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I’m not a great player at the moment, but I think I’ve improved a bit since then! I took a portable tape recorder with me and recorded, session by session, many tunes, and tried to learn some of them when I had some spare time. I learned a lot from listening and watching how others played – and there were some really talented players in Edinburgh at that time, like John Martin, for example. You can’t imagine how good some of the playing was. There were also people playing the mandolin and the flute, Irish pipes and guitars.

A lot of people from Northern Ireland, particularly from Donegal, used to come to the Edinburgh sessions, and they were a strong influence. There are some pubs where people play Irish music there, and some where people play Scottish music. There were always more people playing in the Irish sessions, maybe because Scottish music is usually played by a solo instrument, maybe with a guitar accompaniment, whereas in Irish music you often find five or six fiddles playing together, which is, I think, more exciting.

Also, in the Scottish sessions, you’d very rarely hear any songs, which were more common in the Irish ones.

I wouldn’t have liked to live in Edinburgh forever, but I had a really fantastic time there and I was sad to leave. The time there was too short, even for our kids. The kids went to school there, and for our son it was the first time he’d been to school. They both picked up a strong Scottish accent!

Pub Music in Edinburgh

1.

When did Greg first become involved in playing Irish music?

2. What was the first festival he visited like?

3. What struck him most at the festival?

4. When did he take up fiddle?

5. Why did he have to learn playing it again?

6. How did he pick up the fiddle back home?

7. Why did they move to Edinburgh?

8. What did Greg and his wife do?

9. What about Greg’s work in Scotland?

10. Why did he enjoy living in Edinburgh?

11. How often did he go to folk music sessions?

12.

Where did they take place?

13. What did they do at the sessions?

14. How did he happen to discover those sessions?

15. How did he turn into a regular session player?

16. What kind of fiddle player was Greg at the time?

17. Has he improved since then?

18. What did he do to improve?

19. What other instruments did some of the musicians play?

20. Did they only play Scottish music in the pubs in Edinburgh?

21.