Simon Thoumire Make Good Art

Want to hear something beautiful? Listen to Dave Milligan's wonderful rendition of Freedom Come All Ye! Dave and I recorded this on the beautiful Steinway Grand at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall last week before we performed with Altan at the Hillhead Bookclub for BBC ALBA. If you enjoy this content please consider supporting my Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/simonthoumire

On Saturday 23rd January we performed our suite of new music - Strathspey and Surreal Society. There were four composers - Jenn Austin, Aidan O'Rourke, Shona Mooney and myself. This is my piece of music. It's called Deil Amang the Fiddlers and it was performed by 21 amazing fiddlers. The music is based on a famous set of reels - Mrs Macleod's / Fairy Dance / Deil Amang the Tailors. Most of the ideas come from the first three notes of Deil Amang the Tailors from which I wrote everything. If you want to try it you can read the score here http://musichub.scot/musicsheets/deil-amang-the-fiddlers/

This is my first make good art of 2016 and my goodness it was difficult! I made the decision to not worry about it too much and make some noise! More of my less noisy music at www.simonthoumire.com

My final track of 2015 is a... Christmas carol. Seems fitting! Originally written in Latin as Adeste Fideles, Oh Come, All Ye Faithful is a Christmas carol which has been attributed to various authors, including John Francis Wade (1711–1786), with the earliest copies of the hymn all bearing his signature, John Reading (1645–1692) and King John IV of Portugal (1604–1656). Thankyou Wikipedia!!

This is a little Indian improvisation. Actually it's not but it sounds like it...

As the UK parliament voted for more air strikes on yet more innocent civilians (the terrorists never really suffer) I was practicing my concertina and I came up with this little recurring theme. It's recurring in the way that we start bombing yet again and nothing really changes. This piece starts off with a simple theme that gets confused and doesn't end up where you think it will. I probably didn't have an end plan before I started it.

This is the very first notes I played this morning on my concertina! It's a busy time at the moment with planning for this years MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards (www.scotstradmusicawards.com) and I wasn't sure if I was going to manage this week with a new piece of music. And then I pressed record...

Scotland lost a great person on Monday - radio producer Stewart Cruickshank. Stewart was amazing to me as a young musician and amongst many things he booked my orchestra to perform 'Music for a Scottish Parliament' in 1999. I loved the gig and it gave me so much confidence to compose. I thought I would write a wee air for Stewart and here it is! You can read about Stewart here http://projects.handsupfortrad.scot/hall-of-fame/stewart-cruikshank-radio-producer/

This is a little track. Not much more to say about it! As I'm trying to write my Strathspey and Surreal piece of music I'm also continuing my weekly music!

In January 2016 Aidan O'Rourke, me, Shona Mooney and Jenn Austin will be writing for a 21 strong fiddle orchestra featuring many of Scotland's top players. The idea is to write new music for the traditional Strathspey and Reel orchestra but with a difference. The ensemble will be called Strathspey and Surreal and this track is something I'm working on for it. It's just ideas and they've already changed after I've experimented with the form! I thought would put it up anyway! You can buy tickets here - it's on Saturday 23rd January in the afternoon in Glasgow Concert Hall Main Auditorium. http://events.glasgowlife.org.uk/event/1/strathspey-and-surreal

Flutter (written by Simon Thoumire) performed by the undergraduates of the music BA at Irish World Academy of Music and Dance. This was performed live at the Concert Hall on 29th October 2015.

A fifth idea based on an idea...

A mini piece of music featuring four ideas linked by an idea...

Written by Simon Thoumire

Written by Ross Ainslie

I'm sitting at Hands Up for Trad's Distil project (www.distil.scot) listening to drummer Mark Sanders talking about free improvising and how we should try finding a new sound on our instrument. Well I'm at a loss so I tried finding a new sound on my lips and combining it with my concertina. Here it is...

A simple march for organ, concertina, strings and flute...

It's been a nice few days spending time with the family. Quite hard to find time to practice though! This is a relaxed air that hopefully describes the good times we had!

I've been thinking a lot about the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame this last couple of weeks (halloffame.scot)so I thought I would do a (stupid) version of GS McLennan's classic Mrs A. MacPherson of Inveran. Possibly brought up to date or more like consigning it to the graveyard of great tunes performed badly!

Here's a wee tune written on the African thumb piano. It's the first time I've used it since Dave Milligan and I bought it in Australia way back in 2002!