I spent some of the weekend at the Fareham and Gosport Folk Festival, where I joined the "Festival Band".
The Festival Band idea is really fun. The simple idea is this: get together with some people you've never met before, learn some tunes you've never played before, and by the end of the weekend perform them live on stage!
I have to give huge credit to Laurel Swift and Jennifer McGlone the band leaders, who taught us the tunes and arranged the performances. In the end we had a band of about nine people playing: three whistles, one mandolin, one concertina, two fiddles, a hammered dulcimer and a guitar.
Unfortunately I don't have a recording of our final performance but I hear someone took some video and plans to post it. In the meantime here is a recording of one of the tunes, Barham Down, which is a triple-time hornpipe (3/2), presumably from Kent where Barham Down is.
Hi Paul,
ReplyDeleteAs one of the nine (mandolin), it was good to read your comments and listen to your rendition of the tune. I thoroughly enjoyed the workshops, although it would have been nice to have had the opportunity to play a few tunes together as well. I have to say that the performance was made harder for me, because we were all in one line after rehearsing in a circle and I could not hear your end of the line very well. Still great fun. All the best. Chris