Author: debfiddle

Deborah is a violinist and violist specialising in English folk music. She trained in viola and Baroque viola at Birmingham Conservatoire, before returning to her first love of traditional music, song and dance. She is a member of Stepling, a band performing English music, step-dance, song and percussion. She also plays for a number of function bands, performing at barn dances and ceilidhs across the UK. Deborah has played with a number of folk artists, dance and theatre projects. She played for a number of years with Folk Dance Remixed, a dance company combining traditional dance with hip hop and street dance styles, and performing as such events as Car Fest, the Southbank's Festival of Love and Glasgow's Commonwealth Games Festival. She records on a regular basis for a number of people, including The Mystery Fax Machine Orchestra, and for Laurel Swift's 'Travelling with Thomas' musical. Deborah teaches music, song and dance regularly for The English Folk Dance and Song Society, as well as on a freelance basis for various workshop series, festivals and music services. She is currently studying on The Teaching Musician MA degree course at Trinity Laban.

Carol of the Bells

Here is the piece we learned on Monday 11th November, Carol of the Bells.  This was arranged by Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych in 1914, based on a Ukrainian folk chant called ‘Shchedryk’.  We divided the piece into four phrases – phrases one and two can be played simultaneouly and with the bass line.  The structure is pretty free at the moment, with everyone following my hand signals, we might formalise it later.

 

And here are the dots, with a PDF available here:

Carol of the Bells

The Grand Hornpipe

Here is the post for Monday 21st October tune, The Grand Hornpipe, also known as Henry Stables’ Grand Hornpipe, The Devonshire Lads and known in Wales as Mympwy Portheinon.  It seems to have been revived from a Cumbrian collection of tunes from the late nineteenth century, and is popular in England and Wales.  Here’s the video:

 

And here are the dotes (PDF available here), with some of the rhythmic variations we tried out on the night.  The quavers are swung, and the bowings/slurs are a slighly simplified version of what I tend to do in hornpipes to avoid running out of bow!

 

The Grand Hornpipe

Lemmie Brazil’s no.2

Lemmie Brazil (short for Lementina which seems to be spelled variously as Lemmy or Lemmie, and Brazil is pronounced Brazzle) was a melodeon player and singer from a large Gypsy family who travelled throughout England and Ireland.  You can read more about her here and she can be heard playing melodeon here:

 

Here is the video from Monday 14th October:

 

And here are the dots, also available as a PDF here:

 

Lemmy Brazil's no 2

Fair Jenny’s

Here is the tune from Monday 30th’s session, with apologies for the late posting.  This is a tune by Peter Barnes, it can be found in the book “The Portland Collection: Contra Dance Music in the Pacific Northwest”.  Peter says of this tune: “I actually wrote this tune on the fiddle when I was trying to teach myself that instrument in the mid ‘70’s. I made it easy to play on the violin, which may account for its totally unexpected popularity.  Since then it’s been recorded eleven times (usually without my permission!) and has had two dances choreographed to go with it.” 

 

Fair Jenny

 

Here is the PDF file.

 

The Buffoon

Here’s the tune from Monday 23rd’s session; The Buffoon, a Morris tune from Adderbury.  We’re playing it as a session tune because that’s how I know it, rather than at dance speed!  It’s a great tune to play around with as there’s lots of scope for variation.

 

Here are the dots, with two lots of suggested variations – the idea, as with Kate Dalyrmple, is to have simpler and more complex versions and then to mix them up in different ways.

The Buffoon_0001The Buffoon_0002