Welcome back all!
A couple of dates in the diary already…
Lancaster Library Day of Folk (part of BID’s version of Lancaster Music Festival): Sunday 12th October
Bay Balfolk Sun 14th December
22/09/2025
Here’s a gorgeous Waltz/ Vals from Sweden to get us back in the swing. We’ll also play through a couple of our arrangements from the last term – we have three weeks to rehearse them all…MIDI FILE Vallpigan
Treble
Guitar
Banjo
Ukulele
Mandolin
Alto Sax
Trumpet
Cello/Bass
29/09/2025
Here’s a fantastic and popular schottische from Brittany. Might it work with the Sunshine Schottische?MIDI FILE: Rue Des Prés
Treble
Guitar
Banjo
Ukulele
Mandolin
Alto Sax
Trumpet
Cello/Bass
06/10/2025
Sticking with our Balfolk theme: here’s a much more modern tune for a lovely dance, which is less well known than the Andros and Hantedros that come up as Breton dances in the UK: the renaissance dance Gavotte de l’Aven from the Pont Aven region, near Lorient. The dance is from there, but the tune is from Belgium and normally played at around 80bpm. The video is from the composer’s band.MIDI FILE:Les Deux Freres
Treble
Guitar
Banjo
Ukulele
Mandolin
Alto Sax
Trumpet
Cello/Bass
13/10/25
Unfortunately I’m having to cancel this session due to Covid. I’m very much hoping all will be clear by next week. Certainly better than I was.
What a great sounding band we had this afternoon, though!
20/10/25
Much better now – thanks for all the kindness folks x
27/10/25
We’ve been asked to do a recording in the 2nd half! Local Norwegian cellist, Maja Bugge, majabugge.com, has asked to record us playing Vårvindar Friskar (from Term 41), and our “favourite happy tune”, as well as some drones for a project she’s working on.
It would be great for us to have a polska ready for our next gig – the Bal in December, so I hope you don’t mind me having said “yes”! We’ll spend the first half of the session rehearsing and working on an arrangement for the tune, and some of the 2nd half recording.Treble
Guitar
Banjo
Ukulele
Mandolin
Cello/Bass
Half Term! Have a good break all
03/11/25
Lovely to see everyone last night and to Mazurka together. Hopefully this page works for us for now!MIDI FILE: Mazurka de Salou
Treble
Guitar
Banjo
Ukulele
Mandolin
Cello/Bass
Alto Sax
Trumpet
10/11/2025
For those keen on playing at the lantern festival on Saturday, December 6th we will have a go at the few phrases to be played as part of the big group performance at the end. I’ll bring printed copies for you. We also need to choose a piece for everyone to play, given that I won’t be around. Ideally something about the bay…
Then to finish off our Eurobal set for the gig in December here’s a very simple tune for a great dance.MIDI File: Bourrée Tournante des Grandes Poteries
Treble
Guitar
Banjo
Ukulele
Mandolin
Alto Sax
Trumpet
Cello/Bass
This is where we’re up to I think:
Gavotte de l’Aven – Les Deux Frères
Mazurka – Mazurka de Salou
Waltz – Akkuvalsi
Scottishe – Rue des Prés/Sunshine
Bourrées – Bourrée Tournant des Grandes Potteries
Circassian Circle – Tovercirkel
Andro – The Wren
17/11/25
The first half session for the next few weeks leading to the Bal will be focussed on playing for dancing and rehearsing/arranging the pieces we will be playing on the afternoon of December 14th.
