June 14, 2008
We did a ceilidh barn dance, in a barn, last Saturday night. Luckily the weather was kind and the eveing went well with, we think at one point, over 120 dancers on the floor for the dance the ‘Seige of Ennis’.
This dance is the Gay Gordons with Liz piping.
May 18, 2008
We did a ceilidh yesterday near York in a village hall in Sutton upon Derwent, a really lovely setting and atmosphere and we all very much enjoyed it as did the wedding guests.
Liz really “did one” on the bagpipes! - she played for half an hour, really enjoyable (not only because it meant most of the band had some time off) but she really gets into the spirit and gets everyone jollying up there. Quentin and Martin playing along on the djembe and darabouka made it hard for anyone not to clap along or dance!
Helen’s got some photo’s – will post them up soon.
April 11, 2008
Last week we spent a day in studio recording our own compositions, some romping early music stuff and our ceilidh sets for us to listen to and pick out the good points and see if any better arrangements could be had.
What fun - but hard work! I think a lot of us hadn’t used our brains quite so intensely for a long time for the hours it took, from 9.30am – 4.00pm!!! Got a good 11 tracks from it though. So hopefully we’ll get some clips of it up on the web soon. Thanks goes to Adam the sound guy who was great.
Quentin gurding, John on accordion and Helen on fiddle.
March 9, 2008
We did a wedding last night for two friends Helen and Gordon, in fact the sister of Liz our whistle player, it was a great do. Eamon, the caller, really got the dancers going.
With it being, musically, a folky wedding, as both Helen and Gordon play, there was a session in the bar and a ceilidh in the next room, with guest spots in between dancing. Sam Pirt on accordion and Richard on violin fair motored along with some music, while the buffet was consumed, which was brilliant.
Heather and Hannah, Helen’s nieces, played the first dance on flute and cello, a waltz composed by John our accordion player, with John accompanying.
Then for the last dance along with the band, Sam, Richard, Bill, Anne, Carol, Laurie and the other session muscians (whose names escape me – sorry!), about 20 of us, played and everyone got up to dance! What a great end to the night.
February 5, 2008
Over on Greg’s blog are some photo’s of the session at the Black Boy pub in Hull old town.
January 24, 2008
Some of us have been composing since Christmas and we have some cracking tunes to rehearse this new year.
A few of the band braved the cold on January 13th to play at a Wassailing at Pickering Road Community Orchard for the Raving Maes to dance to.
It is the first wassailing held at the orchard - and it was a great sucess with around 70 people turning up to put toast on trees and pour cider on the roots of the young apple trees. Hopefully the first of many to come there.
Lots of bookings too and some possible studio time at Easter to record some tunes, what with playing for the Raving Maes as well it looks like 2008 is going to be a busy year for us.
December 10, 2007
Well, it was good fun and lots of people dancing, which is the main thing. We had 45 mins to set up before people arrived so it was a bit frantic but it all came together.
Quentin and John has a good go on the hurdy-gurdy and accordion, and friends Cameron and Mark did some piping and violin. Martin also joined us on persussion, along with Quentin. We all enjoyed ourselves and will have another ceilidh night next year in spring.
October 28, 2007
Mrs B’s excellent cafe’s website is now up and running.
We’ve been rehearsing for our Christmas Party on 23rd November which just involves a whole lot of playing and dancing (and rowdyness no doubt). There’s a 7/8 tune to dance to. I think the general consensus is that dancers will have to make this up themselves, with a bottle of wine prize for the most inventive dance moves – if we play this towards the end of the night maybe the odd rythyms won’t be noticed…
October 18, 2007
On Saturday 18th October 2008 there is a Big National Ceilidh Day to raise funds for Water Aid. We are having a ceilidh at Hessle Town Hall to raise funds.
At 10.00pm all bands across the UK will be playing the same tune, Jamie Allen, and as many people as possible dancing the Circassian Circle. Here are some sobering figures from the Big National Ceilidh Day’s website:
1.1 billion people in the world do not have access to safe water. This is roughly one sixth of the world’s population.
2.6 billion people in the world do not have access to adequate sanitation. This is roughly two fifths of the world’s population.
1.8 million children die every year as a result of diseases caused by unclean water and poor sanitation. This amounts to around 5000 deaths a day.
October 14, 2007
A few of us went to Les Panards Dansants yesterday which was part of a weekend of French Traditional Music and Dance in Otley, near Leeds. We have a ceilidh next May, in Hessle, which involves a weekend of people from Hessle’s twin town of Bourg de Thizy, France, visiting. So it would be nice to play them some French music and do some French dancing as well as traditional English music and dance.
We have been playing some French traditional music recently as two of the band members have houses in France and have books of french music which are really interesting to play. You can definitely hear the tunes that are perfect for hurdy-gurdy!
