We’re midway between two Slowfolkmusic sessions – but we had another good session in March with fiddles, guitars, banjo, clarinet.

We enjoyed playing some Bluegrass/American tunes for a change, including:

• St Anne’s Reel 
• Blackberry Blossom – for which we had around 3 different versions!*
• 8th January 

We then tried out a new Irish tune from the prolific composer, Carolan, called ‘Carolan’s Sonato’ – here’s a link to the sheet music, as the version we had on the day had been pleated by the photocopier, which didn’t make it too easy to read!

http://www.contemplator.com/carolan/concerto.gif, though if you google Carolan/O’Carolan you’ll find a number of links to his music

We ran through the set Off to California and Plains of Boyle

and finished with several rounds of Drowsy Maggie, slowly at first and speeding up each time until most had dropped out, or got arm ache…

Our next sessions are:

Sunday 22 April 2012 3pm – 5pm

Sunday 27 May 2012 3pm – 5pm

It would be great to see you there – all beginners, improvers welcome and anyone who fancies playing some folky stuff on a Sunday afternoon, that’s not too fast.

*sheet music for the version that we chose for Blackberry Blossom attached as jpeg

We’re back to the 4th Sunday for our next session on Sunday 25th March, 3-5pm.

Hope to see you there!

Following our last session on 22nd January we’re moving to the 3rd Sunday this month… just to keep you on your toes…

Sunday 19th February, 3pm -5pm at SBC, Foden St, Stoke.  ST4 4BU

We had a great turn-out again last time and a good mix of instruments: fiddle, banjo, melodeon, guitar, recorder, clarinet, viola…

If you fancy joining in, we’ll playing some jigs and reels that don’t leave you behind! Come along and join us, it’d be great to see you.

We had a great turnout for our first session of the year yesterday – there were several new instruments – and new faces to to with them!  A good mix of fiddles and guitars with viola, clarinet, mandolin, banjo, recorder and some percussion instruments this time too – which gave a nice additional dimension and helped us to keep rhythm.

We chose a couple of tunes to start which had guitar chords as well as dots – so we could all join in.  Pigtown Fling was followed by Drowsy Maggie, at least 7 times and probably getting slightly faster each time round.

Ian brought along a tune especially for the session called ‘Eighth of January’* – apparently it was written to commemorate the battle of New Orleans in 1815 (in which the British got well and truly routed) – whatever the history it was a good little tune.  If anyone can find a tune for the date of our  next session we’ll be impressed!

Back on more familiar ground we played the set ‘The Orphan’ and ‘McHughs’, and followed with the set ‘De’il among the Tailors’, Staten Island’ & ‘Mrs McLeaod’s Reel’.

Refreshed by mugs of tea and coffee and home-made cake we regrouped for ‘Britches full of Stitches’ followed by the Polka in D (which we still don’t know the real title of).

It was a good, fun session, and the tunes bounced along, even being played at a slower tempo.

We’re back to the 4th Sunday of the month for our next session:  

Sunday 22 January 2012  3pm – 5pm

then just to confuse, we’re meeting on the 3rd Sunday of February:

Sunday 19th February 2012 3pm – 5pm

* You’ll find the music for ‘Eighth of January’ at:  http://www.jaybuckey.com/pdf/Free%20Tablature/Eighth%20Of%20January%20(Fiddle,%20Mandolin).pdf

and the history behind the tune at:  http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/1306  (although the sheet music they attach isn’t the tune we played)

A reminder that it’s the next Slowfolkmusic* session on Sunday 8th January (which makes up for the one we missed in December – due to it being Christmas Day).  Not wanting to miss out on a session and knowing how eagerly folk will have been practising over the holiday period(!) – we’ve snuck one in at the beginning of January.

If you’d like to join us we’ll be at SBC (Stoke Baptist Centre), Foden Street, Stoke – 3pm – 5pm on Sunday – tea, coffee and home-made cake too!

Check out the tunes page for an idea of some of the tunes we’ll be playing.

*Having chatted to a few people over the past few weeks about Slowfolkmusic it became clear that we need to add:

“It’s the MUSIC that’s slow – not the people!”

