Welcome back all! Hope you gorged yourselves on Chocolate eggs! Just one date to work towards this term – 27th June is the 3º festival at More Music, and we have some extra prep to do…
20/04/26
Here’s a gorgeous couple of Langdans from Sweden to get us started. Hope you agree! I know the first harmony’s quite weird, but so’s the first tune…
MIDI FILE: Langdans från SollerönTreble
Guitar
Banjo
Ukulele
Mandolin
Eb
Bb
Cello
Treble
Guitar
Banjo
Ukulele
Mandolin
Eb
Bb
Cello
27/04/26
Here’s a truly joyful sounding Bulgar from Moldova/ The Klezmer tradition – check out the recording! Many musicians don’t bother with the last part for some reason, but I’ve left it in… If there’s time we’ll re-visit Odessa Bulgar too.
MIDI FILE: Kishinever BulgarTreble
Guitar
Banjo
Ukulele
Mandolin
Eb
Bb
Cello
04/05/2026
Bank Holiday – back next week!
11/05/26
Here are a couple of swinging, but quirky Scottish reels. The Road to Eroggie was written by fiddler Adam Sutherland of the band Session A9, for his home village in the Highlands and is a popular session and concert tune North of the border.
Another popular tune is The Ale is Dear, a version of which, Lady Margaret Stewart, can be found in the The Second Collection of Niel Gow’s Reels, 1788. The focus is speed and accuracy over harmony with tunes like this, but there’s still a cello part for each.
Treble
Guitar
Banjo
Ukulele
Mando
Eb
Bb
Cello/Bass
Treble
Guitar
Banjo
Ukulele
Mandolin
Eb
Bb
Cello/Bass
18/05/2026
The priority will be to start working on some composition ideas for the pylons picture we agreed on last week around the concept of Terry Reilly’s “In C”, see below video – I’ll explain more at the session.
…But it might still be nice to learn/revisit some slip-jigs from the North East too… Both of these slip-jigs have multiple parts depending on the version, but all the parts are variations on the original (this is especially obvious in the harmony part I added for Jockey, where I’ve basically just copied the previous part over the current one, which works because all the parts are essentially just variations of the first!)
Treble
Guitar
Banjo
Ukulele
Mandolin
Eb
Bb
Cello/Bass
Treble
Guitar
Banjo
Ukulele
Mandolin
Eb
Bb
Cello/Bass
Guitar
Banjo
Ukulele
Mandolin
Eb
Bb
Cello/Bass
01/06/2026
Tonight we will be writing a “lament” to fit in with the theme of 3degrees. I’m saving the “in C” composition for when we have more people!
We will also re-visit our last performance sets and decide on a setlist for the festival 😉
FROM TERM 44:
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
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
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
FROM TERM 43:
Rose in the Heather/Lilac
Red House Arrangement
1st time: Tony starts with a drone and Lewis plays the A, joined by Andrew on B and Rob on C
2nd time: Everyone in, but still relatively quietly. June plays harmony part
3rd time: Plucked strings play melody and/or chords together and everyone joins on C
4th time: Bowed and plucked strings play melody and everyone joins on C
5th time: Everyone in with gusto!
Guitar
Ukulele
Mandolin
Cello/Bass
Westmorland/ Westmoreland Arrangement:
Each part gets gradually louder…
1A: Strings only – melody and chords – no harmony parts; 1B – accordions join with LH chords (no basses)
2 – low harmonies from bowed strings. Squeezes and clarinet take lead on melody
3 – if it sounds good, do it! Low Harmonies, High Harmonies, Melodies, all Loud and Full Westmoreland Harmony parts
Bass instruments
Banjo
Midnight on the Water?
Odessa Bulgar
Morrisons Jig?
Whitehaven Volunteers:
1/ Yannick plays AA. All in on B
2/ Bowed strings play harmony and squeezes play melody
3/ Bowed strings emphasise rhythm of melody
4/ Strums play the A. All in on the B
5/ Free for all!
FLOOD O’LUNE! – here’s the lovely tune we wrote together last night, still a work in progress with the harmony parts – i.e. let me know if you have any better ideas 😉
1. All in AA, focus on all strings in the B part
2. Bowed strings move to harmony in AA, focus on reeds and woodwind in the B part
3. Reeds/WW A1, Strings A2, All in on B.
Treble / Treble w 8ve down
Guitar
Banjo
Ukulele
Mandolin
Alto Sax
Trumpet
Cello
And here’s “in G” for us to try
Treble ___With Key Sig of G for Erin 😉Guitar
Banjo
Ukulele
Mandolin
Cello
15/06/26
Plenty of rehearsing to do! I’ll bring set lists for the day and we’ll focus on “in G” for much of the first half before rehearsing the arrangements we’ve done before. Not long now!
Setlist from tonight!
In “G”:
Found this lurking in Term 34 😉