The Smallpiper Blog

Monday, 21 July 2008

Brampton Live!

Hello!
Having driven back from Cumbria to Essex, we had a great evening at the Milkmaid Folk Club in Suffolk. We then drove through the night to get back up to Cumbria for the Brampton Live!

We had a fantastic weekend. The two high points were meeting up with another nyckelharpa player playing an instrument that he made himself. I was totally impressed! On Sunday we performed a set with the fabulous Cloudstreet. We ran our video camera and you can see the footage on our youtube blog. It was great to be on stage with such great musicians and to have such a full fantastic vocal sound. We loved playing with a 'cellist, to have the parts that are on our albums played live isn't something we can do very often! If anyone has any pictures of the five of us on stage we'd love to have a copy!
We're now out of our really busy summer period and are starting to think about recording an EP with nyckelharpa on it, so watch this space for details. We might set up a recording studio cam, so let us know if you'd think that's a good idea!
Take care for now!

:)
Vicki & Jonny

Shop Window Dummies!

artwork
Hello!
We had a lovely experience this lunchtime. We were shop dummies! Well, moving playing ones anyway. We were part of the Living Windows held at the Lanes Shopping centre in Carlisle. We got to be in the window of Miss Selfridges with speakers outside the shop and we played away to the shoppers for an hour and a half. The best part I think was watching the passers by listen to the music and then jump as they spotted us in the window playing. Opposite us in New Look was an artist, Carl Sowerby, he was busily drawing onto a canvas filling in people as they sat for him. We got to be in the picture too, we'd love to see it when it's finished! This was part of a 10 day festival at The Lanes, you can see a pianist, a violin trio and many more things there over the course of the next week and a bit. Tonight we're playing at the Carlisle Music Festival in the Tithe Barn in Carlisle, should be a very nice evening. In the meantime we're giggling over being shop dummies! If you spotted us and have a picture of the two of us in the window, we'd love to see it! In the meantime, can you spot us in the picture?

artwork

:)
Vicki & Jonny

Saul and Bromsgrove Frestivals

Hello!
We've been having a very busy July and I've got a little behind with our blog! What a fantastic little festival Saul was. We had a wonderful time! The rainy weather couldn't dampen our spirits and the wind on top of the Oliver Cromwell top deck only took the whistle notes and not our enthusiasm! (I do wish I'd worn trousers though and not a skirt!!!!) We must thank the people that came to see us play in the Sabrina instead of going to see Show of Hands, thank you for staying!!! Other artists that we saw included James, Nancy and Rob and the KTB. Well worth seeing anytime! We also met up briefly with our friends Cloudstreet which was lovely. We talked a little about next weeks collaboration, we're practising very hard! After four fantastic sets (well the audience were fantastic!) we managed to drive of site in the pouring rain and not get stuck in the mud.
This week I had the sound post moved on the nyckelharpa. This was scary and tiring! I don't have a whizzy tool, so each of the 16 strings had to be manually loosened and then tightened back up again. The sound has change slightly and the A string seems to have been 'released' in timbre. I'm getting used to it. An overhaul for the instrument is being booked for August to try to fix some of the loose rattles, sticky keys and missing screws. Another lesson is in the offing (although I've not practised my scales anything like enough, but I have written several tunes!) The new tunes should be in the set by the end of August. We're also planning to record an EP with the nyckelharpa on it to tide us over until we get into the studio next spring. Watch this space!

We're sat in the campervan catching up on the blog at the Bromsgrove Festival (so no pictures for this blog entry to try to conserve mobile phone bill), the clouds are looming menacingly over head, but we're determined that we're not going to get stuck in the mud! This festival is set in a marquee at the back of a pub, sessions in the pub, concert in the marquee, beer tent, food van. What more does one need? (Other than sun!) We're going to put up a gallery of photos very soon. If anyone has any pictures or movie clips, we'll add them!

