Cummersdale Folk Session

It was the Cummersdale Folk Session last night, a slow start due to the lack of instrumentalists, but it livened up later on with nice sets played on the whistle. I played more concertina this week, some tunes with the other players: Jimmy Allan, Salmon Tails, Saddle the Pony, Miss Thompsons Hornpipe, Bollavogue, Boys of the Blue Hill, the tune to Captain Pugwash! But I mainly played the bodhran which I am enjoying a lot.

Instruments present were: guitar, whistles, wooden flute, banjo, metal flute, 2 English concertinas, and bodhran.

I am practicing other tunes: the Hawk, Minstrels Fancy, Random, Sheffield Hornpipe, Humours of Tulleycrine, Redesdale Hornpipe, Whinsheilds Hornpipe, and Whinham’s Reel.

Cummersdale Folk Session and Folk Monkhill Session

Last week I visited the Cummersdale Session just outside of Carlisle. It used to be my local session, mainly an Irish session, instrumentals dominating. I had not been for a few years and an email from one of the musicians prompted me to go again. I took the concertina and bodhran which I played most of the time. I am no longer able to keep up with the tempo of Irish music; my style has developed into a slower style with more phrasing, so I play bodhran with an occassional melody on the concertina. The instruments which are there generally consist of: flute, whistles, English Concertina, fiddle, Angle Concertina, banjo, bodhran… other musicians sometimes drop in but it is generally an instrumental Irish session and singers are not so often there.

Last night it was the Monkhill Session, just outside of Carlisle. This session is a mixed session with singers and instrumentals taking equal billing. Last night some of the Cummersdale musicians came along and it was a nice mixture of song, instrumentals and a few Irish melodies thrown in too! Generally the instrumentals at Monkhill are a mixture of southern English, Northumbrian, European, and the songs are Border ballads, Scots songs, modern and older, and a few local songs about the Haaf netting fishing which is on the Solway Estuary. It is a relaxed session with no one or no music dominating. The same people go to the Bowness Session on the 2nd Sunday of the month and in both sessions new singers/instrumentalists are welcomed. I play my Northumbrian small pipes as well English concertina and it is nice to have people play along. The instruments which are there are: whistles, guitars, English Concertina, octave mandolin, occasionally a fiddle, bodhran, and Northumbrian small pipes.

Cummersdale and Monkhill (also Bowness on Solway) are small villages with only 1 pub so you can not miss them if you decide to go!
Bowness takes places on the 2nd Sunday of the month
Cummersdale is on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month
Monkhill is not always regular but generally it is the 3rd Sunday of the month…

Rothbury Folk Festival 2015

The weekend started on the Thursday before the weekend by going through to Newcastleton, getting up early morning and going to Hexham and playing Northumbrian small pipes for 3 hours in the shopping precinct. Luckily there was not much disturbance and I played ok and got some good responses… always a bit uncertain as Northumbrian pipes in Northumbrian can be a bit like teaching English to the English! Before we left Hexham I visited a music shop (also music co-operative) where I knew they held workshops, I asked about holding my “Small pipe workshop” there, I had a positive response.

Then onto Rothbury Folk Festival, we got there about 5pm set up the tent and headed off for a session in the Queens Head pub. Due to a lot of background noise I opted for the Border pipes tunes.

Saturday was a quick listen to the town pipe band, then the Andy May Trio on the village stage, then off to the piper’s competition in the hall. It was full of people and a good turnout of performers. This year there was Border pipes competition. Listening to the Northumbrian pipers beginners and intermediate performers I noticed a lack of “drone tuning” therefore the pipes sounded horrible “TUNE YOUR DRONES TO THE CHANTER”  it is basic stuff, the judges need to be more strickt about this.

After the duets we headed off to a small room above the Newcastle pub and played a few sets. It was funny really as Border pipers sat in one end of the room and the northumbrian pipers sat in the other end… they did not mix… of course they were friends, but musically there was no common ground. Different tunings (A verses F) loud and soft… except for a few tunes in G (one G border pipe and some had G Northumbrian).

