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Hello!
Last week was a week on the road and of course I've got behind! So I am rolling last week and this week into one update. There has been a lot of dancing, so we have two balls and a Zoom dance!

Our fourth ball of the season was the Meryton Mob Regency Ball. A lot of fun and in a very beautiful church. Our fifth Ball of the season was the Alton Summer Regency Ball as part of the Jane Austen festival in Alton. Definitely the hottest dance of the season! So hot that Jonny had to take his jacket off. It was hard not to remember the Pride and Predjudice 1995 moment of Mr Darcy and the lake. (Watch the video and you'll see). On Tuesday we had the Symmetry Zoom Dance.

I added St Albans Assembly on the flute. I also added The Willows on the Scottish Smallpipes. A New Rigadoon on the fiddleharpa (but you'll find it in the Henry Purcell part of the site) and finally Gavotte No. 1 on the moraharpa. I have also added a duo version of Emily's Waltz by Jonny.

There are so many videos for me to upload and process! Maybe I'll catch up once we get to July!
Stay safe!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
It seems like summer is here at last and I chose the hottest day to hide in my little recording room and film. I sweated buckets! I had hoped to get a bunch of videos done for all the instruments, but I only managed to get nyckelharpa, Scottish Smallpipes and flute in this sitting. I'll try for the others tomorrow!

We had our third ball of the season last weekend and now you can watch the St Albans Regency Ball at your leisure. As usual you don't get to see the dancers - but as it gets dark you can see them reflected in the window! Another ball this week!

What else did I add?
On the Scottish Smallpipes we have the intense Odd Socks. It's one of our older tunes that I hadn't played in years, but I am determined to preserve every tune we've ever written and it means going back to the start!
On the flute we have The Anniversary. We're doing so much music for all the balls that it makes sense to work my way through those, especially on the flute!
One the nyckelharpa we have my waltz Viggo's Vaggvisa.
More next week!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
I can't believe that it's June already and I have another late entry! I went straight from three days down at Halsway Manor for the Playford Assembly then straight to two days in a London studio recording for a games sound track (I'm not allowed to talk about it as I'm under NDA, however others can.) Then I went straight to Symmetry and then more remote recording for sound tracks - it's been quite full on. Since then it was also medieval and another ball. I mentioned this bulging folder of videos to upload. I wanted to upload them so I had an even spread of things but I think it's time to do a bulk upload and try to clear the backlog! Some of these videos I will be setting up as premieres so I can upload them, schedule them and then let them trickle onto YouTube.

We had a Symmetry dance this week and I have finally managed to get this edited and uploaded. There were two tunes from the Playford Dancing Master of 1651. So I also exported those two as stand alone videos and added them to the lesson pages. In the back of my head I think it would be nice to have duo videos for all 105 tunes. But that might take a while! You never know! (I'm not going to go and count how many we have done right now as I need to send this!) So check out Half Hannekin and Nonsuch. I also did the same with Millison's Jig from a couple of weeks ago.

I'm trying to get all of our tunes uploaded and saved for posterity and I'm still working through the waltzes! So this week we have a new duo version of One for Diana and Carrock Fell.

We also have the lesson for Lollicowlero, it's a change tune challenge.

Sometimes an old gem of a video unearths. My sister found a video of me playing a double bass concerto back in 1996, so here it is for you to enjoy - Dragonetti.

That's all for now! More on Friday!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
It's been a week of recording for various remote recording sessions. I'm in the middle of three different projects and I like to get these turned around as fast as possible. So what have I been up to this week?

I managed to complete the video from our Second Ball of the season. So I can now present to you The Bridge Town Masquerade Ball. The music pad includes what I played for the Beyoncé track, so have fun with that! It's not everything from the evening (this is usually because either I forget to hit record on the camera or Jonny forgets to hit record on the desk). We're at Halsway this weekend, so I may get some more videos!

I created a mosaic for the Dance Department of Sidmouth Folk Festival. I chose the Female Saylor as the tune. The original lesson I made for this tune is here. Great tune!

I've added a duo video of Rosey Jones, the musical dots have articulations and grace notes.
I've also added King of the Giants to the site.
On the Fiddleharpa I've added the Zen scale of F major one octave.