Have a good weekend!
:)
Vicki & Jonny

St Brigid Festival

session Hello!
We had an awesome festival this weekend, the St Brigid Festival, in The Netherlands, pretty much as far south as you can get! The weather was perfect, the arena was so pretty, with the cows looking on from the next door field, fantastic acts and great sound. It seemed like the whole village turned out for the festival. To our shame everyone spoke English, but I did at least learn to say Dank u veel. We'd like to give a really big thank you to all the organisers for making us feel so welcome! The theme of the weekend was Irish music so we had to great nights of sessioning of Irish music, my flute and Irish tunes got a really good workout! We met, the Whitby Catch, Tom, Chris and Drumlin, all smashing people! A really great weekend!

Onto a busy July for us now, you can catch us at:
04 - 06.07.08 Saul Canal Festival Saul, Glocs
12.07.08 Bromsgrove Folk Festival, Bromsgrove
16.07.08 Carlisle Music Festival, Carlisle, Cumbria
18.07.08 Milkmaid Folk Club Bury St. Edmonds, Suffolk
19 - 20.07.08 Brampton Live! Brampton, Cumbria

Especially exciting is the collboration between us and the great Cloudstreet at Brampton on the Sunday afternoon, it promises to be an extremely huge sound!
:)
Vicki & Jonny

Baldock and Letchworth Folk Club

Hello!
We spent a lovely evening at the Baldock and Letchworth Folk Club on Wednesday night. We ran some new software and took a stop motion video of the entire evening! It was great fun, the whole movie is over in a little over a minute! Take a look! It's on our youtube page!. You really need to see it to believe it!
Maybe catch you at the Blowout this weekend!
:)
Vicki & Jonny
P.S. We've had problems with our RSS this week, but hopefully I've fixed it now!

Gigs in June

Hello!
Well, we've got a jam packed June and we're hoping that I (Vicki) get over my cold/sore throat/coughing thing by tomorrow! We're ok as long as no-one makes me laugh, fingers crossed! So where are we in June?

04.06.08 Ride-a-Cock Horse Folk Club, Banbury, Oxon
09.06.08 Croydon Folk Club Croydon 020 8698 5322
11.06.08 Mad Nanny Folk Club Baldock, Herts
15.06.08 Hitchin Folk Club - support to Norma Waterson & Martin Carthy
24.06.08 Chichester Folk Song Club, Chichester
26.06.08 Leigh-on-Sea Folk Festival, Essex
28 - 29.06.08 Saint Brigid's Folk Festival Noorbeek, Holland

We're also taking in the Bagpipe Society Blowout on the 13th and 14th too, so if you're a piper it'll be the place to be.
Hope to see you somewhere on the road!
:)
Vicki & Jonny

Chippenham Folk Festival

Hello!
We've just finished a very busy couple of weeks, phew and boy did we get wet! Shepley was great fun, but cold and wet. Chippenham looked like being not too bad weather wise, but the rain got us on the Monday. We had great fun looking at the instruments, you can see Jonny trying out a right handed bazooki (I think that's what it was!) We had our nyckelharpa meet with four of us playing together. I've uploaded that to youtube and you see it on our watch page, or going direct to youtube.

This was the first time that I'd played with any of the other British nyckharpa players and it was totally awesome! We had Nick (who is also learning from Peter's DVD) Carole (of Oakwood guitars) and Stoney from Hotel Palindrone. To hear four harpas all going at the same time was ust wicked! It's made me determined to get to the Scandi Meet at Towersey in August!

nyckelharpa It was so wet and cold we spent a bit of time in the music shops tent and not only did we love the bazooki, but the blonde flute by P. G. Bleazey in the middle of this picture caught my eye too I spent a while playing it, but I've already got enough instruments. Maybe oneday! We played from the first concert to the last and had the most amazing time, seeing lots of amazing people! Jeff Warner was the chap that caught my ear the most. You'll have to catch him sometime, he's around until mid June before going back home to the States, so check out his website and be amazed!

That's quite enough waffle for one day! We've got a hectic June coming up, so check out our gig list! I'll post more in a day or so!
:)
Vicki & Jonny