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Hello!
We've had a great time down in the South West for a week. I'm now doing this entry from the car as we head north to York. Jonny has written the soundtrack to the finale - including a very fine säckpipa tune that I will be releasing onto the site for International Bagpipe Day on the 10th March. So watch out for that when it comes! I've just upgraded my microphones - so expect some more comparison videos in the near future! So what's new this week?

We have two Symmetry Zoom dances this week. Sunday 18th and Tuesday 20th! The music is up for both of these. The videos will follow in due course!
In Catch Club this week we have To Our Musical Club another really appropriate tune name for Catch Club!
On the nyckelharpa we have Manx tune Winding Song.
We also have a new waltz written by Jonny, this will be in the Symmetry dance on Sunday. It's called New Ambient Waltz (because Jonny hasn't named it!)
On the flute we have the wonderful Hans Grinds Jäspodspolska aka CiG - it has a very cool and funky rhythm!
On the Swedish säckpipa we have: Marsch – Carl XII’s Marsch vid Narva.
And finally on the Scottish Smallpipes we have the Scottish Smallpipe Tutor Chapter 3 part 1.

As it was Moraharpa Day (aka Valentines Day) this week here's a moraharpa tune for you. Fotspårensmarsch. The video is from lockdown times!
More next week!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
This week we're out on the road playing in folk clubs in Cornwall and Devon. It's very, very rainy!

So what's new this week?
Catch Club on Sunday has Henry Purcell's To All Lovers of Music. It seems an appropriate catch! I do love Purcell's catches, so I've got quite a few of those in the coming weeks!
On the nyckelharpa we have part two of Kahlua with the Kahlua Reel. I think it's very groovy - the remit was supposed to be Mexican - I definitely did not manage that!
On the nyckelharpa we also have Kalevalainen Runosävelmä - difficult to say, but a nice easy tune to play, except it's in 5/4.
On the Scottish smallpipes we have Wha Wadna Fecht for Charlie.
On the Fiddleharpa we have John Ryan's - a great popular polka.
The music for the next two Zoom dances are up, but as we're on the road the keys aren't 100% checked yet! That should be done this week.
More next week!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
Sorry this update is late! This week was supposed to be a relatively calm one. But we had three last minute events get put into the diary and everything got somewhat behind! Jonny is still writing for a show at Jorvik and I'm recording for another film at the moment.
So what is new this week? I did quite a bit of editing

We had our Symmetry Dance on Tuesday. It was a nyckelharpa evening with only one fiddleharpa tune. It was fun! Go and play along! The next dance is on Sunday 18th February and the dance list is nearly ready.
Catch Club was a tune called Full Bags by Henry Purcell - it's below!
On the nyckelharpa we have The Kahlua Jig - a tune I wrote a couple of weeks back for a job and liked it enough to teach it straight away. This will be one of my tunes that comes out all year!
We also have Anglais efter Skomakaren Sjöström.
On the flute we have the awesome Røros Pols.
On fiddleharpa we have Air for Aires - more exercises involving this tune next week!
On the Scottish smallpipes we have bit more of the Scottish smallpipes Tutor Chapter 2 part 4

More next week!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
That was an amazing week at the Eric Sahlström Institute - I can't believe I've been back home four days already. To prevent this update being too long I have written up the experience I a separate blog entry. But to summarise - I took 19 students from around the world to the Eric Sahlström Institute where we had a weekend of playing! One group had Swedish workshops with the amazing Emilia Amper and the other (smaller) group did British tunes with me. It was such fun to deliver my teaching in Swedish - something I've not done before and I'd love to do it again! For more about the weekend go to the blog entry!

Whilst I was in Sweden the film Stockholm Bloodbath came out. Unfortunately I wasn't able to go and see it, so I'll have to wait for the UK release. Jonny and myself are on this sound track. We did a lot of work last July in recording for it. I've embedded it below - see if you can hear us! I played nyckelharpa, tagelharpa, bowed psaltery and double bass! This week it's been Burns Night week, so there was no time to relax, straight into ceilidhs, so this update is a day late - sorry!! So what's new this week?

