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Hello!
It's Lucia today! To get a real feel of Lucia take a little trip over to SVT (Sweden's national TV channel and watch their Lucia concert). At around 20 minutes in you'll get to see Josefina Paulson playing nyckelharpa! We had our Symmetry dance on Tuesday and the video is now edited and up for you to watch or play-along with. Our next Symmetry dance is on Sunday 29th January. The music is nearly ready!

What have I added to the site this week? We're on the road pretty much the whole time until Christmas and I'm focussing on updating all the Christmas tunes I can! So this is the seasonal haul this week for the advent calendar!
7th December - Down in Yon Forest (also on fiddleharpa)
8th December - Gläns Över Sjö och Strand
9th December - The Sussex Carol (also on Scottish Smallpipes)
10th December - Jingle Bells (also on fiddleharpa, Scottish Smallpipes)
11th December - Jul, Jul Strålande Jul (also on flute)
12th December - Good King Wenceslas
13th December - Sankta Lucia (also on fiddleharpa)

We have our zoom concert on Monday. Entry is by donation and it can be as small as £1. Or just get in touch and say you'd like to come along and we'll drop you the link! Doors open at 6:45pm UK time and the concert starts at 7pm. (That's 8pm Central European time and 2pm Eastern). We've already set the room out as we're on the road until the last minute!
Hope to see you there!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
We are now well into our Christmas work, so I decided it was time for the Christmas Advent Calendar again. So I've decided to spruce up the file a little bit and add articulations and bowings for the main advent calendar. I'll try to get through all the tunes by Christmas - so here are the updated tunes for this week! There are plenty of versions of these tunes for several instruments!

1st December - The Holly and the Ivy (also flute, fiddleharpa and Scottish Smallpipes)
2nd December - När Juldagsmorgon Glimmar (also flute and Scottish Smallpipes)
3rd December - Deck the Halls (also Scottish Smallpipes)
4th December - Nu Tändas Tusen Juleljus (also fiddleharpa and Scottish Smallpipes)
5th December - Ding Dong Merrily on High (also Scottish Smallpipes)
6th December - Nu Är Det Jul Igen

I also added The Happy Marriage for flute and Little Swedish Waltz on nyckelharpa has had the grace notes added to it. I also added The Healths or the Merry Waffle for Moraharpa.

We have a Symmetry Dance on Tuesday, come along and listen/play/dance.
Don't forget to book for our Zoom concert on Monday 16th December too!
Jonny has just released one of his soundtracks onto BandCamp. It's the sound track for the show A Night of Legends that was performed by Time Will Tell back in September. Take a listen!

More Christmas next week!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
We had a really lovely trip to Sweden, full of snow and family times! It's now full on preparations for Christmas we have a lot of Victorian and Medieval work coming up which is going to be lots of fun. Lots of miles and many, many renditions of Ding Dong Merrily on High (which features in both our sets be it Victorian or Medieval! So what is new this week?

We were asked for a recording of Church in the Highlands for dancing too, so I've added this in the flute course complete with articulations and grace notes.
I have now added Byss-Calles Liile efter Torbjörn Näsbom. It's not been announced yet, but this is going to be the Global Tune for World Nyckelharpa Day next year! The Broken Drone on the nyckelharpa has had an update and the Symmetry Dance video from the 27th November is up and ready to go.
We also have a tune written by Jonny for the Scottish smallpipes this week - On the Mash.

That's it for this week as I'm really late in sending this update out! Hopefully I will be on time this week!
Don't forget to sign up for our Christmas Zoom gig on Monday 16th December!
Enjoy
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
This week I had a million and one things that were absolutely urgent. So of course I started to try to tidy up the site a little bit. You'll notice a few tiny changes here and there. Mostly these are surrounding dance and our tunes and putting some links on the front page to get to other areas of the site more efficiently.

I've created a Dance tier in our Patreon and given Dance a 'front page' to show where all the relevant things are for dancers/dance tune players. Of course - all members of this site have access to everything, so it matters not if you are a an instrumental player or dancer, you can see everything. Talking of dance - we had a Symmetry Dance on Sunday and the video is ready and up for playing along/watch again.

The section of the website for the all our tunes section now has a pdf of all the tunes that we've ever recorded on our albums. It's 94 pages and 147 tunes long. This part of the site will be under development for a long time as we have written far more music than that!

So what did I add this week? I spotted a request for a dance tune in Facebook - so we recorded and filmed Errol on the Green on the flute. I added Horses Bransle for moraharpa and added it to the original version that I had put the shorts version on and included the music. For nyckelharpa I added the jig Controtto from our album Sleep Deprivation and also Mjölnaren från Ulriksberg by Gene Carlsson has had an update with articulations added to the music.

I ran out of time to add pipes this week - so that will be the first instrument I add for next week! I'm now in Sweden for the weekend on a family visit. A very cold snowy Stockholm - extremely beautiful! So I am typing this not from the usual A14 or M6 - but the Swedish E20. Definitely makes a lovely change! Christmas starts next week and we have started advertising our Christmas Zoom Concert on Monday 16th December. Box office is open! We have our next Symmetry Dance on Tuesday, music is already up - hope to see some of you there!
Enjoy!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
We had a lovely dance last night and have just finished this weeks Symmetry Dance. I'll be editing that as soon as I have published/sent this update. So what's new this week?

I've updated Cilla's Födelsedagspolskan and Polska från Östra-Ryd to include articulations. I've added the final Småland tune from Halsway back in September - Polonoise ur Johannes Malkus Petterson’s Notbok.

On the flute we have Var Det Du Eller Var Det Jag and on the Moraharpa we have St Paul's Steeple.

YouTube have added a rather annoying feature that on occasion asks you to 'login to view video'. The videos are all still watchable without a YouTube subscription, you just need to go to YouTube to watch it. I'm working on a way of trying to get round this - but in the meantime I am adding direct YouTube links underneath each video. There are thousands of videos on this site, so it will actually take forever. So just be aware that I am aware of this problem, I'm hoping it will go away and in the meantime I'll be adding the links anytime I go to a new page!

More next week - with a link to the Symmetry dance from tonight.
:))
Vicki

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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!

So what's new this week? I filmed a couple of things and added some things!
The Rowan Tree for Fiddleharpa
Zen Scale A major One octave for Fiddleharpa
Great Hall for Nyckelharpa
Moraharpa-Four a Day Day 4 for Moraharpa
Battle of the Somme for Scottish Smallpipes

We have a Symmetry dance on coming up and the music is up and ready!
I'm already late sending this weeks update, so more next week
:))
Vicki

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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

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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!

Jonny and I did a little Zoom test of the new Live Performance Audio. You'll have to watch the video to see how we got on!

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 the Moraharpa 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

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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

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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!)

We have a Symmetry dance on Tuesday 15th October - so come along in. But in the meantime don't forget about the Symmetry 29th September play-along.

This week I've added Carl XIIs Marsch Vid Narva that I taught at Halsway.
On the Säckpipa we have Røros Pols. It's a tune that everyone plays!
On the Scottish Smallpipes we have Ass in the Graveyard.

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