I have a big folder full of videos that I need to upload! So I will try to get that done over the next week. Once these are all added I'll get the camera out again! I especially want to film some moraharpa and some new flute tunes!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
It's been hectic! So as usual I'm late! We had a five event week last week and I've been editing ball videos! We had a lovely Symmetry dance this week too.

So we have a watch again video for the dance we did on the 10th May in Corsham. Lots of fun! We have the video for the last Symmetry dance.

On the nyckelharpa we have Rhenländer efter Per Munkbergh
On the fiddleharpa we have Menuet by Bach. The famous first half of it anyway!
On the Scottish Smallpipes we have the tune Mill Mill O, which is part of the tutor chapter 4. There is also a version with grace notes. So you could also revisit that one too.
On the flute we have The Purshorts.
For dance we have been really busy putting together a section on the website of reference tracks. These are specifically for the Regency dances that we have this year. I'm not sure I can keep up with all the dances we have. But I'll try!

We're at Halsway over the weekend - so chances are I'll be late on my next update too! I'll try not to be too late! Stuff is always being added even if I'm late posting about it! With that in mind - we have our next Symmetry dance on the 3rd June. Hope to see you there!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
I finally finished the Global Byss-Calle tune for World Nyckelharpa Day. It was quite an epic editing session! 156 nyckelharpa players made the final video from 20 countries and it is amazing! I'm not sure we'll be able to top that next year, but we can certainly try. So get Sunday 26th April 2026 in your diary!

So what's new? The Global tune and live dance at the weekend took a lot of time up, but I did add some new things!

In Dance - I added a new section to the dance section. A page of 1x through a tune reference track. I've made an index and then added the tunes for the dance on the 10th May. (We filmed that dance, so it'll go up as a video with music to play along with in the next couple of weeks once it's edited). I'll be adding to this section this year to build up a resource. For now the video links are all unlisted - but I might make them public.

I added The Scullery Marinade on the nyckelharpa and also moved the Session 3: World Nyckelharpa Day 2021 onto its own page. So have a wander over and play along with that session too!
I added Lavenders Blue on the Fiddleharpa. On the flute we've been filming tracks for callers so we have a new video for Auretti's Dutch Skipper and also Jaques Ramble, both from Kitty Bridges 1745. On the Scottish Smallpipes I've added The Golden Birch to chapter 4 of the tutor.

More next week!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
What a day World Nyckelharpa Day was last week! An incredible 12 hours in Zoom culminating in our little concert. Quite a lot of the Zoom was streamed into YouTube - so you can catch up on it and the complete Playlist. We had over 70 people in the Zoom at the peak from all over the globe! I am now busy editing the global tune and it promises to be epic! I'm holding pout for the final couple of videos to come in and they're definitely worth waiting for. So hopefully by the next update I'll be able to announce it!

So what did I add to the site this week?
A new Catch Club is live: Upon Christchurch Bells. I made this one danceable! So it's played through seven times through! Enjoy!
Before the madness happened that was World Nyckelharpa Day we had a Zoom dance in Symmetry. This video is up and ready for watching! It took a few more days than normal to edit as I was busy with other videos first!
This week we have NH - Snufkin's Waltz written by Jonathon. It's a really pretty little waltz.
We also have Grendel's Polska, this tune was used in a Ted-Ed recently. I've added that to the lesson so you can see it in action!
I've also added Tyrfing's Polska on the nyckelharpa!
I need to send this message out now before we go into Symmetry, so that's all for now. I'll focus on all the other instruments next week!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
It's World Nyckelharpa Day Week! I've spent the week working on videos, schedules and generally getting ready for Sunday! As always I have a prepared a feast of videos that get scattered throughout the day in the playlist. We've had a lovely lot of videos sent in - but here's a list of mine in order. The times are for the premieres on Sunday 27th April. They are all nyckelharpa related, but some of them are a little off the wall. I recommend headphones for the Zen Warmup and the ASMR videos!

