Happy New Year Everyone! Welcome to 2015 the year of academia!
We’ve got lots of stuff coming up this year with an Old Time Fiddle Workshop this Sunday 4th January (tomorrow), a brand new course on Scandinavian Folk Music starting later in the month and the ever popular Sea Shanty Choir starts singing again at Chats on Thursday 22nd January.
Must be the year of academia as I’ve just realised both our first two courses are being taught by people who’re working on PhDs! Also the Sea Shanty Choir Master Pete Truin is starting to work on his book of Sea Shanties. Big congratulations to Pete and Jo Heygate for making that happen! It’s really cool. There’s more details about all this stuff below…
Old Time Fiddle Workshop – Sunday 4th January
This Sunday sees a one off Old Time Fiddle Workshop taught by Emily Schaad at the Harrison Pub, King Cross. Emily studied fiddle with old masters such as Clyde Davenport and Benton Flippen, has won many fiddling contests back home in the USA and is working towards a doctorate in music education so you know it’s going to be a well taught and fun session.
After the session Emily will be playing a gig in the Harrison Basement with support from A and E String Band. There’s a discounted price if you go to both the workshop and the gig. Come along and bring your fiddles.
http://OFFLINEZIP.wpsho/course/old-time-fiddle-workshop-gig-with-emily-schaad/
Scandinavian Folk Music Course – Starts on Thursday 22nd January
Starting on January 22nd Esbjorn Wettermark will be teaching a six week course on playing Scandinavian Music. It’s the first time that there’s been a course like this in London as far as we all know so it’s a great opportunity to come together and learn about the rich traditions of Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway.
Esbjorn has also studied music education formally in Sweden and is now working on a PhD in Ethnomusicology on “Emotional Meaning in Vietnamese Opera” so we can expect some pretty interesting reflections on folk music and music education, but the majority of the time will be spent on a very practical hands on guide to playing Scandinavian Folk Dance Music. Should be really great.
http://OFFLINEZIP.wpsho/course/swedishscandinavian-music/
Trad Academy Sea Shanty Choir – Starts Thursday 22nd January
The Sea Shanty choir have been hugely prolific with their performances in 2014 and sound amazing. I also feel there’s also now a lot more people spontaneously singing shanties with surprisingly interesting harmonies at parties and festivals across the country now which is really cool. The choir ask all new member to join at the start of term and the next session begins on Thursday 22nd January so if you want to join have a look at the details on the website and come along and join us then. Ohh and I also think they’re working on a recording soon. Exciting times!
http://OFFLINEZIP.wpsho/course/sea-shanty-choir-january-and-february/
That’s all for now, hope you all had an amazing New Years Eve and look forward to singing, dancing and playing with lots of you in 2015!
As usual more details below and on the website.
Ed
Old Time Fiddle Workshop & Gig with Emily Schaad
5:30pm – 7:30pm, Sunday 04 Jan 2015
Workshop only – £15 Workshop and gig – £20 (email us for information about concessions)
The Harrison Pub, Kings Cross
With Emily Schaad
Please email us to reserve your place
Scandinavian Music Course January 2015
Thursdays ∙ 7:00pm – 8:30pm ∙ 22 January 2015 to 26 February 2015
£10 a session or £50 for all six weeks (email us for information about concessions)
Chats Palace, Hackney
With Esbjorn Wettermark
Please email us to reserve your place
Sea Shanty Choir – January and February
Thursdays ∙ 7:30pm – 9:30pm ∙ 22 January 2015 to 19 February 2015
£25 for the five week term for new members or £6 per session for exisiting members (email us for information about concessions)
Chats Palace, Hackney
With Pete Truin
Please email us to reserve your place
Trad Academy Xmas Party Tomorrow and Scandinavian Music Course in January
Hi Everyone,
This is just to remind you all the Trad Academy Christmas party will be taking place tomorrow at Chats Palace. It’s a nice chance for everyone who’s enjoyed making music, song and dance with us over the year to come down and socialise. Of course there’ll also be plenty of singing, live music, dancing, mince pies and gold coins. Come on down! Bring yourself and song or tune and an instrument or a dance. It’d be nice to open up the floor a bit so anyone who wants to can make some music or organise a dance. There’s details below.