Then off to the Queen’s again for an evening session. This lasted until about 01.30am for me then I wandered off back to the tent. Then a strange thing happened about an hour later I had strong car headlights on my tent, voices calling out “are you in there”. One of my fears in a car/tented campsite is that I get run over by drunken drivers. This seemed to be happening with a car nearly on top of me. I stuck my head out of the tent and there was a police car. They kindly shone a strong beam of light deliberately into my face and asked me “I had seen Andy, who wears a green arm cast?” I replied to the negative. There had been a police helicopter above wakening everyone up and I guess the infrared camera had singled me out as I walked home.

The Sunday was a good small session in the Queen’s lots of varied music and a mixture of styles and instruments and song, I played Northumbrian small pipes more here due to the lack of background noise.
An excellent weekend.

Bowness on Solway Folk Session

A nice evening last night, at the pub session in Bowness on Solway, a reduced crowd due to holidays I guess, but a nice mixture of songs and melodies between the 3 of us.

The young girl who played violin and who also sang border ballads was very good. A guitarist sang songs about Haaf netting and accompanied each of us. I left the pipes at home due to work on the boat, and took my English concertina and played some melodies from Mallorca, Ireland and Northumbria.

There was an audience too that clapped after every tune or song… something which is unusual for us!! A nice session. It starts about 8pm, Sunday evening 2nd Sunday of the month.

Newcastleton Folk Festival 2015 (review)

I had a different, and in many ways a better festival this year. I did not attend the sessions like I normally do. I found last year a bit frustrating with all the noise (drunks not music) and a lack of places to play (for quieter instruments) all added to me walking aimlessly around. This year was different the organizers had added new venues to the places to play, one was a “quiet room” not in the main square (away from the pubs) but where you could have a tune. Also there were fewer drunks there this year and possibly less musicians (?) so I could find places to play.

I found the marquee empty on a Saturday morning so I played my Northumbrian small pipes, I played and played and slowly people began to sit down, after 2 hours of playing the tent was getting full, a few more musicians arrived and added more… then I left, found another piper and played on the grass (Border pipes and Scottish small pipes) and spoke to some people about the festival, piping and things in general. I met with a Northumbrian piper and had a few tunes together.

The after-hours sessions were great, songs and music, which went on until the early hours (got to bed 3am both nights) and on the Sunday night the “survivors session” we finally got out at 5.30am... and excellent sessions (I even sang while playing the pipes… a rare occasion).

The workshop went well, 10am to 12.30pm was useful to the students and myself (I even got a hug off one of them) what was apparent was the lack of contact the individual pipers had (isolation) and no advice or after care help; something they found the workshop was useful for. After the workshop we chatted and played until about 4pm!

I learn a lot too about my pipes and the adjustments I need to make, but the comments about the pipes were good and positive. I will make some mouth blown pipes too incase they will be needed. I will look for more festivals in the future and other venues to attract the students.

Bagpipe Society Blowout, 2015

It was my first time at the ‘blowout’ (Polesworth, Tamworth, England) in a beautiful surrounding of the Abbey. Each piping culture has its traditions and this was a new tradition for me. Here there was a different style and feeling about the music, pipes, people and events, perhaps a more European style or perhaps an ‘English” style. I say English as it is a reinvention of a tradition that died out. And the reintroduction of the tradition has established a very firm and loyal group of people to their type of music.

I was expecting a heavy influence of French music, but I was surprised to see a good mix of styles in the form of workshops and concerts: Northumbrian/Borders; Occitan from the French Pyrenees; Hungarian; Irish; Welsh... these music’s were played on a type of bagpipe that I have a problem in naming.

They call it a “Border pipe” but I cannot see where their border is exactly? The majority played a type of pipe similar to the French/Belgium bagpipe: mouth blown or bellows blown, conical bored chanter, 2 drones, over-blown into a 2nd octave. Not so loud, plastic reeds, no African Blackwood in sight (made a nice change too) therefore the sound was mellow, perhaps they could call it a “French-Anglo Pipe” as the makers are English and the pipe is modeled on the French/Belgium style.

The makers present (selling their pipes) were in the main hall alongside a Society stall, a flute maker, an Occitan maker. Zampogna maker. There was a 2nd hand section of music books, CDs, cassettes...

