I'm leading a mandolin workshop in Glasgow in January as part of the Celtic Connections festival. Saturday 31st January 2009, 11.00am
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Lomond Foyer. It's open to anyone who has been playing for a couple of years, and lasts for an hour and a half. For more details and to book online go to the
Celtic Connections website. Or ask here.
Thought I was going to be away then, but it now looks as though I won't be. So how advanced is this Workshop, i.e. would someone like me with only 16 months playing experience be out of their depth? If not, I may well give my bus pass a whirl and join in. Eric.
Not very advanced - you'd manage it fine.
Thanks for that; I'll book a place. I wonder if any other of your class or EMGO members are coming along as well?
All the best, Eric.
I'm doing two tunes at this workshop (
John Brown's and
West Kilbride), while looking at the structure of dance tunes and ways of giving the tunes a distinctly Scottish sound. If anyone is going and would prefer to have a look at the tunes in advance, let me know.
(25-01-2009 11:28 AM)nigelgatherer Wrote: [ -> ]I'm doing two tunes at this workshop (John Brown's and West Kilbride), while looking at the structure of dance tunes and ways of giving the tunes a distinctly Scottish sound. If anyone is going and would prefer to have a look at the tunes in advance, let me know.
Yes please, Nigel. That would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks.
Eric
Many thanks, Nigel, for presenting such an excellent Workshop today, ably helped by Barbara on mandy and Ian as m/c/ and adminstrator. 35 people attended, some flying in from as far away as Norway and Toronto, and I am sure everyone there greatly enjoyed and appreciated the session.
Thanks for your comments, Eric. I wasn't expecting so many people there, and I wasn't thrilled at all the noisy distractions, but we muddled through, I thought. It's always great to meet other mandolin players...
If you think that next year the fiddlers are going to make the same level of noise in such close proximity you could always send in the SMG bodhran group beforehand to flush them out.
Apologies for dragging across a topic from the increasingly heavy thread on "Methods for Learning Tunes", but in the Workshop this morning you concentrated attention on the second bar of
West Kilbride which comprises a straight scale in A major starting on the Gsharp. Now unless I am mistaken (which I may well be!) this is the Locrian scale which seems to be the odd one out (see, for example,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locrian_mode) in comparison to the (Ionian), Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian and Aeolian modes. Most of these, I believe, featured in Irish fiddle music in the 1600's and a lass recently talked on the Fowlis on Folk radio programme on how she had transcribed some tunes into these other modes in order to create a different 'feel'. Given that the Locrian mode is generally shunned, except in jazz, is this example (here Gsharp to Gsharp in Amajor) a rarity or are there other examples?