Dave Ogden

The three tunes in this set are arranged in the way you'd find them in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia dancing. They start with an air, "The Glen of Copsewood," then a strathspey, "The Highlands of Banffshire" and into a reel, "The Merry Making." They were all published in Captain Simon Fraser's 1815 collection. David and Kate Greenberg put them together as a set for Ferintosh, the trio he shared with Abby Newton on cello and Kim Robertson on harp. I met Ferintosh through Debbie Hand, a cellist in Tehachapi who runs the Fiddler's Crossing website (one of the best collections of traditional printed music in the U.S., right here in my back yard). I filled in for Kim (who's schedule is a gypsy caravan of harp festivals every weekend all year long) for a few dates while they were here in California, and worked on their unreleased second album for a month in the summer of 2006 at my recording studio, Clear Creek Recording. The musicianship in the group was nothing short of astonishing, and very inspiring. I had fun getting these tunes together for DADGAD guitar, and as usual I'm playing my '34 000-18. I used a wound 2nd, giving the "flamenco" treatment I came up with for the last tune a more authentic, rasping buzzy sound.