One of the workshops I attended was a ‘beginner’s workshop’ to sort out teething problems players were having. This was very informative as it gave me a chance to see how the workshop was structured (with relation to my own workshop); I was also looking for some advice about my Spanish gaita as it was sharp in the bottom notes.  It came apparent that the information was only for a select type of pipes from a select few pipe makers. A general knowledge was not there of conical bored pipes.  The Society was open to all pipes but in reality (at this blowout in particular) only certain types of pipes were represented. Sometimes it felt like if you did not have a bagpipe from a certain type of maker then you were excluded from activities and advice, there was no advice about the Gaita. Also it presumed that because I had “asked the question” that I did not know anything about pipes or conical bored pipes, and I was told to go and "ask (someone) and you will find that the pipes are fine" (meaning “it is you who is wrong” well it seems I know as much as the person who is giving the advice, as he did not know either, a little condescending I thought).

The only sessions available were in D or G, G being the more popular of the 2. G pipes are common in French music, a large bass G. Which is fine, they sounded beautiful. But there are other pipes and I would have liked to have seen a session where any type of pipe could have been played... a few people had brought their sackpipa (key on A minor), , Spanish gaita (C),  , I had with me bagpipes in A minor, C, A major, D, F, and C minor... but no G. I did attend the Irish workshop which was in D, but others I could not. This did not lesson my interest. Other pipes present were a Welsh Pibgorn (D), Leistershire Small pipe (D), Italian Zampogna and there was a Dudy from the Czech/Slovak regions.

The D session on the Saturday was titled “English Session” this apparently is a new occurrence as only English melodies are played (I did not know this at the time and I played a Catalan melody which was met with a silence). After I realized my “mistake” I tried to play along with the English melodies, which there was a lot of. This was the biggest surprise of the weekend, a firm selection of English tunes were being played by all. The Northumbrian tunes came at the end of the night when they had played out all the English tunes. This is great as it establishes a firm melody base of for an English tradition, and leaves the Northumbrian tradition a little apart (which I feel is more accurate as it is more akin to the Scottish/English Border tradition).


Another surprise for me was the Occitan music and bagpipes. 2 makers from the French side of the Pyrenees were offering their instruments for sale, CDs, workshops and concerts. It was a music I only knew a little about (and only recently). They seemed to have a cross-over from the Catalan and Aragon side of the Pyrenees with the Sac de Gemecs (made from a fruit wood, a type of apple) and the Gaita de Boto (complete with snakeskin and girls dress). But also they had their own type of pipes a very large bagpipe in F with a large drone with a knitted “flecco” (decoration). A shepherd’s bagpipe without a drone, deep sound, sad sound, lovely (I had heard this on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees). And the Boha bagpipe with the drone apart of the chanter which can play 2 notes... (Therefore is it really a drone?). Also there was a variant of this having 2 melody pipes and 1 ‘drone’ built into the chanter, single reeds, polyphonic sound.

In the sessions I heard the Welsh Pibgorn, a dingle reeded instrument, 1 octave mouth blown with a distinctive sound, a beautiful decorated horn cut away at the bottom of the chanter, with cylindrical bored chanter.  Their melodies were not dissimilar to a Breton tune, in a minor mode.

The Hungarian duo (pipes and hurdy gurdy) were fantastic players, (I had seen them at the Piping Live Festival in Glasgow a few years previous) tight in their music and ‘tuning’ (an important lesson for us all). Played beautifully with traditional and composed pieces, improvisations and structured parts. The pipes were not so dissimilar to the Occitan Boha. With the Hungarian ’suggesting’ that the Boha was taken from their pipes. They look similar... but who’s came first is a question too far...

My final observation of the weekend was that there is a danger of the “small pipes” becoming obsolete in time due to their quiet nature. Those who had them were drowned out by the conical chanters. This is a reflection of what is happening in sessions too all over the country. If you are “not heard”, why play them? The highland pipe makers are increasing the volume of the “session small pipes” but not so with pipe makers (although there are exceptions). Perhaps the small-pipes need to become more assertive, and insist the venues, meetings, and festivals are predominantly ‘small-pipe sessions’ the same way the ‘English Session’ has become?

"The Session" and organic environment

I heard many years ago, in Limerick/Ireland, that “a session is an organic environment”. It changes; it comes and goes, it grows and depletes in size, it has highs and lows, with acoustic dynamics.

