Anna Esslemont on Passing It On
Anna Esslemont of writes:
I love teaching, and next weekend I'll be heading to in the Cotswolds where I'll be sharing my fiddle playing knowledge with a new group of unsuspecting students.
Cormac (Byrne) and I set up the folk music courses at the adult education centre five years ago, and they've been going from strength to strength ever since.
The centre is the perfect place for a weekend of music, learning and socialising. It sits in the lush hills of Broadway, far enough from civilisation for us to make music without disturbing anyone long after the official teaching sessions have finished.
I try to look at all aspects of fiddle playing with my group, and I always focus on learning by ear, which is surprisingly alien to a lot of people.
It's amazing watching people's confidence grow as they realise how easy it is to learn by ear, and how important it is within folk music.
Most traditional tunes from around the world were passed on aurally, and although there is a wide range of tune books available today, the written notes often vary greatly from the original.
While I'm fiddling away with my group, Cormac's across the courtyard taking the bodhran players through their paces.
We join up the groups on Saturday night for a big samba session (great fun and excellent rhythm and groove practise) before playing what we've learnt so far.
Then it's off to the bar for a session, where anything can and invariably does happen (!).
Last year we attempted a new course at Farncombe, one for all instruments, to teach what we do in our day to day lives as performers - how to arrange folk tunes.
We asked several other tutors to join us including and and it was a big success.
We had a 75 piece folk orchestra performing by the end of the weekend, it was truly awesome!
The Yukka Folk Weekend will be happening again at Farncombe in 2010 (Feb 26-28) and the tutors joining Cormac and myself this time will be (Kerfuffle, Demon Barber Roadshow), Matt Griffin (Allan Kelly, Niall Keegan) and Sarah Allen (Flook).
Now all I have to do is pick some interesting tunes to teach this weekend....
Any suggestions?
Comment number 1.
At 26th Sep 2009, Matt wrote:I'm sure you can come up with some good tunes without any help from me. I'd like to thank you for blogging about it, this is just the kind of thing I'd like to do. I might even be able to persuade my parents to contribute to the cost as my Christmas present this year... I've been aware that such courses happen from time to time, but now you're spurring me into actually doing something about it.
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