Also in January we’ll be piloting our Scandinavian Music Course with Esbjorn Wettermark. As well as being a highly experienced music educator Esbjorn is also an Ethnomusicologist and is currently completing his PhD so the course should be really interesting on many levels. Esbjorn learned a lot of his repertoire directly from old musicians in Sweden, but as well as Swedish music he’ll also be covering aspects of Scandinavian Traditional Music more generally and the course may also serve as an introduction to playing folk music for instrumentalists from different background. It’s going to be a really great course so don’t miss it! Please note the course now starts on Thursday 22nd January. Details below and on the website.
In other news the Harp Workshop was a great success. We even had a few harmonica players turn up (I guess expecting a blues hard workshop!) but at least one of them cut his loses, borrowed one of Steph’s harps and got involved. Thanks to Steph West for coming and leading it. Also thanks to Dave DeLarre for running his Getting out of the three chord Trick workshops again.
It’s really been an big year with so many good things happening at Festivals, Chats Palace and at the Harrison Pub too. Thanks to everyone who made it happen. Here’s to an even bigger and better 2015!
Also don’t forget to have a look at the videos page on the website. It makes me really happy to see all the places we’ve all made music together!
Look forward to seeing you all tomorrow night!
Ed
The Trad Academy Christmas Party!
8:00pm – 11:30pm, Thursday 18 Dec 2014
Free to one and all
Chats Palace, Hackney
With Everyone!
http://OFFLINEZIP.wpsho/course/the-trad-academy-chirstmas-party/
Scandinavian Music Course January 2014
Thursdays ∙ 7:00pm – 8:30pm ∙ 22 January 2015 to 26 February 2015
£10 a session or £50 for all six weeks (email us for information about concessions)
Chats Palace, Hackney
With Esbjorn Wettermark
Please email us to reserve your place
http://OFFLINEZIP.wpsho/course/swedishscandinavian-music/
Hello everyone!It feels like ages since we’ve all been down at Chats Palace singing and making music together, but the good news is the regular classes start up again tomorrow on
Thursday 11th. Once again upstairs we’ll have the
Sea Shanty Choir singing their hearts out (with bawdy numbers as well as some pretty exciting space-jazz five part harmony) and the
play folk tunes course are meeting up again for six weeks of
instrumental dance music.
The Shanty Choir have had a great summer with performances at Cock and Bull Festival, on the roof of the Queen Elizabeth Hall and busking by the Thames. Look forward to their monthly residencies starting up at Trip Space again soon. Check out some nice videos of them performing on the videos page.
The tunes course has helped to create a band in the form of the Hedgepigs. They’ve done a couple of gigs now and played a wedding on Friday (see this amazing photo). Come down tomorrow and join the course and meet people to play music with.
A big thank you to Rachel Eddy for her excellent Old Time Fiddle Workshop at the Harrison Pub last night. It was a really great session followed by a lovely gig. Hopefully we can make this a regular thing when other touring fiddle and banjo players come over.
Coming up later this month we’ve got a couple more one off workshops at the Harrison Pub on Sundays. The wonderful Steph West is offering an introduction to folk harp course with harps available for you to play on. Later that afternoon Dave DeLarr will be sharing some of his harmony skills with his getting out of the three chord trick session.
Also there’s no need to fear the Autumn blues as Chats Palace are hosting a number of barn dances and French Bals this winter. Cut a Shine return with a series of big dances (keep an eye on the website for details) and SOAS French Dance Society are hosting a Grand Bal on Friday 19th September.
As usual there’s more details below and keeping an eye on the future there’ll also be a six week course on Scandinavian Dance Music starting up in January. It’s going to be great!
