Carrickfergus and the Hornpipe Brewery Reel, 1/12/25

SEE BUTTON FOR THE YOUTUBE VIDEO AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE

THE PLACE

Tobay Beach on the south shore of New York’s Long Island typically is mobbed in the summer months, but in the winter when snow sits on the sand and ice edges the boat docks, you can walk miles out there without encountering a single human soul.

Seagulls hunted shellfish on the tidal flats. They snapped up clams in their beaks and flew them high into the air. Then they hovered and dropped the clams so they plummetted and smashed onto rocks or concrete below, allowing the gulls to get at the rich meat inside.

Brant Geese waddled across the wet sand at the beach’s edge. Squadrons of them took off in unison and flew away across the waters of Gilgo Heiding to settle down into the protection of the high reeds that grow up from the many small islands dotting Amity Channel. The Brant Geese were visting Tobay Beach after migrating nearly 2,000 miles from their breeding grounds in the Arctic tundra.

CLICK HERE for more information about Tobay Beach.

Below are moments from the YouTube video linked at the bottom of this page.

THE LENS

The wind was blowing steadily at about 25 mph during this shoot, with gusts 10 to 15 mph higher. The temperature was in the low 30s with windchill making it feel significantly colder. Walking with the gimbal for long moving shots was enough to keep me warm, but once I was stationary, shooting through a long lens with the camera on a tripod, I was glad to have been layered up.

The wind adds to the impact of the cold on the camera and the body. During zoomed-in shots, wind gusts jostled the barrel of the long lens. The hood on the end of the lens acted as a sail allowing the wind the advantage of greater leverage. I used the telephoto lens’s built-in steady-shot function while shooting, and I further reduced image shake in post-production using Final Cut Pro’s powerful stabilization effects.

THE MUSIC

For the video’s soundtrack, I played the melody from the well-known Irish ballad “Carrickfergus,” and a reel I made up myself, entitled “The Hornpipe Brewery Reel” - for understandable reasons - on the fiddle. I accompanied the tunes on a separate track by playing an Irish frame drum (bodhrán).

I came up with the initial phrases that eventually became The Hornpipe Brewery Reel from feeling the sympathetic resonance of the C-string on my five-string fiddle while playing some lines on the neighboring G-string. The five-string fiddle is strung: C, G, D, A, E in perfect fifths, so it covers the tonal range of a violin and a viola. Five-string fiddles are becoming more common as an increasing variety of luthiers are producing these and other extended-range instruments, and as more high-profile musicians such as Darol Anger, Casey Driessen, Michael Cleveland, and Niall Murphy are playing them to staggering effect, thereby enhancing their popularity.

THE GLASS

As a beer brewer, whisky is a dialect of my native language. I’m primarily a scotch drinker, and on a recent cold night I sank into a neat dram of the Glenmorangie 14, with its brown sugar and sweet mincemeat in the nose and rich mouthfeel. Candied fruit notes created layers of flavor that lasted through the long finish. Then, after the malt had unknotted my nerves and muscles, I was off to my bed.