Dusty Windowsill Set
The Place:
Tackapausha Preserve stretches from Merrick Road north to Sunrise Highway on Long Island, in the town of Seaford, New York. Here’s a link to more information about the preserve.
The Music:
I played a traditional jig and a reel on the fiddle. The tunes are The Dusty Windowsill and The Flooded Road to Glenties. The Dusty Windowsill, according to Pete Cooper in his tune book, Mel Bay’s Complete Irish Fiddle Player, also is known as The Chicago Jig. Cooper recounts that the tune was written by a whistle player called Johnny Harling. Traditional tunes often go by several names, which evolve, or change altogether as the tunes are handed from player to player over time. Here’s a link to Cooper’s fiddle book.
I accompanied the fiddle tunes on an Irish frame drum called a bodhrán. The bodhrán does an inimitable job of expressing the rhythmic underpinnings of traditional tunes in an organic way that sounds to me like a living heart.
The Glass:
As a homebrewer of beer, I tend to buy and drink commercial beers in styles I brew myself. The beer I’m drinking tonight is the venerable German Pilsener Warsteiner. The brewery was established in 1753. Warsteiner Pilsener is a shimmering clear golden lager that produces a fine, fluffy head when poured from the can into a glass. The nose to me is redolent of a comforting barley-malt aroma, similar if not identical to the aroma that floats out of the mill when I’m crushing pilsener malt on a brew day.
Brewing lager is a skill I’m still developing. As with music, it takes loads of quality practice. The work continues.