Keep having fun, keep making music and look forward to seeing lots of you soon!
Ed
PS: Please do forward this message to your friends who might be interested in learning folk music and dance!
——–
Sea Shanty Choir – September and October 2014
Thursdays ∙ 7:30pm – 9:30pm ∙ 11 September 2014 to 16 October 2014
£30 for the six week term or £6 per session for exisiting members (email us for information about concessions)
Chats Palace, Hackney
With Pete Truin
http://OFFLINEZIP.wpsho/course/sea-shanty-choir-october-and-september-2014/
——
Introduction to Folk Harp
2:00pm – 4:00pm, Sunday 28 Sep 2014
£10 per person, harps provided (email us for information about concessions)
The Harrison Pub, Kings Cross
With Steph West
http://OFFLINEZIP.wpsho/course/introduction-to-folk-harp/
——
Play Folk Tunes – September and October 2014
Thursdays ∙ 7:00pm – 8:30pm ∙ 11 September 2014 to 16 October 2014
£10 a session or £50 for all six weeks (email us for information about concessions)
Chats Palace, Hackney
With Nick Hart and Ed Hicks
http://OFFLINEZIP.wpsho/course/play-folk-tunes-september-and-october-2014/
——
Getting out of the 3 chord trick – developing your harmonic accompaniment
4:30pm – 6:00pm, Sunday 28 Sep 2014
£10 for the workshop (email us for information about concessions)
The Harrison Pub, Kings Cross
With Dave Delarre
http://OFFLINEZIP.wpsho/course/getting-out-of-the-3-chord-trick-developing-your-harmonic-accompaniment/
——
Swedish/Scandinavian Music
Thursdays ∙ 7:00pm – 8:30pm ∙ 8 January 2015 to 12 February 2015
£10 a session or £50 for all six weeks (email us for information about concessions)
Chats Palace, Hackney
With Esbjorn Wettermark
http://OFFLINEZIP.wpsho/course/swedishscandinavian-music/
——
Grand Autumn Folk Ball with Duo Fisson/Martin and guests
Friday 19th September, Chats palace
Get down to Chats palace next friday for a glamourous night of French and Breton folk dancing. The dance class at 8pm will show you all the easy steps you need, then dance the night away with live music from French accordion/guitar duo Fisson/Martin, Oxford-based duo Pawsey/Wass and french pianist Valentin Barray. Get your dancing shoes and best dresses out for the summer is not over!
Tickets £10 adv/£12 door
Doors 7.30pm, dance class 8-9pm
www.soasfrenchdance.org.uk
www.facebook.com/events/341454792686955
Cut a Shine Dances
A series of monthly winter barn dances at Chats Palace. Keep an eye on the Cut a Shine Website for details.
http://www.cutashine.co.uk/
Other Gigs Coming up soon through Two for Joy Music
The Stray Birds (USA) – Sunday 14th September – Passing Clouds, Dalston.
Polly and the Billets Doux (UK) – Sunday 21st Septmber – Passing Clouds, Dalston
Furnace Mountain (Virginia, USA) – Thursday 23rd October – Passing Clouds, Dalston.
Spiro – Thursday 30th October – Passing Clouds, Dalston.
Hi Everyone,
I hope you’re all having a great summer, enjoying the beautiful weather and finding lots of time to get outside and make some music together. The Trad Academy takes a bit of a break in August and there’s no classes on this month but I wanted to write and tell you about all the stuff we’ve got going on this Autumn.
I’ve tried to put together a big program that includes things going up to January so we can all work together and spread the word about these courses and make sure everyone who wants to come along hears about them. Highlights include a new six week course on Scandinavian Music taught by Esbjorn Wettermark, A taster session on playing folk harp with Steph West (harps provided) and an Old Time Fiddle workshop taught by Rachel Eddy.
As well as all this September sees the return of the ever popular play folk tunes course. The course is a great introduction to learning music by ear and a good way to meet other musicians who’re interested in playing folk music. Come along and join in.
