Hello! We've made it home from Whitby and it's time to unpack and have a few days at home! We had a great story-telling gig in Zoom last week. It is available on catch up, so get in touch if you'd like to make a donation and watch on catch up! We bought a white backdrop for that gig and I thought I'd give it a try for filming instead of the green screen. I'm not sure it worked. But it was worth a try!
Hello! It's been a really lovely 10 days at Whitby and I've made an inroad into the new Swedish tune book - but the weather has been so amazing that I've spent a lot of time walking up to Whitby Abbey and back with the drone. You can see the resulting video below.
So what's new this week? We have the Change Tune Challenge tune - Cotton Cottage on nyckelharpa. On the flute we have Skomakaren. It's been done before on this site, but this is in a key perfect for a Boehm system flute. On the Scottish Smallpipes we have Scotty's Last Munro. A really lovely majestic tune!
More next week! :)) Vicki
Posted inNyckelharpa|Comments Off on Week 44: Update from Whitby (still!)
Hello! I find myself up at Whitby again for nearly two weeks! We released the new single on Thursday and I took some footage of the debut 'performance' (it's recorded so not really a performance). I've been doing lots of filming for the official video, which I hope to have out this week. If all goes to plan the final footage will be shot tomorrow morning, but you never can tell with these things! If you want to see all the videos I've taken in one place head on over to the If These Stones Could Speak webpage on our duo site. If you're into Spotify here is a direct link. And if you'd like to download it on Bandcamp here is a link for there! Share this track far and wide as we'd like to try to get it to chart!
So what is new this week? We had a Symmetry dance on the 20th before we went up to Whitby and that is now edited and ready for playing along to or just listening. On the nyckelharpa we have Gånglåt efter Teodor Freyland. It's a great little gånglåt that I taught at Halsway this year. I've updated The Revelstoke Wedding to include a duet of me and Jonny playing it. On theMoraharpa we have Day 3 of the Moraharpa-Four-A-Day. On the Fiddleharpa we have the Zen Scale that is D major one octave. (Want to see the nyckelharpa version?) Flute and Scottish smallpipes next week! Enjoy! :)) Vicki
Posted inNyckelharpa|Comments Off on Week 43: New Single is Released!
Hello! We've been on tour this week, so I am writing this parked up just outside Sheffield whilst we wait to get into the folk club this evening! Our single release is one step closer - it's been uploaded to the inter webs and we now have a Pre-Save button for Spotify. We'd rather people bought a download - but if streaming is your bag - then Pre-Save and stream away!! It will be available everywhere and we are going to do an early release into BandCamp. (The track will show up once we've published it there). For more details visit the webpage on our duo website!
So what's new this week? We had our Symmetry dance on Tuesday evening before we headed off on tour and the video is now up and ready to watch again/playalong with. We have Catch Club this week. One Industrious Insect by Henry Purcell. It's left over from last year that got left out! So here it is now. I hope to get time soon to film all the catches from this year! On the nyckelharpa we have another tune that I taught at Halsway - Leather Lake House. We also played that in Symmetry on Tuesday. I nearly got a job playing The Sailors Hornpipe for a TV job (I didn't get the job) but I felt like doing a video anyway. So I filmed a lesson on the English Borderpipes in G and on the flute and made a quartet version. Enjoy! We have our Symmetry Zoom Dance on the 20th - maybe see you there! More from Whitby next week! :)) Vicki
Posted inNyckelharpa|Comments Off on Week 42: The Sailor’s Hornpipe!
Hello! Time got away from me again and we have another late update! I did some filming and editing and we went to be all medieval at Battle Abbey celebrating the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
This week I filmed a little zoom update for the latest version. There is a new setting Live Performance Audio and I felt that needed even more investigation - so that should come out in the next update. In the meantime here is the video I made: Zoom updated. I was asked about cleaning the nyckelharpa and I made a video explaining how I keep my nyckelharpa clean a little while ago. So I've now added it to the basics section of the Beginner Nyckelharpa course. I made public Stormyren and the Catches from the concert at Halsway Manor. (These are two YouTube links so enjoy!)
Our random news this week is that we're releasing a single! Jonny wrote this for the show at Whitby Abbey. He's written the soundtrack and was asked to write a song to close the show. This is what happened and I loved it, so within a week it was written, recorded and I started the process of uploading it for release! We're hoping it'll make it for first night - which is 24.10.24. Watch this space! In the meantime here is a sneak preview of it - a warning though, it's not a folk song. It's pure classic Rock with a bit of an Emo vibe!
More next week! :)) Vicki
Posted inNyckelharpa|Comments Off on Week 41: Countdown to Whitby – again!
Hello! It's been a week mostly at home and so I got the camera out and did some filming. This week mostly Fiddleharpa and I finally got some time to film with my new flute. (Which then developed another teething problem meaning a trip back into London - more about that in the future).
So what is new? It's Friday 4th October and that makes it Cinnamon Bun Day. So as I now do every year I share the video of me baking cinnamon buns that I made in October 2024. Yum! The Symmetry dance that we had on the 10th September is now edited and up ready for playing along with. I released to the public the video of one of the tunes we played at the Halsway Manor Tutors Concert - Vivaldi Sinfonia No. 3. Another video next week!
