When I was recording the Brudmarsch efter Axel Inge after Halsway, a tune came to me. I finally got round to recording it.
Category: Chromatic nyckelharpa
More dots for tunes!
This has just arrived from Sweden – many thanks Olov Johansson of Väsen – posted on 1 October and arrived today. I had transcribed Gudda some time ago as I couldn’t wait – it’s great to see the original intention, with ornamentation indications. Lots of fun to be had! It’s available on the Väsen website.
Masonic Arms Session
We were through in Gatehouse and went to the Masonic Arms for their regular Thursday evening session. We had been once or twice before but not found anyone there – this time some great musicians turned up, singers, guitars, a bass (electric with small amp), moothie, bodhran, tea chest – great stuff with a fine mix of songs and tunes.
Edinburgh Scandi Session
An absolutely great session today, with a lovely mix of instruments. When I stopped playing to listen it sounded great
Halsway 2018
Early September means the annual Halsway nyckelharpa meeting. This year Marwyn attended as a non-participant (i.e. groupie!) and enjoyed the concert and sessions (and catching up with her Swedish). I enjoyed the workshops and wished I could have been at all of them – the guest musicians were Josefina Paulson and Torbjörn Näsbom, with Vicki Swan also teaching some fascinating stuff (as well as organising the whole thing).
One feature was the increased number of gammelharpor (old style instruments) and their relations – not from the original period, but built recently (including my kontrabasharpa). The photo of Vicki’s Moraharpa (I thought it was Scott’s – they come from the same maker!) is one of several (along with measurements) I took – now I wonder what a future project could possibly be?
Edinburgh Scandi Session – new venue
A new venue for the Edinburgh Scandi Session today – the Boda Bar, just a block away from the Victoria where we have been so far. I missed last month’s as we were in Canada so it was great to be back. Lots of tunes played (a record number!), with quite a few new ones – details will be on the Scandi Session website soonish. Here are some blurry photos – I still haven’t got sorted with setting the right camera parameters for low light with the little camera. Sorry.
No harpacam photos this time, though the nyckelharpa had a great time.
Newton Stewart and Minigaff festival 2018
We had arranged to be down in Galloway for the Newton Stewart and Minnigaff Traditional Music and Dance festival weekend this year. We hadn’t been before so I had looked at the website in advance to see where sessions would be, and what concerts might be interesting.
Midsommar Session!
What I did at Halsway …
Well, there were lots of things – one great bit of the teaching involved playing movements from Jonny Dyer‘s new nyckelharpa suite. I wanted to have a go at recording some of it – and as it’s a trio it needs multi-track overdubs again.
I had a first go yesterday using the setup with the Raspberry Pi I have described before. However there were definitely problems. First, I have still not mastered playing a second time along whilst listening on the headphones to the previous track, and trying to keep exactly in time; the precision was definitely poor! Secondly, I wondered about some clicking and popping in later tracks. I sent the result to Vicki who gave me some advice and analysis. Then I had an idea …
Last year Marwyn got a new laptop which meant that her old Mac Mini was retired. Apple have stopped supporting the Mac Mini anyway, I could no longer update the operating system. However it still works – and it has a fan that’s pretty quiet. I installed Audacity on it and decided to give it a go today.
Here’s the result:
I made a lot of takes of each part to give the Mac a lot of work – 7 for part 1, 4 for part 2 and 3 for part 3. Basically I kept going until I had a take with hardly any fluffs that I could use in its entirity.
Halsway nyckelharpa course – June 2018
Yesterday I got back from a wonderful course at Halsway taught by Vicki Swan. It was a lot of hard work but fantastic fun. I have lots of playing improvements to work on, and lots of new tunes to learn. This year will be remembered as the year of the scaffolding!