The Shanty choir have been gigging prolifically and are now only taking on new members at the start of each new term. They also sound amazing and are singing some new songs in rich 5-part harmony. There’s a video showing how great they sound here. Ohh and if you like rich harmony you should come to Dave DeLarre’s class on accompanying folk tunes and getting out of the three chord trick.
Talking of which I finally uploaded all the videos off my computer so there’s now a Trad Academy Video Playlist. It’s got films from Fire in the Mountain Festival, Shanty Choir gigs, the jazz course and some vintage videos of the flat footing class students. There’s definitely plans to organise another six week block of flatfooting soon. Watch this space.
That’s all for now. There’s full listings with dates below and also on the website.
Please please do forward this e-mail on and share it with friends who’re interested in playing music, singing shanties or dancing.
See you all real soon,
Ed
Full Trad Academy Listings
Sea Shanty Choir – September and October 2014
Thursdays ∙ 7:30pm – 9:30pm ∙ 11 September 2014 to 16 October 2014
£30 for the six week term or £6 per session for exisiting members (email us for information about concessions)
Chats Palace, Hackney
With Pete Truin
http://OFFLINEZIP.wpsho/course/sea-shanty-choir-october-and-september-2014/
Introduction to Folk Harp – Sunday 28 Sep 2014
2:00pm – 4:00pm, Sunday 28 Sep 2014
£10 per person, harps provided (email us for information about concessions)
The Harrison Pub, Kings Cross
With Steph West
http://OFFLINEZIP.wpsho/course/introduction-to-folk-harp/
Play Folk Tunes – September and October 2014
Thursdays ∙ 7:00pm – 8:30pm ∙ 11 September 2014 to 16 October 2014
£10 a session or £50 for all six weeks (email us for information about concessions)
Chats Palace, Hackney
With Nick Hart and Ed Hicks
http://OFFLINEZIP.wpsho/course/play-folk-tunes-september-and-october-2014/
Old time fiddle with Rachel Eddy – Monday 08 Sep 2014
6:30pm – 7:30pm, Monday 08 Sep 2014
£10 (on the day), £7.50 (in advance) or £15 (combined with the evening gig). (email us for information about concessions)
The Harrison Pub, Kings Cross
With Rachel Eddy
http://OFFLINEZIP.wpsho/course/old-time-fiddle-with-rachel-eddy/
Getting out of the 3 chord trick – Sunday 28 Sep 2014
4:30pm – 6:00pm, Sunday 28 Sep 2014
£10 for the workshop (email us for information about concessions)
The Harrison Pub, Kings Cross
With Dave Delarre
http://OFFLINEZIP.wpsho/course/getting-out-of-the-3-chord-trick-developing-your-harmonic-accompaniment/
Swedish/Scandinavian Music – 8 January 2015 to 12 February 2015
Thursdays ∙ 7:00pm – 8:30pm ∙ 8 January 2015 to 12 February 2015
£10 a session or £50 for all six weeks (email us for information about concessions)
Chats Palace, Hackney
With Esbjorn Wettermark
http://OFFLINEZIP.wpsho/course/swedishscandinavian-music/
Next Thursday at Chats Palace, Homerton, the play folk tunes course starts again. This six week course is a great way to improve your musicality, learn about folk music and start to develop a repertoire of tunes you can play with other people for fun or for dances. There’s always a great crowd of people down there and a lot of the people who’ve been coming for awhile now meet up in between the classes to play through the repertoire for fun. Come down and join in!
There’s more details here…http://OFFLINEZIP.wpsho/course/playing-folk-tunes-april-and-may-2014/
The shanty choir are also going from strength to strength and now have a few performance under their belts. Their next performance is on the 11th of May back at TripSpace, Haggerston. They’ll also be joined by The Ballina Whalers and Firefly Burning who are both great bands.