Catch Club on Sunday is 'Tis Women Make Us Love, anytime from 10am. It'll stay up forever so you don't need to be up at 10am UK time.
On Tuesday we have the next Zoom dance, so come along at 7pm in Zoom. The music is up already. In case you'd like to play along to any previous dances they're all organised into lessons here. If you can't make it live on Tuesday, the video will be available by Wednesday!
On the Scottish Smallpipes we have Berwick Billy. I love 3/2 hornpipes from the North East of England.
On the Swedish Säckpipa we have Menueto efter Sven Donat.
On the nyckelharpa we have X-et, a tune from the Halsway Top 40.

I'm home for another week before hitting the road again, so it's camera time on Sunday. I have a new jig/reel to film and a couple of tunes that Jonny wrote this week and I want to capture Jonny's tunes before they get lost in the mass of music he is writing for another play for the Jorvik Viking Festival in February!
More next week!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
We're just back from an awesome weekend! I took a group of people over to the Eric Sahlström Institute for a weekend. It felt very much like taking a class abroad on a school trip! We were 10 British people (1 from Wales and 2 from Scotland), 2 German people, 1 Dutch person, 3 Americans and 6 Swedes. (That includes, me, Emilia and Magnus!)
The weather was incredible, starting off at -20 the scenery was spectacular. It finished around 2 degrees and full on melt though. The ESI is such a beautiful building to be in and pretty iconic.
The course ran officially from Friday morning until Sunday afternoon. But most of us arrived on Thursday evening and after a swift Pizza in Restaurant Tobo, it was Tobotorsdag - a concert and session with dance. This made a really great start to the weekend meeting lots of people and playing.
For the teaching the groups were split into two - those people doing Swedish with Emilia and those doing British with me. I had the smaller group and I was really happy to be able to do my teaching in Swedish - a lot of fun trying to figure out some of the technical words I've never had to use before!
We had a concert, some filming for World Nyckelharpa Day, nyckelrhythmics (using balloons as they were light to bring over from the UK!) and lots and lots of Swedish tunes. I've put a gallery below - but I didn't really take many pictures!
I look forward to doing this trip again - so it's time for me to take in an idea of how many people would follow me on another school trip and how long in the future!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
This weekend I'm on our little "school trip" to the Eric Sahlström Institute. Exciting times!! I'll report back next week!

We had a great Zoom dance on Sunday and the video edited and up!
On the nyckelharpa we have Sommarvals written by Ale Möller, it's in the Halsway Manor top 40.
For the Scottish Smallpipes I've got the SSP Tutor Chapter 2 part 3 onto the site.
This Sunday we have Fångset in Catch Club. There are quite a few different versions of Fångset on that page!
On the flute we have Polska efter Byss-Calle No. 45

It's snowy out here in Sweden! Photos next week!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
It's an exciting week coming up! I'm heading off to Sweden on Monday and will be going on up to Tobo and the Eric Sahstöm Institute for a course! Most of the students of course want to learn with Emilia Amper. But I'm looking forward to teaching some Swedish students some of my favourite British tunes. I'm going to create a video blog of the experience, so watch this space!

On the nyckelharpa this week we have a waltz by Jonny - Angarrick.
We also have Catch Club! This week at 10am on Sunday we have A Waltz Catch by Jonny Dyer.
Then later in the evening we have our Symmetry Dance. You can come along live and then play-along later if you want! The dots are already up on the website.
On the Scottish Smallpipes we have SSP Tutor Chapter 2 part 2 from the tutor book.
Playford in #shorts is rapidly coming to a close! After today we have only two left to go. I will at some point go onto the second edition - but not for a little while! This week was tunes 96-102.

It's now been officially announced that the Global Mosaic tune for World Nyckelharpa Day 2024 is going to be Brudmarsch efter Jonas Johansson. The arrangement has been done and is now out and the video is below. The melody is nice and simple so that even the most inexperienced of player should manage it. But the oktavharpa part is a little more challenging. It's going to sound epic when everything is put together!

