After five years of publishing all my materials to this blog I have decided that it's time to start to put up some sort of paywall. I really want as many people as possible to be able to learn and gain information but I also need to be able to eat. So I am gradually transferring all the materials from here to a brand new website. There is a lot of music here, so it is going to take time!
Some of the materials will be available for preview - but for the full experience there is now a (very reasonable) monthly subscription of £5 (or £10 if you can afford it). So it's time to visit my new site - bookmark it and join up!
Keep in touch and stay on the nyckelharpa journey with me!
Hello! We're playing for Alcester Virtual Contra on Friday 5th February. So if you'd like to come and play-along here's the tune list for the evening! As usual we can't be 100% sure what order we're going to play these in or if we'll do all of them. We know it won't be everything! There is one tune that is put against two dances - we know we'll only do one of the dances and they're different lengths - so we'll let you know what is what as we go through!!
Hello! It's exercise week this week. This is an exercise and a tune, so lots to get your teeth into.
The exercise is a string crossing one, not too tricky,
I've put several videos below. One is the whole lesson, then I've split the tune out so you can play along with both parts, then play the accompaniment against my melody and then the melody against my accompaniment! Here's an example of the bowings you can use:
Hello! Happy New Year! It's 2021 and we're still all here. England has just gone into a new lockdown, so it's time to shake things up on the blog and get back to work! Just before Christmas Jonny was commissioned to write a piece of music for a Swedish Lapphund and this is that tune. The remit was to write a Swedish tune, but we wanted it playable on the Northumbrian Smallpipes. So here it is, it's a slängpolska and playable on the NSPs.
Enjoy!
:))
Vicki
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Hello! We've had an amazing December - given the circumstances! We've been on Zoom tour and last night was the last of three different shows that we put on in Zoom. This was our Carol Concert
To buy access to the Carol Concert here: CLICK HERE
We released the dots and the words so you can sing or play-along with us.
Hello! It's session time again! I've had a little time away from filming as I've been working very hard on the Praetorius Crowdfunder album. I'll do some blogs for that later, this blog entry is all about the Sunday session! This session is quite special as you'll see and I hope you enjoy it!
The version below uses just one camera - so if you find the two camera version above a little too much - you can choose to watch the version with a camera just facing myself and Jonny.
Hello!
We're playing for a dance! It's a familiar phrase now - it's supposed to be the Tenterden Folk Festival at the weekend and of course it's been cancelled due to Covid-19. So we offered to do a Zoom ceilidh. tune it's Zoom that means you don't have to dance - you can play along. So here is a sneak preview of the dance list and PDF so that you can download it, print it and join in with us! It doesn't include what the actual dances are though, they can be a surprise - although some of the dances have eponymous tunes. Below is the list to the links of the teaching videos. I haven't taught them all - so I should get round to doing those!
If you want to come to the Zoom dance you'll need to register and I will send you the details. It's free (donations welcome) -> CLICK HERE to REGISTER.
On Friday 18th September we're having an online Zoom session to try to make up a little for not being at Halsway Manor itself. (This year the weekend was a weekend later). It's free to come into the session, but you'll need to register yourself and then I can send you the Zoom meeting details!
The tunes are being led by some stalwart Halsway people and the tunes will be pulled form this pdf.
Welcome to this week's session! This is a very special session as you'll discover when you watch it. This is the session that Jonny was too busy working elsewhere to be able to get to in time! So we have a motley crew this week! The tune list is all tunes that you can play on the Swedish säckpipa. (Don't worry, I'm still leading on nyckelharpa!) Some of the teaching videos are currently säckpipa lessons, but I will replace these in the next week!
As we've said before, these sessions take a lot of time to put together and we definitely enjoy doing them. But I am up against a pretty hard deadline with the Virtual Halsway - so there may not be any sessions between now and then as I put together that weekend.
This leads me on to two little adverts!
The Virtual Halsway Weekend. I should have been at Halsway Manor on the 18th and 19th September with many other nyckelharpa players. As we can't do this I'm running some online workshops and session. You'll find all the information on my actual website - Click here! But we have Peter Hedlund, Leif Alpsj¨ø and Thor Pleijel doing some Zoom workshops. I am giving a nyckelharpa focussed Zoom concert in the evening. So check out the website and get yourself booked on!!
My second advert is for a Crowdfunding project I'm doing - an album of Dances from Terpsichore by Praetorius on nyckelharpa quintet. As of today I'm at 50% funded with three weeks to go. Check it out!