There’s more details about the gig here…http://www.tripspace.co.uk/event/68/sea-shanties-and-nautical-cocktails/
And there’s more details about the choir here…http://OFFLINEZIP.wpsho/course/sea-shanty-choir-may-2014/
Ticket are on sale for the wonderful Fire in the Mountain Festival! Fire in the mountain is the best folk festival in the UK and just full of the best bands and musicians, playing on stage, playing tunes in the bar and drinking great beer surrounded by the beautiful mountains of West Wales. There’s also a whole weekend of workshops programed by the Trad Academy. There’s been English stepping, flat footing, bones playing, banjo, fiddle, gypsy jazz and even star gazing before. Who knows what treats we’ll have to offer this year.
It’s sold out last year so get your tickets now, it’s the party of the year. There’s details below…
Here’s also two great films now on the website…
http://www.fireinthemountain.co.uk/
Thanks for reading and help us spread the word by forwarding this e-mail to any of your friends who you think would like learn folk tunes, sing sea songs or come to this wonderful festival!
Cheers
Ed
Thursdays ∙ 7:00pm – 8:30pm ∙ 24 April 2014 to 29 May 2014
£10 a session or £50 for all six weeks (email us for information about concessions)
Chats Palace, Hackney
With Nick Hart and Ed Hicks
Please email us to reserve your place
Friday 30th May – 1st June June 2014
Campsite open to public noon Thursday 29th May until noon Monday 2nd June.
Cwmnewidion Isaf, Cnwch Coch, Aberystwyth, SY23 4LL
After taking a week out for half term between courses everything starts up again at Chats Palace this Thursday. Firstly there’s another edition of Pete Thomas’ “
How To Play Jazz Course” starting this Thursday. This course was really popular last time and Pete’s a great teacher. Through teaching jazz melodies by ear and breaking down seemingly complicated chord changes into their component parts, this course demystifies playing jazz in a friendly atmosphere. Particularly suited to players of folk instruments (accordions, guitars, banjos, fiddles, clarinets, mandolins, concertinas) it’s a great way to unpack the mysteries of improvisation. The course culminates with a change to come and play with the house band downstairs at Chats Palace for a room full of appreciative swing dancers.
As well as this the sea shanty choir continues to go from strength to strength and have started doing quite a few gigs. Big thank you to Joe for inviting us all to her bar in West London for their party. There’s a video of some of the singing from that night here too. It’s been uploaded to within facebook so you might have to be logged into see it, but I’m not sure how to get around that so here’s the link…
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152213141699066
Don’t forget to like the trad academy page on facebook if you haven’t already ;-).
There’s also a Cut a Shine dance coming up for St Patrick’s day as well so look out for that too.
There’s more details below, look forward to seeing you all soon,
Ed
How to Play Jazz
Thursdays ∙ 7:00pm – 8:30pm ∙ 27 February 2014 to 3 April 2014
£10 a session or £50 for all six weeks (email us for information about concessions)
Chats Palace, Hackney
Please email us to reserve your place
Sea Shanty Choir
Thursdays ∙ 7:30pm – 9:30pm ∙ 27 February 2014 to 3 April 2014
£6/session or £30 for the whole course (email us for information about concessions)
Chats Palace, Hackney
Please email us to reserve your place
Saturday, March 15, 2014 – 19:00 – Sunday, March 16, 2014 – 01:00
£5 to Reserve in Advance / £18 Banquet / £6 Dance and Music
The Russet, Hackney Downs Studios, 17 Amhurst Terrace, London E8 2BT
Happy New Year Everybody!
Welcome to 2014 and hope you all had a lovely Christmas and a brilliant new year filled with music.
I wanted to thank everyone who came down to the big Christmas Party last month at Chats Palace. It really was an incredible night with so much music, singing and dancing. We had Shanties and Bluegrass, Old-Time and English dance tunes, a Mummers Play, a huge spontaneous country dance, flat footing and mince pies galore! Thanks to everyone that came down and thanks also to everyone who came to all the classes and courses in 2013 and made it happen.
