. And then I pressed record...

Scotland lost a great person on Monday - radio producer Stewart Cruickshank. Stewart was amazing to me as a young musician and amongst many things he booked my orchestra to perform 'Music for a Scottish Parliament' in 1999. I loved the gig and it gave me so much confidence to compose. I thought I would write a wee air for Stewart and here it is! You can read about Stewart here http://projects.handsupfortrad.scot/hall-of-fame/stewart-cruikshank-radio-producer/