We’ll focus on:
Andro – The Wren
Scottishe – Rue des Prés/Sunshine
and a quick rehearsal of the exisiting arrangement for Akkuvalsi
we’re also going to get mic’d up on the stage at some point…
With most Bal tunes you will find that we play them many times through, so variations are important. This one will probably be played the most times through, so I’ve ditched placing the chords and we will have a go at figuring out ways for the harmony section to vary their gift to the sound a bit more, whilst the melody players now have a harmony part to add to the mix where appropriate 🙂
MIDI FILE: The WrenTreble
Guitar
Banjo
Ukulele
Mandolin
Alto Sax
Trumpet
Bass/Cello
Here are the arrangements from Monday night:
Scottishes:
Rue des Prés
1/ Everyone plays as they choose
2/ Fiddles lead on both As (squeezes chords), and then move to the harmony on the Bs
3/ Everyone contributes to rhythmic chords on As and all in on Bs
Sunshine Scottishe
1/ Drone over As, played by Andrew & Rob. All in on Bs
2/ All focus on melody
3/ Those who want can bring in harmony (see below)
repeat final four bars as a rall to end
Ukulele
Cello/Bass
Andro – The Wren:
1/ All in
2/ All play harmony and Ben plays melody
3/ All drone D or chord around it – fiddles lead melody
4/ All in
5/ All play harmony and Mary & June play melody
6/ All in
7/ Drones & melody
maintain last note or drone and fade for end
24/11/25
As we continue with prep for our bal debut…
We will focus on arrangements for Les Deux Frères and Mazurka de Salou, whilst also re-visiting the arrangements from last week and maybe trying out this new version of Tovercirkel, with slightly more interesting chords and harmony and bass parts.
MIDI FILE: TovercirkelTreble
Guitar
Banjo
Ukulele
Mandolin
Cello/Bass
Alto Sax
Trumpet
01/12/25
As we continue with prep for our bal debut…
We will focus on arrangements for Tovercirkel and Bourree Tournant, whilst also re-visiting the arrangements so far, with harmony parts for Sunshine.
Sounding good so far – nearly there!
Scottishes:
Rue des Prés
1/ Everyone plays as they choose
2/ Fiddles lead on both As (squeezes chords), and then move to the harmony on the Bs
3/ Everyone contributes to rhythmic chords on As and all in on Bs
Sunshine Scottishe
1/ Drone over As, played by Andrew & Rob. All in on Bs
2/ All focus on melody
3/ Those who want can bring in harmony
repeat final four bars as a rall to end
Andro – The Wren:
1/ All in
2/ All play harmony and Ben plays melody
3/ All drone A or D or chord around it – fiddles lead melody
4/ All in
5/ All play harmony and Mary & June play melody
6/ All in
7/ Drones & melody
repeat arrangement as required
maintain last note or drone and fade for end
Mazurka
1/ all play melody
2/ add harmony if you fancy
3/ Focus on Mandolins and Ukulele/s – ALL in on B
4/ Focus on squeezeboxes – ALL in on B
5/ Chords on A – All in on B, but focus on harp
6/ All in loudly
repeat arrangement as required
Gavotte de l’Aven – Les Deux Freres
1/ Andrew, June and Ben play melody with guitars and bass
2/ Add concertinas, uke/s and harp (fiddles on harmony)
3/ Add everyone else (fiddles on harmony)
4/ Same but loud!
Repeat arrangement as required
Finish with return to 1/A
Waltz – Akkuvalsi
Intro: Strumming instruments play bars 9-16
1/ Everyone plays melody
2/ Harmony brought in by those who’d like to
Break – squeezeboxes um-pa bars 9-16
3/ AA – all in; B1 – bowed strings play melody, strums and squeezes um-pa; B2 – all in on melody, or harmony
repeat arrangement as required
Bourrées – Bourrée Tournant des Grandes Potteries
Just play it and have fun – watch out for the break and counting – finish with once through the tune and the ending.
Circassian Circle – Tovercirkel
Ben intro
1/ All in – loud and energetic
2/ bass, strums and accordion LHs – A: Pedal on A note; B: Fx2; Emx2; Dx4; C: as usual
3/ Focus on fiddles
4/ bring in harmonies if not already
5/ quiet A part
6/ All in – loud and energetic – chords as 2.
Repeat arrangement as required
08/12/25
Very happy to report that this won’t be the last one of the term and we’re able to claw back the one I cancelled back in October.
Obviously: this session is a final rehearsal before the Sunday Eurobal. We will spend it going through our set and confirming times etc. Looking forward to it!
15/12/25
Happening! A new tune from the UK… details to follow!