If you missed it you can now see the Diamond Guisers Mummers play on youtube via this link here…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4PEW6phZSs
The dates are now set for the jazz course in February and the tunes course and shanties start up again this Thursday at 7:00 at Chats Palace, more details below.
Look forward to seeing you all there!
Ed
Playing Folk Tunes
January 2014 Thursdays ∙ 7:00pm – 8:30pm ∙ 9 January 2014 to 13 February 2014
£10 a session or £50 for all six weeks (email us for information about concessions)
Chats Palace, Hackney
Please email us to reserve your place
Sea Shanty Choir
Thursdays ∙ 7:00pm – 9:00pm ∙ 9 January 2014 to 13 February 2014
£6/session or £30 for the whole course (email us for information about concessions)
Chats Palace, Hackney
Please email us to reserve your place
How to play Jazz
Thursdays ∙ 7:00pm – 8:30pm ∙ 27 February 2014 to 3 April 2014
£10 a session or £50 for all six weeks (email us for information about concessions)
Chats Palace, Hackney
Please email us to reserve your place
Hi Everyone,
It’s really been a great year and we’d like to thank you all for all your support and enthusiasm for playing music, singing, dancing and having a good time so we’ve organised a Christmas party this Thursday at Chats. There’s going to be mince pies, mulled cider and chocolate coins, a Mummer’s play by the Diamond Guisers, singing from the Sea Shanty Choir, jazz music, a country dance, maybe even some flatfoot dancing (!). Should be a great night and it’s completely free too so come down and join us.
At the start of this year we’d really barely done anything and now we’ve had courses on Swedish Music, more Folk Tunes Courses, Bones Playing, Flat Footing Dancing, Old time fiddle, Scottish Dancing and even a Jazz Course! Not to mention all the cool stuff at the workshop yurt at Fire in the Mountain Festival (see you all there next summer). Plus the sea shanty choir is now going out and singing all the time and sound amazing!
The other good news is Pete Thomas’s Jazz Course was a big success. Check out the “before and after” pictures below for details. From the classroom to a strangely smokey jazz jam in just six weeks!
There’s dates set for everything in January as well and they’re all written at the bottom of this e-mail.
Look forward to seeing you all on Thursday!
Ed
The How to Play Jazz Class of Autumn 2012
And at the end of the course everyone’s playing jazz in the bar!
Dates for your diaries:
Trad Academy Christmas Party!
8:00pm – 11:00pm, Thursday 05 Dec 2013
Free to one and all!
Chats Palace, Hackney
Playing Folk Tunes
Thursdays ∙ 7:00pm – 8:30pm ∙ 9 January 2014 to 13 February 2014
£10 a session or £50 for all six weeks (email us for information about concessions)
Chats Palace, Hackney
Please email us to reserve your place
Sea Shanty Choir
Thursdays ∙ 7:00pm – 9:00pm ∙ 9 January 2014 to 13 February 2014
£6/session or £30 for the whole course (email us for information about concessions)
Chats Palace, Hackney
Please email us to reserve your place
How to play Jazz
Thursdays ∙ 7:00pm – 8:30pm ∙ 27 February 2014 to 3 April 2014
£10 a session or £50 for all six weeks (email us for information about concessions)
Chats Palace, Hackney
Please email us to reserve your place
Cut a Shine Barn Dance with Sheelanagig
Saturday, December 14, 2013 – 20:00 – 02:00am
£12
Chats Palace, Hackney
http://www.cutashine.co.uk/content/east-london-hoedown-party-iii-xmas-special-sheelanagig
Hi Everyone,
Chat’s palace is definitely the place to be on Thursday nights with shanty singing in the bar, people swing dancing to a great band and if you venture into the rest of the building you can learn to do any of these things yourself. It doesn’t get any better than that. Don’t go to the party, be the party!