Hello Slowfolkmusic folk

SWOCA (Stoke West & Oakhill Community Association) are organising

BEER & CAROLS – Wednesday 21st December, 8pm

The Wellington Inn, London Road, Stoke

Hot food, mulled wine, great local pub, brilliant atmosphere!

If you’d like to join-in playing the Christmas carols and songs you’d be really welcome – they’re not too fast or complicated!

We are rehearsing at SBC (the usual Slowfolkmusic venue) on

Wednesday 7th Dec 7.30 – 9.30pm

Saturday 17th December 4 – 6pm

If you’d like to join in but can’t come along to the rehearsals, let Marg know (marghardcastle@aol.com) and we can send you the music.

We had another great session this afternoon – with a good mix of instruments including fiddle, recorder, melodeon, banjo, guitar and tambourine – and the people were a great bunch too!

We started off with a very drowsy Drowsy Maggie, which should really be at 100mph but at least our version was more in keeping with the title – played through several times.

We then moved on to our familiar set: De’il at the Tailors/Staten Island/Mrs McLeod’s Reel – which we’re getting much better at – a few players picked up the easy parts for some harmonies.  

New tunes The Orphan and McHughes followed and then we chucked in Pigtown Fling straight after – we love that one!  (Someone called it the guinea-pig fling… v.funny)

By which stage mugs of tea and slabs of Chris’s home-made apple cake were much welcome.  

A favourite air Sheebag and Sheemore got us playing again and then we tried out The Foxhunters Reel (with a discussion on where the apostrophe should go – Foxhunter’s or Foxhunters’ – some good advice offered: “When in doubt, leave it out” – so I have).  It’s a good tune with five repeating sections – we all liked it.

To close our session we played  Off to California and Plains of Boyle – at which we’re getting quite good – for Slowfolkmusicians, that is.

As our next session would fall on December 25th and some, though not all, will be too full of turkey and pud to play, we’ve decided to hold our next session on 

Sunday 8th January 2012, 3-5pm

If you’d like to join us, we’d love to see you!

We had another great SlowFolkmusic session last Sunday 25th September.

A mixture of instruments again – including fiddles, recorder, guitar and a clarinet this time!

We started off with three new reels: De’il among the Tailors, Staten Island and Mrs McLeaod’s Reel – for which we also had the ‘easy parts’ and so we had some harmonies going.

The wonderfully named ‘Pigtown Fling’ was given a whirl and got a big thumbs up from all (an (Irish!) American Square Dance).

After all the concentration on new tunes we were revived by mugs of tea and cake, and then we ran through some of the regular tunes to finish off the session – even speeding up from reelly slow to reelly nearly reel speed for those who felt able!

Join us if you fancy giving Slowfolkmusic a go, at our next session:

SUNDAY 23 OCTOBER 2011 – 3PM – 4PM

at SBC (Stoke Baptist Centre), Foden Street, Stoke, Stoke-on-Trent.  ST4 4BU

We had a good turnout again for our last session on Saturday 3rd September – including several fiddles, a couple of guitars, banjo and accordian – and a few new folk joined us, which was great!

Our session was fairly relaxed and began with some random practising of various tunes – all at the same time! -until Lucy pulled us together and set us off playing ‘Henry McDermott Roe’.

We tried ‘Off to California’ followed by ‘Plains of Boyle’ as a set – reeeeeally slowly at first – then, for those who felt confident, speeded up.  It sounded really good!

A couple more tunes followed and then we ended the session with a favourite ‘Sheebeg and Sheemore’, at its correct speed – which, being an air, isn’t too fast for us.

Mugs of tea and coffee, with cake and biscuits, supplied a natural break in the middle and time to swap stories – how long have you been playing? – which sessions do you go to? – etc.

Some new tunes were handed out for us to look at next time – ‘Staten Island’ and ‘Mrs McLeod’s Reel’, and a tune we loved the title of – ‘Pigtown Fling‘ – we’ll definitely be giving that one a go!

If you’d like copies of the music, do get in touch with us.

And if you’d like to give SlowFolkmusic a go – we’d love to see you at our next session (back to the 4th Sunday this time):

Next Session:  Sunday 25th SEPTEMBER 3pm – 5pm,

at SBC (Stoke Baptist Centre), Foden Street, Stoke, Stoke-on-Trent.  ST4 4BU