It's an out-of-body experience when he really gets that fiddle smokin', the legendary traditional musician, Martin Hayes, tells Gordon Deegan.

It might come as a surprise to his legions of followers, but virtuoso fiddle player Martin Hayes admits to hearing himself playing out of tune on his records.

Not only that but, speaking at the 15th International Traditional Music Festival in the east Clare village of Feakle at the weekend, the Clare man says: "I listen to my own CDs and mostly I would be disappointed."

The multi-award-winning fiddler explains: "You have a sense in your mind of the level you would like your music to achieve, and it is an evolving concept, and all work previous to that seems at best adequate and at least falling short of the goal of what it should be.

"That is the reason you keep going, oddly enough, because then you think you have a better sense of how the music should go.

"For example, my sense of intonation is developing since the day I started to the point of listening back to my CDs and going 'God, I was playing out of tune'. Now, it may not be that apparent generally to the average listener, but to me it has become very apparent, frighteningly so."

In the middle of a hectic tour around Ireland, Martin made an emotional return to Feakle where he played with his late father's former colleagues in the Tulla Céilí Band in the community centre last night.

P. Joe Hayes died in May 2001 after leading the band for more than half a century, including one memorable appearance at New York's Carnegie Hall in 1958.

A native of the nearby townland of Maghera, Martin says: "My father was involved with the Tulla band since 1948, and it has been always part of who we are."

Touring over the past seven years with musical partner and guitarist Denis Cahill, Martin has mesmerised audiences wherever the two have performed in the world. He says: "I get a great buzz, great excitement, great feelings from performing live. I am grateful to have a life doing what I do. In terms of the music and the audience, I feel like a third party, that I am there witnessing myself."

He explains: "You make the music happen. It is like you are sitting back and enjoying it yourself. I know that it may sound egotistical, but I don't mean in that sense.

"I do it for the same buzz that people come to hear it. For me playing the fiddle is the full mind-body-soul experience."

He reflects: "You are only as good as your last gig. You are grateful for the notion that people want you to play and grateful for the notion that people want to come to hear you. I stay conscious of that and never take it for granted or abuse it."

It is five years since the release of the duo's highly acclaimed The Lonesome Touch, and Martin says that he and Denis are midway through recording their second studio album together. The CD is behind schedule due to what Martin describes as "bereavements and personal tragedies".

"After my father died in May 2001, I got lazy for a while and took some time off when we were supposed to be recording. This May, Denis's wife, Gwen, was killed tragically in a road accident.

"Life intervenes and sets the pace for you sometimes."

A six-times All-Ireland fiddle champion, Martin emigrated to the US in 1984, moved into an apartment in Chicago across the road from Denis Cahill and got to know him soon after.

Turned 40 this year, Martin has lived in Seattle in recent years, but has he considered moving back to Ireland? "I do think about it," he says. "One of the ironies is that I would spend the same amount of time in Ireland if I did, because of the touring we do."

Traditional Irish music, he adds, "is in as good a shape as it ever was".