"South Wind" by John Renborn

Friends:

Welcome, or welcome back!

This month I'm taking you through Renbourn's arrangement of the traditional Irish fiddle tune "The South Wind," or "South Wind" as it was titled on his 1998 record Traveller's Prayer. I don't know exactly when Renbourn arranged the piece, but anecdotes from friends suggest he was performing this at least as early as the mid to late 80s. I used video performances spanning several years to inform the editing for the transcription, 1989, 1990 and 2004. This gave us an very accurate look at exactly how his hands were playing this arrangement.

As I mention in the lesson video, don't let the slow tempo fool you. It can be easy to mask sloppiness on faster pieces, one like this leaves room to expose weakness in expression and technique. Despite the challenge of performing this with a high level of musicality, I think many will enjoy tackling this arrangement and can use it as a tool for improving their ability to perform something with a strong sense of musicianship.

Measures 81-96 will be where you'll spend most of your time working. A few large stretches, quick jumps in chord changes, and tasteful bends make this section the most technically demanding part of the piece. I provide some good tips in the lesson video, I hope, so check it out.

If I had to be critical of my own performance, I wish I would have spent just a little more time practicing for perfection in the various bends (measure 50 and similar instances, and measure 69 and similar instances). There's a finite endpoint in all of these bends, falling just short of or going a bit too far can ruin a magical moment. There's also much room for interpretation in these bends, don't listen to just the Traveller's Prayer recording, check out a few of the other live performances on YouTube and find something that works for you. While investigating other performances, you may also notice that many of the variations can be moved around to different places in the piece. I don't think any two recordings I've heard are completely alike, so there's some room for flexibility in your own interpretation.

The lesson video can be accessed here: https://youtu.be/og55Bj_r4Aw

The score is attached below.

My apologies for skipping my typical introduction in the lesson video two months in a row. I really needed 30 or 31 days this month to get everything finished. The 1st of the month falling on a Saturday twice in a row left me scrambling and recording late into the evening several nights to get everything ready for you on time. Hopefully we'll be back to normal next month. Thank you again everyone for supporting, this place wouldn't exist without your help.