Saturday 16th December 2006

What's been happening in the last week or so? A quiet session on Thursday 7th in the Bear but then a great night at the Barn Dance on Friday which raised a lot of money for the Friends of Faversham Creek. The raffle offered donated prizes such as an excursion on the Waverly and a trip on a sailing barge. Lots of people turned out and everyone was up for the dances - not much encouraging needed! An anxious wait for the PA to turn up - stuck in traffic on the A2 but everything went well in the end. Thanks to Dave in the Bear for getting an extension and letting us go back there afterwards. Once the late night drinkers had gone we had a few more tunes and some great songs from Ellie and from Richard Vanstone. Rounded the evening off nicely.

Sunday saw an unexpected Irish session in the Anchor at Faversham which was quite well attended but the principal protagonists do tend to pack up and leave early. Nice to see Annie and Andy (Manion) again though.

The Wednesday Anchor is getting better but there seems to be an early shift, the main session which is relatively short and then a late shift. Good for beginners and those who just like to play.

Thursday also a good session with not a wayward bangy, thumpy, twangy or plinky thing in sight (Hoorah) . Next week is the Carol Sheets. You've been warned. Who can forget Mike's enthusiastic efforts to get the pub to sing 'While Shepherds watched their flocks' to 'Ilkley Moor bar t'hat' only to have it taken over by the pub singing the actual words to the tune instead of the Carol.

For all ex-Yew Tree session fans, there is a session on Monday 18th at the Plough and Harrow, Tilmanstone. Wednesday and Thursday sessions will continue as normal over Christmas and New Year.

In case you missed it before, I recommend everyone (well, in the UK anyway, with digital) to watch Howard Goodall's 'How Music Works' on More4. Simply Brilliant.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Wednesday 6th December 2006

Session tonight and I haven't written about last weeks yet! Well the Irish at Wingham is still going strong but no sign of Andy (we know), Rick or Jez for a long time. Jez works shifts so that's probably where he is but no news of Rick. No Slovakian fiddle player last week either - went to a concert instead. Anyway, it keeps trundling along with the stalwarts as they are known. Always entertaining - the discussions as well as the music but they only really manage enough steam for a couple of hours at most.

The weekly mixed lumpy though gets later and later. Sessions at the Bear in Faverham now run routinely from well before 9:00 to after 11:30, such is the atmosphere. No thumpy or twangy or plunky last week and the session thundered on - spurred by the need to rehearse for the Festival Band's outing. Where else could you get a barn dance with a 10 piece band and 3 callers for £5.00? Well, it is for charity. If they paid the going rate it would be outrageously expensive. Queen Elizabeth School Faversham Friday 8th December 19:30.

A jolly nice chap from PRS (Performing Right Society) popped in and stayed for the session. Noting down that everything was well out of copyright, being trad. I think the most recent tune we play is 19th Century and the earliest probably 16th century. Music Copyright is 70 years in the UK by the way.

Anchor at Wingham - Irish tonight. Mixed lumpy - Bear at Faversham tomorrow. Probably a big turn out by the Festival Band ahead of the gig on Friday. Nothing at the weekend as far as I know.

Friday, 24th November 2006

Another week. Another couple of sessions. The Wednesday Irish session at the Anchor in Wingham was nearly back to full strength but missing a few still. Another visit from Susannah, the Slovakian Irish fiddler with the hairy boots. She seemed to wonder why we always played just Irish Music in an Irish session! No real answer is there? We did point out that there were other mixed sessions and that Irish tended to be purer. Does anybody else's session tend towards a educational experience for esoteric facts? It seems that every week there is a fairly academic discussion about anything under the sun that isn't usually related to music. Is it a feature of Irish Sessions?

There will be a session (Irish) at the Anchor in Faversham on Sunday - the regular last-Sunday-of-the-month bash. Hopefully, Andybanjo will be back with us if he's well again.

Thursday's mixed lumpy was made all the more lumpy by the thumper and at one point I could have sworn that it was the Kilfenora Ceilidh Band (it's that piano) playing. That caused unbridled mirth in our corner. Gradually introducing more tunes such as Roxborough Castle and a few more Irish-y sets (not too many - just enough to make it mixed). The latest is one of those rare sets of tunes - all in the same key but with enough difference to make it interesting. The set in question is Tripping Upstairs / Father O'Flynn (or Top of the Cork Road) / Paddy Clancy's. Nice - all in D.

Thanks to John for doing a good QA job on my website (see Links), especially the tunes. Paul the banjo spotted a couple of dodgy tabs which were caused by a) the key being wrong (such as Apples in Winter in E Dorian instead of E Minor as it should be) and b) the m2g program doing something weird with E Dorian and sharpening all the G notes! Ho Hum. Must email him.