Here’s a flyer for an old time workshop, dance and concert coming up in Richmond on Saturday 10th November.
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.
Deborah 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.
Whitehall Minuet
Here’s the Whitehall Minuet, a tune in three from the Playford collection which dates from the early 1700s.
Here are the dots for the tune (PDFs here for the tune, and the tune with ornaments and phrasing):
In the chords, we alternated between a playing a straight three for two bars (1 & 2 & 3 &), and playing a syncopated rhythm for two bars (1 & 2 & 3 &), which looks a bit like this:
Technically we’re going from a 3/4 feel to a 6/8 feel, giving the tune a bit more movement and forward momentum, maybe verging on feeling a little like a jazz waltz. We kept it to two bar chunks for the sake of clarity and ensemble but you could experiment with changing the rhythm in different places at home. Here’s me noodling about with the rhythm:
Tunbridge Beauties
Tunbridge Beauties is a tune from ‘The New Country Dancing Master’ collection by Walsh and Randall from 1711. It’s been recorded by Boldwood on their fantastic ‘Feet Don’t Fail Me Now’ album.
Here are the dots (PDF here), with a basic version and an ornamented, phrased copy.
Below are the basic dots for the groove (PDF here) that we created to accompany the tune.
Epping Forest
Here are the videos from guest tutor Beth’s class, where she taught Epping Forest, a tune from the 4th edition of Playford’s ‘Dancing Master’ manuscript (1670). Huge thanks to Beth for covering the session! Here’s the tune:
And here’s the riff:
And here’s the riff for Lord Frog, the tune for which can be found on the old Ealing Session website here:
Here are the PDFs for the tune, the tune with bowing, the the tune with bowing and riff and the Riff, with the regular dots below.
Guest tutors and half term breaks
On October 15th, special guest tutor Beth Gifford will take the class. Beth is a fantastic viola player and singer and an experienced teacher, so this promises to be a great session!
The following week, October 22nd, there will be no class, as it’s half term. Be good, and I’ll see you all on October 29th, perhaps with something extra spooky to play….
The New Rigged Ship no 2
Not to be confused with any of the Shetland tunes of the same name! I know this tune from playing in sessions and in trying track down it’s origins I’ve found it listed as ‘The New Rigged Ship no 2’ or ‘The Rigged Ship’ in England where its played as a jig, as ‘The Hills of Glenorchy’ in Scotland where it’s played as a march or quickstep, and as ‘The Wild Hills of Wannie’ in Northumberland where it’s played slowly as an air. There are numerous other titles for it, and variations of it, and it seems well travelled! Often a sign of a good tune….
The PDF of the tune, chords and bowing/ornaments variations is here, and the dots are below. We improvised in the B section by making up our own rhythms for alternating between Es and Bs in bars 9-10 and then between Ds and As in bars 11-12, and then back to to Es and Bs for bars 13-14 before picking up the tune again in the last two bars (aka at the ‘tail’). ‘Stab’ chords played every two bars helped punctuate the changes here.
Fred Pigeon’s no. 2
This is a jaunty polka by Devonshire fiddler Fred Pidgeon (yes, I know I’ve spelled his name differently in the title, but this is now the tune and his surname are normally written respectively). I’ve kept the chords simple to bring out the cheerful, bouncy character, though you could substitute a few Em or maybe some C chords in instead of some of the G majors – have an experiment! Stephen suggested using a G maj7 in place of the D chords in the first two bars – I like this, but try also replacing the D chords in the fourth and seventh bars with a D6 chords to fit with the slightly dreamy feel that this creates. We found that the harmony in the B part also fits the tune of the A part, so there are lots of possibilities!
Here are the dots (tune with chords, tune with suggested phrasing and ornaments, and harmony) with a PDF available here..
