Smash the Windows Set
Sometimes we learn tunes because our pals like them. I picked up Smash the Windows as a fiddle tune because a talented drummer and whistle player I know started playing it. Irish Washerwoman and The Kesh were melodies I’d heard a thousand times even before I tried playing them myself. This particular set of tunes came together as a result of jam sessions with a small, fairly consistent group of players over the course of several years. It seems tunes get thrown together in sets by theory as well as chance. I myself listen to the way chord changes flow between tunes when I’m building sets, and I like the way the chords flow here.
The soundtrack is just fiddle and bodhrán. I’m not a skilled bodhrán player, but I enjoy the instrument, and as a fiddle player, trying to play bodhrán well is strengthening my connection to the groove of tunes. I’ve been watching YouTube videos by Matt Bell of Contemporary Bodhrán. He’s an outstanding player and instructor who applies his additional expertise as a rudimental snare player to the frame drum. You can view his videos on his YouTube channel called Matt Bell on Drums.
For the video footage (see link below), I made my way on an early-December afternoon to Overlook Beach, in the town of Babylon, on Long Island’s south shore. Here’s a link to more information about the area: Overlook Beach
I’d played the pipes there a couple times over the years. On this December day, only a handful of people were about, all keeping to themselves, myself included. I walked about a mile west down the beach in the chill wind, then back again. Waves washed over the gently sloped sand, relentlessly creating patterns and shapes, then erasing them, then making more: nature’s Etch A Sketch. About 50 feet inland up the shore’s incline, gusts of wind brushed sand off the low dunes, creating grainy downpours like miniature waterfalls. It’s a land-and-seascape that’s continuously and dramatically undulating.
Seabirds expertly glided above on the wind currents, floating with their wings extended, then tucking them and diving like missiles into the sea for fish. Fish bones and shells rested in the sand recently vacant of the lives that once animated them.
