Category Archives: English folk/traditional

August 22, 2015 · 20:26

Idbury Hill

The many lives of an English hill and its tune: morris meets mediaeval meets mazurka in this varied trio of videos – topped off by a slow audio teaching file.

Idbury Hill is an Iron Age hillfort near the village of Bledington in Oxfordshire, England. The tune is a Cotswold Morris dance tune originating in the village.Charles Benfield

Charles Benfield (1841-1929), fiddler with the Bledington Morris in the second half of the nineteenth century. (Portrait by A. van Anrooy*)

 

Lester Bailey (melodeon)

 

(‘Idbury Hill, Bledington – Lester – Melodeon’ YouTube video, 2:02. Posted by Lester Bailey, 27 Sep 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibur3E4nFgg)

 

Paul Martin (Dunholmpiper) (vielle/mediaeval fiddle)

Lively version – with a belting rhythm section! Paul says he plays mostly in GDGD or GCGD (but nb this is a 5-stringed fiddle…) [Correction: Paul’s instrument is a 4-stringed medieval fidel – see his comment below.]

 

(‘Idbury Hill’ YouTube video, 2:12. Posted by Dunholmpiper, 13 Oct 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rhJsxwiYO4)

 

Anahata (melodeon)

Meet Idbury Hill the mazurka! Wonderful resetting of the tune, followed by the original morris version.

 

(‘Idbury Hill’ YouTube video, 2:56. Posted by anahatamelodeon, 14 Mar 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX–KYRn4YU)

 

Laurel Swift (fiddle)

Slow audio file for Laurel’s beginners’ fiddle class at the EDFSS Saturday Folk Music Workshops, Cecil Sharp House, London

 

 

 

Lester Bailey, Anahata, Paul Martin (as Dunholmpiper), and Laurel Swift all have websites/channels bursting at the seams with great tunes.

See also Fiddletails 8 July for details of Laurel’s forthcoming fiddle and multi-instrumental retreats.

 

* Reproduced under Creative Commons license  CC for Idbury Hill from The Traditional Tune Archive, which has fascinating notes on the history of the tune and the characters associated with it, including a lovely story about Charles Benfield and his fiddle.

 

 

 

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August 7, 2015 · 15:53

The Miller of Perth

Boldwood play mainly forgotten tunes from 18th century England, painstakingly researched and liberated from lost manuscripts and the extraordinary (to us) phenomenon of dance fans. This 3/2 hornpipe was discovered by Becky Price in an unpublished handwritten manuscript in the British Library.

 

Boldwood

Becky Price (accordion), Miranda Rutter (fiddle, viola), Matthew Coatsworth (fiddle, viola)

 

https://soundcloud.com/boldwood/02-miller-of-perth

(From Boldwood’s 2012 unreleased second album Mudlarking, available on Soundcloud here.)

 

Boldwood-Dancing-Master-front-cover-300x210The dots for The Miller of Perth are published in The Boldwood Dancing Master, available from the Boldwood website – along with a brilliant new CD – and also on  Matthew Coatsworth’s fascinating website ‘English and French Music: an online manuscript’.

For more information and another great Boldwood tune, see Fiddletails post Jackson’s Shaving Brush (June 2015).

 

 

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July 3, 2015 · 12:42

Swaggering Boney

With media recently marking the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, I offer this jaunty Morris tune (for those who prefer their titles rather more pc, sometimes known as Travel By Steam.)

 

Nick Hart (MacCann duet concertina)

A brief (but beautifully-formed) in-house recording from a Saturday Workshops Ensemble class, Cecil Sharp House, London.

 

(For more on the versatile Mr Hart: http://www.nickhartmusic.co.uk)

 

Battle of Waterloo, Sunday 18 June 1815

This savage event was the last battle of the Napoleonic Wars. On that one day, some 47,000 died (not including prisoners and missing). Just three years earlier, French Neoclassical painter David had painted a portrait of Napoléon Bonaparte, of which this is a detail.

Napoleon_crop

(Jacques-Louis David: The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC)

For a fascinating real-time simulation taken from eye-witness accounts, see: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/battle-of-waterloo/11676475/The-Battle-of-Waterloo-as-it-happened-on-June-18-1815.html

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June 11, 2015 · 22:50

Jackson’s Shaving Brush

This candidate for my Best Title Ever award dates from about 1800. It’s played here in a set with Wedding Shoes.

 

Boldwood

Becky Price (accordion), Miranda Rutter (fiddle, viola), Matthew Coatsworth (fiddle, viola)

Boldwood’s core repertoire stems from forgotten tunes played back into life from obscure manuscripts dating largely from 18th century England – a wondrous musical era when, their website says, “the worlds of folk and classical music happily co-existed and inspired each other to produce rich and fascinating instrumental music”.

This recording is from the group’s 2012 unreleased second album Mudlarking, available on Soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/boldwood)

 

http://soundcloud.com/boldwood/11-jacksons-shaving-brush

 

They have a new EP out, full of wonderfully earwormy tunes; and their first CD, the dance-inducing Feet, Don’t Fail Me Now, is a real treat. For details of how to get your hands on a copy, see their website: http://www.boldwood.org

 

Boldwood-Dancing-Master-front-cover-300x210The dots for Jackson’s Shaving Brush can be found in The Boldwood Dancing Master – a musical treasure-trove of over 70 tunes available from the website. The cover photo alone taught me things I didn’t know about all those Austen balls: next time I’m in Oxford, in the Ashmolean, I’ll tear myself away from my old friends the Stradivarius guitar and Powhatan’s Mantle and the mediaeval bishops’ rings, and make the acquaintance of Dance Fan for the Year 1789!

 

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May 28, 2015 · 20:28

Whitefriar’s Hornpipe

The posts for this week and next are both crooked tunes – musical riddles that turn round and bite you in the ankle just when your ears are quite sure how the tune is going to work out.

For this week, then: two arrangements and a teaching video of the wonderfully crooked hornpipe Whitefriar’s. (Traditional English, I believe – though after last week’s research debacle, I wouldn’t lay bets…)

 

Leveret

Andy Cutting (melodeon), Rob Harbron (concertina), Sam Sweeney (fiddle)

Inspirational playing in a set with the inscrutable Purlongs.* (Mr Cutting only half visible, but happily entirely audible.)

(‘Leveret – Whitefriars & Purlongs Live in Dursley Town Hall’ YouTube video, 5:41. Posted by Sam Sweeney, 12 Jul 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwCdsI6Qrx4)

The set is on Leveret’s 2015 CD New Anything, available from their website: http://www.leveretband.com/

 

Ben Moss and Laurel Swift

‘Three fiddles, two voices, one melodeon and a pair of clogs.’

Stonking fiddle harmonies at Sidmouth Folk Week 2014. Played second in a set with Laurel’s light-and-shade waltz First False Path.*

(‘Ben Moss & Laurel Swift – Waltz Set’ YouTube video, 3:48. Posted by Laurel Swift, 12 Dec 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNSsjxrLv0M)

Ben and Laurel have a new self-titled EP out – see their website: http://www.benandlaurel.com/

 

Laurel Swift

Laurel teaching Whitefriar’s to her Monday evening West London class.

(‘Whitefriars Hornpipe’ YouTube video, 1:28. Posted by ‘ealingsessions’, 9 Apr 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqJILr5kcQM)

For a shedload of teaching videos for other great tunes, visit Laurel’s Ealing Sessions website: https://ealingsessions.wordpress.com/

 

(*Note to readers: we’ll be returning to Purlongs and First False Path in later posts – if you can resist the tempation to learn them now, that is!)

 

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