@grand stationmaster gregg,
i used to believe that scotland and ireland were almost thoroughly distinct, but learned through the years that so much mixing happened the centuries that it's just as practical to call them all "scots-irish" in general. i suppose the great houses and clans tended to remain geographically distinct, but overall the people tended to flow back and forth like stout and scottish ale. no doubt aided by a common hatred for the english and all that sort of thing, don't you know.
so if the surname starts out "mc" or "mac," look for them in eire. if it starts out "O'" then the cosmos will probably direct you to scotland. me? i'll settle for kathy ireland.
*badump-kssh*
re: sleepy's music,
he shared maybe half a dozen or more of his short piano ditties here. i guess we lost those from the site when the attachments got recently wiped, but i think i have most of them on my older, crash-prone PC. if anybody wants, i could probably extract them.
going by those songs, arne had an interesting playing style in which he kind of played a straight melody with one hand and rhythmically improvised with the other. he didn't seem to mind that his two hands sort of drifted in and out of accord with each other. sometimes this came off pretty atonally to me, and other times it was like a secret message-- "ah, you got past the patch of tall, waving grass and found the reward i left for you."
re: youtube fame,
one time arne and i accidentally collaborated on a youtube music video.
around 10 years ago he shared with me a lovely hawaiian tune and i thought "that's rather beautiful and uplifting," but later forgot all about it. a year or two later, i was watching a friend's homemade vacation video and the same tune popped up again. this time it started looping in my head relentlessly, and i knew i had to do something about that. the power of the tune was that striking.
so i put together a slideshow with the tune and posted it to youtube. it's moving towards a million views at this point, so i'm beyond pleased so many people have enjoyed it. if i ever work on that video again, i'll be sure to include arne's part in it. here it is:
Hapa - Ka Uluwehi O Ke Kai (studio version) - YouTube