The first jig, composed by American fiddle-player Liz Carroll, is untitled. The Flying Wheelchair by Charlie Lennon is one of my favourite tunes right now. I love how it captures the contrast between the words "wheelchair", with its connotations of confinement, and "flying" with all the freedom that implies. I learned these tunes from Fionnuala Rooney, who has been working with me on my use of ornamentation, variation, inversions of the bassline progression, and the Irish style of left hand damping, which is quite different from anything I have done before. Fionnuala believes, as I do, that dance music on solo harp is more effective taken at "laid-back" tempos. The harp can be surprisingly well-suited to bringing out the groove of a tune, through syncopated left-hand rhythms and phrasing or dynamic emphasis in the right hand.

This tune, by Martin Hayes, travelled to me via Laoise Kelly who had it from Steve Cooney. Although I play this reel at a slower tempo, I loved the idea of incoporating Nick's dancing into the piece as a rhythmic element. Laoise Kelly encouraged me to work on my harmonics for this tune, as they create a very strong sense of atmosphere on the harp, which is suitably evocative of "a misty mountain peak" in her words.

Mick O'Connor's Slow Reel was recorded by Lunasa on their album "Redwood". I learned it from Fionnuala Rooney. This tune sounds wonderful in low registers and I felt that a deep legato from stringed instruments would also compliment the piece.

Niel Gow (1727 - 1807) was a popular Scottish fiddler and composer who is widely regarded as "the father of the strathspey". His sons compiled and completed the manuscript now called the Gow Collection, in 1824. Niel Gow's Lament for the Death of His Second Wife has been recorded by many different people, from Alasdair Fraser to Phamie Gow to The Barra MacNeills in Cape Breton. I learned it from Cape Breton fiddler and pianist Kimberley Fraser, and my bassline reflects the "activity" of Cape Breton accompaniment style. It is an extremely popular melody with many variants, the most notable being the ballad sung in Ireland, The Lambs on the Green Hills which has been recorded by Nan Tom Teaimin and Aine Meenaghan. The same ballad has been recorded by Catherine Ann MacPhee in Scottish Gaelic as Tha na h-Uain air na Tulaich (Lambs on the Hills). Rather than singing the ballad and accompanying it on the harp, in this arrangement I wanted to play the Gow air instrumentally and compliment it with two verses selected from the Irish song. I chose the first and last verses of The Lambs on the Green Hills only, as these are most consistant with what Niel Gow might have said, had his tune had words. (The verses in the middle of the Irish ballad tell a sequential story and I did not feel it would be appropriate to interrupt the flow of these). The lyrics used are from Folksongs and Ballads Popular in Ireland Vol. I , collected, arranged and edited by John Loesberg for Ossian Publications. They are quite consistant with Nan Tom Teamin's, who learned the song in Connemara. The Scots song I Once Loved a Lass has very similar words, as published in Padraic Colum's Broadsheet Ballads.

For this set I was interested in creating a very contemporary sound, and chose to focus on variations in the accompaniment rather than in the melody. Laoise Kelly recorded this "slap-melody" version of the reel Jimmy's Return on the self-titled "The Bumblebees" album. Brendan Ring's Jig was recorded on her solo album "Just Harp", at a more usual jig tempo. The tempo and "swing" feel has been modified in my arrangement to create a more laid-back transition from the first tune, and the Irish style of damping is liberally employed! The jig Paddy's Leather Breeches has been recorded by the Scottish harp and vocal duo Sileas, which is where I learned it, although most of my left hand ideas for this tune were developed with Sharlene Wallace. In this arrangement my left hand plays a pattern borrowed from an African kora player, and even takes over the melody for one of the B sections, freeing up the right hand to play a tremolo above. Finally, in order to "return" to the first reel, I switch from 6/8 into 4/4 in the middle of Paddy's Leather Breeches , syncopating the tune and using an Alberti Bass pattern and later a Paraguayan-harp-style left hand. The set closes with Jimmy's Return , played quite straight but with a variation on the left hand slap-bass technique often used by jazz or Latin-American harpists.