Hello I've just finished giving my workshop online in Zoom for Whitby Folk Week and we decided to make a video with as many participants playing along to this video as possible! If you've done a play-a-long for me before you'll know the drill! If not.... If you'd like the dots - CLICK HERE!
Update: I edited until midnight on the Thursday and got the video in! Thank you to everyone who came to the workshop and who sent me in videos!
Hello! This week we should have been at Whitby Folk Week. As with everything else it's been cancelled and put online. Which means that we can do a very cool thing this Wednesday. We were supposed to be playing for the Playford Ball on Wednesday with Purcell's Polyphonic Party. The closest we can get instead is for me and Jonny to play for the Ball in Zoom and this means that you can come along no matter where in the world you are! It takes place at 8-9pm UK time. on Wednesday 26th August. The ball is free but you do need to register to get a login. - REGISTER HERE! Donations to the festival are appreciated (and also to the artists, ie us)
So exclusively on this blog I am releasing the probable dance list and a tune pad so that you can play along if you want! It's totally live with a caller - no pre-record! So anything could happen!
So the dance list? Keep in mind that this might change and might not be the order and there might be technical hitches! (You never can tell!)
The session on the 23rd August is another Swedish tunes session. These are all great tunes that are played in many Scandi sessions in the UK. So here is the list and the lessons so you can get ready for the session next week! They're all my favourite tunes (as always!)
Hello! Since 2012 I have been gradually building up my nyckelharpa course at Halsway Manor. We get on average 45 nyckelharpa players gathering together at the large weekend in September. The courses have been growing and in 2019 I ran a beginners course, an advanced course and the festival weekend. This year everything has been cancelled. So I decided to take inspiration from the World Nyckelharpa Day and run something online at the weekend that we were supposed to be there. Click here to see the details of the day!
The first part of this jigsaw puzzle is The Halsway Parade. Each year we parade around the garden playing this tune. So I'd like two things - one is that people play this tune for real at 2pm UK time. The second is that I would very much like to edit together a large mosaic of as many nyckelharpa players around the world playing this tune as possible!
Below are the things that you will need:
The lesson teaching the tune
A full quartet of me playing the tune
The guide track for you to play along to and film yourself
The instructions:
Film yourself playing along to the guide track. You must wear headphones so I can edit the video into one big ensemble.
Email me your video using Wetransfer.com (or similar) to info [a] worldnyckelharpaday.com (change the [a] for @!
Then I will release the video around the weekend of the 19th September!
This week we have another Playable and Danceable session of Playford dances. So grab your partners and your instruments! This session will be Premiered at 2pm on Sunday 16th August. We love all these tunes and also playing for the dances too. We're really looking forward to the day when we can finally get back out in the field and play them for real!
We are doing a virtual Playford Ball for Whitby Folk Week. We were supposed to be up at Whitby next week playing concerts, sessions and also the Playford Ball. If you'd like to come along to that in Zoom, pop over to their FaceBook page for details!
In the meantime - here is the dance list for Sunday 16th August.
Hello!
A good few years ago I put together a tune book and I thought I would teach a tune from there. So instead of the dots being on the website this time I'm encouraging people to buy the book! It's very reasonably priced and I am filming and putting up tunes by request from the book!
So far I have done Skomakaren and Linnéavalsen. This third tune has been requested and it's Piparens Polska - the Pipers Polska
So you can play along with which ever version you like! I have already filmed a second tune from the book and if you enjoy this - then you can put in a request for more videos!
This week it's another week of British tunes and we also get a sneaky peek into the freshly renovated Marden Room. For a lot of people that have been to Halsway this room is totally unrecognisable and we are very excited to be able to deliver this session from there and even more excited when we get to go back and actually run a workshop in it!!!
Back to the session though, these are some of my favourite tunes. So enjoy!
This Sunday's session is Swedish and these are tunes you'll find at many Scandi sessions around the UK.
The video will be premiered on Sunday 2nd August at 2pm UK time. It'll stay up forever after that, so don't worry if you can't come along at the time. Join us at your leisure! The tune list is below and each link goes to a lesson for that tune. Enjoy!
We met our target for the next two sessions. So the coffees are going to release the next pair. Here is the tune and lesson list for the session.
Back in May we premiered the first Halsway Manor Virtual Bar Session and we asked for people to send in their videos of them playing along. I am really happy to be able to present the first session with a full bar! Thank you to everyone who sent in their videos!!
If you'd like to send in your videos for the Second session I'll start to compile this!
In the mean time enjoy this full bar session one! If you want to play along you'll find lessons and dots in