First of all there’s Pete Thomas’ amazing jazz course. If you play a folk instrument and have ever wanted to learn to play Jazz this is the course for you. Pete will be taking everyone from the rudiments of harmonic theory all the way to being able to improvise in every key, major or minor. What’s more it’s all ear based and you won’t have to look at a single piece of music (although there are occassionally some chord charts). It started last week, but it’s still not too late to join so come along this Thursday if you’re interested. If you e-mail me (at this address) I can even send you the hand out from last week.
Also the Shanty Choir are meeting again this week for the start of a new six week block culminating in a performance at the Trad Academy’s Big Xmas Party! There was a bit of confusion over whether there would be a sing this week and for while the website said not, but rest assured, come to Chats this Thursday 31st and there’ll be salty sea songs to be had.
Also the Guildhall are running a free workshop at Chats on Tuesday 5th November at 19:30 in collaboration with Beit Al Musica. It’s open to Instrumentalists and Musicians and there’ll be a sharing of material made in the workshop on Friday 8th November.
The first Cut a Shine Barn Dance at Chats was a big success, with brilliant dancing and wonderful pipe music from Ross and Jarlath. There’s still two more dates to go some come dancing.
Last but not least the Costumes for Nick Hart’s Mummer’s play are coming on a treat. Click here for a sneak preview or come down to Chats Palace on Thursday 5th December for the Christmas Party to see them for yourself.
That’s it for now,
See you all soon,
Ed
London’s most wanted Mummers – The Diamond Guisers
Two brand new courses starting up in the next two weeks: a course on playing jazz and a specialist three week dance course on Scottish ceilidh dancing.
Plus we’ve just set the date for our Christmas party (hooray!) so save the date and come join us on December 5th.
The Scottish Reeling course starts this Thursday (with live fiddle music) and the jazz course starts next week so come down and join us!
Dates for your diaries…
How to play Jazz:
Thursdays ∙ 7:00pm – 8:30pm ∙ 24 October 2013 to 28 November 2013.
Learn to play Jazz and swing music with Pete Thomas. With an ear based approach Pete’s going to unwrap the mysteries of jazz harmony. Open to players of all instruments, but I think it’ll have quite a folky vibe too so a great chance to work on your jazz fiddle, accordion, banjo, guitar or even “MacCann Duet Concertina” (!?!!).
Scottish Country Dancing:
Thursdays ∙ 7:00pm – 8:00pm ∙ 10 October 2013 to 24 October 2013
Scottish country dancing is fun social dancing suitable for all ages. There is some cross over with ceilidh but Scottish country dances are a little more complex in structure. They come in the form of jigs, reels and strathspeys. For the classes we’ll be focusing on the reels which are danced in sets of three or four couples and made up of a set of figures relevant to the particular reel. Reels are fast and lively dances and accompanied by upbeat Celtic music which will have you flying around the floor in no time!
Trad Academy Christmas party!
Thursday 05 Dec 2013 8:00pm – 11:00pm
Nick Hart‘s promised to put on a Mummers Play (!), the Shanty Choir are going to sing some songs and we’re hoping to get loads of tunes players down from all the courses to play some mighty music. There’ll even be a new crop of jazzers having just finished Pete Thomas’ course so hopefully we’ll get some tunes out of them too. There’s be mince pies and mumming! What more could you ask for? Save the date…
The Sea Shanty Choir
Thursdays ∙ 7:00pm – 8:30pm ∙ 12 September 2013 to 24 October 2013
The Shanty Choir continues to go from strength to strength. They performed an amazing set at the Thames Festival and absolutely smashed it! Then they all came down the Harrison and sang there too! A more hardy bunch of singers you couldn’t ask for! New members always welcome!
Playing Folk Tunes
Thursdays ∙ 7:00pm – 8:00pm ∙ 12 September 2013 to 17 October 2013 and Thursdays ∙ 7:00pm – 8:30pm ∙ 9 January 2014 to 13 February 2014
The current course still has two more sessions left and you’re welcome to come and join us to play some music if you like or if you’re keen to do all six weeks then write these dates in your diary now and join us in the new year.