I experienced that in the Monaive Festival last weekend. It is hard to pin point all the changes. But there are ‘rules’ to a session, unspoken (mostly) yet evident. These rules are sometimes broken, but generally every one learns the rules and those that don’t find a corner somewhere to play in, alone or with likeminded people, and a different type off session begins… where strangely enough, the same rules apply but under different leadership. Is there a leader in a session? I think there is a general leadership, someone might suggest a rule in the beginning of it, saying who goes next, or what rules are to be used e.g. “we will go in a clockwise rotation of performers”) or, in a instrumental session there is often someone who leads a few sets then is over taken by someone else… and so it continues.

We entered a session in a back room at Monaive, it was in progress with guitars, singers, whistles etc. it was relaxed, with breaks between songs/tunes. We sat on the outside of the circle and waited and listened, after 5 minutes there was time to understand ‘the rules’ and we started to play when there was a pause. It went down ok, then the main group started up again, and so it continued.

A short time later one of the new comers started to tune his drones half way through their set of melodies… the players/group stopped automatically, a pregnant pause occurred, the “rule had been broken”, politely they had stopped to let the newcomer do his thing even though they were into their set (politeness is a rule) but since the new comer was new to “the session” (it was his first festival) how was he to know the rule? No one had told him, no one corrected him (except me). He learned his mistake, seemed apologetic, then a new melody started (the same melody did not continue).

After a while some more people joined the session, pipers, like us. They hung around for a while, listened, learned the rules… and joined in. it was going good, the session had grown, had changed its acoustic dynamic, more original performers still had their inner circle but the newcomers had join and had harmonized.

Then a mass migration happened, a group of new musicians entered, they did not stand and listen, they did not feel what the rules were, they changed the session completely by moving chairs to the bottom of the room, physically moving people down there by persuasion (“it will be better down there for everyone”) the movement occurred while one of the performers was playing a melody, I saw him still playing while he was herded to the bottom of the room, I saw him moving down to the “inner sanctum” of the new “temple” of the newcomers, with themselves as the high priests dictating to the congregation, constructed by themselves. It was no longer an organic session, but a constructed session, a creation with a core of leaders.

The original session had now disbanded, some packed up and left others hung around, watched, talked… I left.

I had seen this happen once before in Newcastleton Folk Festival. Interestingly they played the same type of music too… their type…and you either played it their way or you did not play, there was no room for anything other than themselves. You joined in their session or you were not included.

No one said anything, about this break up, was it accepted as normal? Musicians tolerate… even when the noise levels increase by the “listeners” as more beer is poured down their throats, musicians, singers say nothing… sometimes there is a “shshshs” from a listener to the room, but a few seconds later the noise increases. It is not surprising the festivals are changing, few musicians are going, fewer musicians are camping at festivals… they are changing.

I think ‘the session’ is a microcosm of a society, whether it is in some ones house, or in a bar, or a festival it shows the humanity and the lack of humanity in people.

Newcastleton Folk Club

Newcastleton Folk Club is on every 4th Tuesday of the month, just over the Scottish Border. I have been going for a few months and enjoying it a lot. There is a nice mix of singers and instrumentalists, with a mixture of ballads, modern songs, humorous songs and the odd poem.

The musicians always have an element of piping as one of the organizers (Dave) is a small piper, and has been introducing the larger French-Anglo pipe and the Swedish Sackpipa into the mix. I play my Northumbrian and Scottish Small pipes, and this time I was joined with a fiddler and guitarist. There are a few guitarists generally to accompany songs or to perform solo. Other times there have been Irish pipes, mandolins, mandolas, and a whistle.

There is a rotation of music, so everyone gets a chance to play/sing. This week I played 3 sets on the Scottish Small pipes, the first being composed of 2 Lowland Scots tunes “Now Westlin Winds” and the “The Gallowa Hills”; the second set was made up of 3 Northumbrian tunes “Neil Gow, Chevy Chase, and Frisky”.

The next set of tunes was on the Northumbrian Small pipes, I played 2 tunes called “Bonny at Morn” and “Fairly Shot on Her”

The last set was on the Scottish Small pipes, which was accompanied by a guitarist and violin player. The tunes were “The Rowan Tree” and the “When the Battle’s O’er”, 2 Highland pipe tunes.