Hello! This marks the end of two lovely weeks at home. We've made a good start on the new Purcell's Polyphonic album and the new duo album. But it walkways was going to be a large task to do that and try to catch up on emails and record and take a visitor or two! This week I have published the Whitby Folk Week Swedish session. I taught these three tunes: • Vals efter Nämdemans Ola • Polska ur Hugo Hägerströms Notbok • Polska ur Johannes Malkus Petterssons Notbok ←this one was also taught at Halsway this month. and these all now have lessons and a play-along video complete with the dots for this session: • Whitby Folk Week Session ←and the session itself
I taught Jan's Waltz and when I went to make the lesson I saw that I'd already done it! So I uploaded the second video and then uploaded the new dots with articulations.
I am gradually moving the old Halsway Bar Sessions into the Play-along course and this week I moved Session 4 - Swedish Tunes. So there are two Play-Along videos featured this week!
We have Symmetry on Sunday - so if you want to come along just click the link on the Symmetry website and come on in at 7pm UK time!
More next week! :)) Vicki
Posted inNyckelharpa|Comments Off on Week 39 – Whitby is finally finished!
Hello! It's been a week of filming, recording and getting my inbox to a manageable size! We might have been home, but it's been a tough week! So what is new on the site this week?
I add video to the lesson for Farewell to the Astra on nyckelharpa. It's from Symmetry and it's me and Jonny playing it. I also added the Symmetry 10th September play-along video
On the Scottish smallpipes I added The Pipers Maggot, a nice little jig. On the flute we have the Swedish polska 1814. On the Moraharpa I've started to film a 4-A-Day series - Day 2 is now up. On the Nyckelharpa we have the first of the tunes I taught at Halsway Manor - there are more of these to come! It's Walnut this week and the tune I taught to the slower group and in the English tunes workshop.
Some of the items performed at the Tutors Concert at Halsway Manor are being put out publicly on the internet. It was such an incredible concert! Air on a G String has now been published - so watch and share! #SlowBach More next week as I manage to edit the footage I shot this week! Enjoy! :)) Vicki
Posted inNyckelharpa|Comments Off on Week 38 – Filming and Recording
Hello! Halsway was amazing! It was also a lot of preparation, so last week and this week's updates have again been merged into one. But we're home again tonight. (I'm on the M4 as I write this update!)
So what have I been up to in the last two weeks? The Whitby Playford Ball Playalong page is now up and ready for you to play along with. We had Symmetry Dance this week, but I've not had time to edit the video yet. So hopefully that will be ready to play along with by next update!
We had the most amazing concert at Halsway Manor. It was filmed and is being made available to the people who were there to watch again. But if you're one of my subscribers I'm giving you access too. It was incredible to play with such amazing players!
I'm going to feature some lessons this week. On the nyckelharpa a tune that is really popular is Juringius. That isn't the real name, but it's what everyone calls it! I'd like to also feature a tune by English nyckelharpa player Ed Pritchard, this always gets played at Halsway and indeed was this weekend by Ed himself. So here is The Noodle Slicer!
In flute news - my lovely TJ wooden flute had to go in for some new flute teething problems and as a result can't be played all evening at the Jane Austen Festival as we are now reset to "playing in" mode. But I will do my 15 minutes of playing in tonight so it will feature in the play-along video. This sort of thing can happen with a new wooden flute - but it has made me appreciate how awesome it is compared to my old flute! So I am going to feature Näcken's Midsommar Polska which is on my simple system 8-key flute. As we're playing for the Jane Austen Ball I'm going to feature Chelmsford Assembly. Although Bath Assembly would have been better if I'd done that one!
More next week where I'll have the Symmetry video from the 10th finished and will have filmed the tunes I taught at Halsway. Have a good week :)) Vicki
Posted inNyckelharpa|Comments Off on Week 36 & 37 Post Halsway
Hello! We're back for a few days and are now in the lead up to the Halsway Manor weekend. It's really exciting! I'm still prepping and the it looks like the concert could be incredible! So watch this space! I was inspired to do another AI book review. This review is now attached to both books on Amazon. If you spot any other AI books I'll upload it to the, too. Let's get these taken down!
My biggest news is that we have booked another weekend at the Eric Sahlström Institute. This will take place on the 7th - 9th February 2025. I can announce that we have Josefina Paulson as the Swedish tutor. So get yourself signed up for updates straight away! Right now the signups are just an expression of interest. But this will change pretty soon! This is such stop press news that it's not had a general release yet and the website is still being updated!
So what's new this week? The Jingling Keys for Fiddleharpa. I added a video for The Race for Home and updated the music to include the slurs and some grace notes. It's technically a nyckelharpa lesson, but good for any instrument. We have The Piobaireachd of Donald Dubh on the Scottish smallpipes.
This time next week I'll be at Halsway Manor so I will do my weekly update early (rather than late like this one!) with lots of nyckelharpa players. So next few weeks will have a lot of Halsway updates coming through! Have a good week! :)) Vicki
Posted inNyckelharpa|Comments Off on Week 35 – one week to Halsway!