More next week - although I will be on the road, so it might be a small update!
Enjoy
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
Happy New Year! I've been using the same way of titling these weekly updates for a while now and I've realised I need the year in the title as well so I can tell which year it's from when I search for them. So that's now added!

So what's new?
Before our concert last St Barnabas I filmed me baking a banana cake for the concert. So here it is released! Recipe and all!
I'm releasing both the lesson and the short for Kettle Drum! I love this tune and I've taught it quite a bit this autumn!
I nearby officially inaugurate Catch Club! Each Sunday at 10am I am going to release a new catch into the wild. (I won't manage to make Catch Club every week, because they are actually quite time consuming to make! - but I'll do as many as I can in batches)
This week we are starting off with Jonny's Catch No. 1. It's a lovely little catch.
On the Scottish Smallpipes we have The Curlew.
On the flute we have Polska efter Byss-Calle No. 41

Wonder what a catch is I've put a video below explaining the rules of Catch Club!
Enjoy
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
It's week 52 and the last update for this year! I hope you've all had a great Christmas. We had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas by playing for Dance last Halsway Manor. Now we're back home and trying to take some deep breaths before everything starts again in January. My trip to the Eric Sahlström Institute will soon be upon us!!

On the 1st January 2023 I decided I was going to publish a YouTube short everyday in 2023. I am now reaching the end of that run. The question is should I continue into 2024? Let me know! I finished the Christmas Shorts on the 26th and have returned to the Playford in #shorts. They will now run until the final 108th tune in the 1651 edition. Then I have some more Symmetry shorts to post up... but what should I do after that? I've posted a poll over on my Youtube Channel to find out what people think. Do let me know!

I've been away over Christmas so in completely the opposite to last week - I don't have much to update on! But we do have....

I was clearing out some old hard drives and in checking some source files against the website I found that I'd never put the video for Seth's Jolly Contra on the lesson page! So go check that out - it's really jolly!! We pair that with Hawaiian Contra. They're so jolly bright so it seems a good time to suggest having a go at those in these jolly, but dark times (if you're my side of the hemisphere anyway!) We've also got Keppell's Delight. A delightful little jig.

We have Min Lilla Lisa on säckpipa this week.
We also have a serious workout in the Scottish Smallpipe course called New Years Exercise.

I hope you all have a great New Year and see you next year! I've been busy with Catch Club this week, I hope to start that next Sunday, but more about that next week if I manage to get it all finished!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
We had our Christmas Zoom concert last night and it was a lot of fun! We filmed it and it's available on demand now, the concert was entry by donation and people can still donate to get access to the Watch Again.

I did a lot of filming over the last couple of weeks and a lot of it was Christmas based - so everything left has been put into this update as next week no-body will be wanting to play Christmas Carols! I also did a few updates. I'd like to spend more time putting up some Byss-Calle tunes, so I shall try to do that in the new year!

I did a bit of updating on Byss-Calle 32 and Byss-Calle 57 and Byss-Calle 25.
The shorts this week were all Christmas - Ding Dong Merrily on High, Nu Tändas Tusen Juleljus,
I added Byss-Calle 38 for wooden flute (no keys required!)
I added Tourdion in E minor it's in the sienaharpa course, but works superbly on the nyckelharpa whether you have an E or a C string. 😀 I have added a D-tuned video to that page.
On the fiddleharpa we have Down in Yon Forest, Jingle Bells and Nu Tändas Tusen Juleljus, The Sussex Carol, Jingle Bells, I Saw Three Ships, Silent Night and Gläns Över Sjö och Strand.
Chapter 2 of the Scottish Smallpipe Tutor is now processed and uploaded. Once I work my way through the whole tutor, I'll go back and give it a spruce up with new videos!
On the Scottish smallpipes we have Ding Dong Merrily on High, Jingle Bells and När Juldagsmorgon Glimmar

We're now on our way to Halsway Manor where we will be spending Christmas playing for dancing and celebrating! I hope that you are all well and preparations are going well for the holidays! More next week!
Happy Christmas
:))
Vicki