My YouTube Schedule looks like this:
09:00: Nyckelharpa News Network
09:15: Nyckelharpa Zen Warmup
11:30: Unboxing: Larica Gold II Rosin – ASMR
11:45: Start of the Global Byss-Calle Lille videostream (Back-up Stream!) ⬅︎ Send in your video!!!
14:14: Vicki & Jonny's Session for WND
15:00: Byss-Calle No. 6 – Brostugan
16:15: Catch Club: This Macedon Youth
18:00: Nyckelharpa ASMR
20:00: Ending Concert by us

It's time! Here's the Zoom schedule for Sunday!
09:00 - Tokyo Scandi Session
11:45 - Prepare for the Global Tune
12:00 - The Global Tune Happens!
12:05 - Vicki does a couple of tunes from the Halsway Top 40=
12:20 - Meet Holger Funke and some of his amazing nyckelharpa collection
13:00 - Esbjörn Hogmark live from the Eric Sahlström Institute Builders Weekend
14:00 - Leif Alpsjö Tune Workshop
14:45 - Regina Kunkel Tune Workshop
15:30 - Anders, Sofia and Olov Live from Källunge in Gotland
16:30 - Esbjörn Hogmark live from his own Workshop
18:00 - The American Nyckelharpa Zoom Jam led by Sheila Morris, Lesley Foley, Martine Chiasson and Amy Hakanson
20:00 - Vicki & Jonny do the closing concert

I have added lessons for Well Hall and the Parsnip Grater these are one of the tunes in our session above. (I haven't managed to film all the lessons for the session - but they'll come over time)

That's all for now! Things will be back to normal next week!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
I finally got all the videos from Lewes and Halsway edited, so the resources pages are now updated and the lessons will trickle through into these updates as the weeks pass. We had a great weekend playing for dance up in Cumbria at the weekend, it's now back home and ready to start recording the albums we've been trying record for years!!
I did some more updating of the What I've Taught at Halsway page. I've gone back to 2018 so far.
In preparing for the World Nyckelharpa Day session I did some tidying up and added a lesson page for the original Lockdown Session 5. If you didn't play along in 2020 here's the chance to give it a go! I'll try to remember to feature more of these! I can't believe it was 5 years ago that we did this series!

I've tried to finish all the lessons for the workshops over the past few weeks and then it's been a lot of World Nyckelharpa Day preparation.

Firstly - we have our next Symmetry dance on the 22nd April - hope to see you there!

So what have I added this week? For the nyckelharpa we have the great tune by Byss-Calle: No.6 aka Brostugan. I did a version of this which will premiere on World Nyckelharpa Day itself too. On the Scottish Smallpipes we have Stornaway Castle. On the flute I've added Kentish Cricketters.

That's all for now - more soon. Next Friday will pretty much be 100% World Nyckelharpa Day Links!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
It's been a week of frantic filming to try to get everything that I taught at Halsway filmed, edited and uploaded. We also had some request tunes to record for callers and the Casterton Dance weekend to prepare for! So what is new?

From a comment on one of my flute shorts I discovered that two of the play-along videos had an fps error in them - in plain speak. I had managed to export them wrongly so that they sounded a semi-tone lower. I've now fixed this and as a result the play-along videos for the Symmetry Dances from the 20th February 2024 and the 19th March 2024 are now actually play-along-able! I've checked all the other Symmetry videos to make sure they didn't have the same issue! We also had Symmetry this week so that video is up and ready to watch / play-along with. I've had a bit of a today up in the Dance section and added a new Dance Resource Course. I've added a new collection there - Kitty Bridges 1745. We've been asked to record six of these tunes. So I thought about in the end completing all 21. So as a start here is the first of them: Auretti's Dutch Skipper on the flute.

I've also added an update to the Sailor's Hornpipe in the flute course, adding the dots and a video for it being played in D. (This is the tune that led me to fixing the key of the Symmetry videos!)

Having come back from Halsway I'm working my way through the tunes I taught there. So Femtiöringen now has the C string lesson added to it and I filmed and added the Maypole Gånglåt by my other tutor David. The more difficult tunes will follow in the next week or two.

On the Scottish smallpipes this week we have The Southwind. A pretty waltz. Enjoy!
More next week!
:))
Vicki