I have been playing Irish music (flute & tin whistle) for almost five years. I dig it, but I tend to get lazy when it comes to practicing and learning new tunes. I came up with this little project as a way to practice more, build my tune repertoire and, I hope, become an all-around better player.

Let’s talk New Year’s resolutions. They say that to really stick to your resolutions, you need to set up specific, attainable goals, and have a plan to actually attain those goals. Yeahhhh, that’s not my strong suit, usually. Last year, I told myself that I was going to learn a new tune every week. In the end I learned, maybe, ten new tunes all year. D’oh! So, this year, I decided to make the same resolution, but this time, document my progress publicly in a blog. At the end of each week, I’ll post a video of me playing that week’s new tune. Constructive criticism is, of course, welcome. Nasty, unhelpful criticism is not. Seriously. Don’t be a jerk. I will hunt you down and hurt you. Or just say mean things to you. Whatever.

Anyway, for my first tune I went back through my old “need to learn these tunes” lists to see if there were any tunes on those 4-5 year old lists that I still haven’t learned. And I found some (tho’, surprisingly, not many). This week’s tune will be a hornpipe called The Home Ruler.