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  1. Happy 2017! Here’s what Emilyn Stam (fb) and I got up to as the year changed:

    https://youtu.be/IgD1Juw6Yk0

    Emilyn Stam (5 string fiddle) and Barnaby Walters (hurdy gurdy) playing some tunes in the basement at Folk Marathon 2016 Tübingen. 2016 changed into 2017 half way through the third tune (in our timezone, at least).

    High Park Schottisch (John David Williams)
    Squat Waltz (Barnaby Walters)
    Kathryn’s Yellow Schottisch (Emilyn Stam)

  7. Initial draft of some musical experiments using puredata live with blockflute:

  8. ↪ Barnaby Walters: Event: Tanzimpro/Balfolk Workshop in Múltí Kúltí https://waterpigs.co.uk/img/kreistanz.jpeg When: Saturday the 26th of March 15:00 until 18:00 Where: Múltí Kúltí, Barónsstígur 3, Reykjavík What: Tanzimpro (“Traditional European Dance-improvisation, also known as “balfolk” or “eurodance”) is a form of music and dance which has evolved all over Europe for centuries, and continues to do so today. Casting aside the nationalism, gender roles and silly costumes so commonly associated with “folk dance”, tanzimpro focuses on the intense, flowing connection between dancers, music and musicians as everyone involved improvises and reacts to each other. If that sounds like fun, come along and learn the basic grooves for a variety of common dances (wickler/slängpolska, schottisch, polka, waltz, mazurka, polska… if we have time!) as well as techniques for building connection with your partner and the music, and ideas for improvisation and variations. No need to bring a dance partner along if you don’t have one, you’ll probably end up dancing with everyone anyway :) Entry is free, donations for the musicians and dance leader are gladly accepted. Who: Barnaby Walters (Hodgepig, Buzz, Duo Gerhardt & Walters) is a hurdy gurdy player and builder who, after spending ten years playing various folk and traditional music, discovered tanzimpro two years ago and wondered what he had been doing with his life for the previous eight years. Trying to make up for lost time, he has since danced and played for dancing in Iceland, Turkey, France, England, Germany and Austria, most recently as half of Duo Gerhardt & Walters. Benjamin Bech (Bech and Bomholt, PÚLK, Vildspil, Tyrolerband) is an excellent dancer and clarinet player from Denmark, currently researching Icelandic traditional dance music.

    Thanks to everyone who came to the workshop on Saturday! It was great fun to dance with you all, and to get some international perspectives on polka traditions :) I hope you all had as good a time as I did!

    If you missed it, didn’t hear about it or want to do it all over again, we’ll be running a similar workshop at this year’s Vaka festival in Akureyri (15th-18th June), and there’ll be all sorts of other nice stuff going on too.

    Until then, keep up the nice music and dancing in Reykjavík, I’m looking forward to being back :)

    P.S. if anyone took photos, it’d be great to have copies — posted here is fine, emailed in high resolution to barnaby@waterpigs.co.uk is even better!

  9. Event: Tanzimpro/Balfolk Workshop in Múltí Kúltí

    When: Saturday the 26th of March 15:00 until 18:00

    Where: Múltí Kúltí, Barónsstígur 3, Reykjavík

    What:

    Tanzimpro (“Traditional European Dance-improvisation, also known as “balfolk” or “eurodance”) is a form of music and dance which has evolved all over Europe for centuries, and continues to do so today. Casting aside the nationalism, gender roles and silly costumes so commonly associated with “folk dance”, tanzimpro focuses on the intense, flowing connection between dancers, music and musicians as everyone involved improvises and reacts to each other.

    If that sounds like fun, come along and learn the basic grooves for a variety of common dances (wickler/slängpolska, schottisch, polka, waltz, mazurka, polska… if we have time!) as well as techniques for building connection with your partner and the music, and ideas for improvisation and variations.

    No need to bring a dance partner along if you don’t have one, you’ll probably end up dancing with everyone anyway :)

    Entry is free, donations for the musicians and dance leader are gladly accepted.

    Who:

    Barnaby Walters (Hodgepig, Buzz, Duo Gerhardt & Walters) is a hurdy gurdy player and builder who, after spending ten years playing various folk and traditional music, discovered tanzimpro two years ago and wondered what he had been doing with his life for the previous eight years. Trying to make up for lost time, he has since danced and played for dancing in Iceland, Turkey, France, England, Germany and Austria, most recently as half of Duo Gerhardt & Walters.

    Benjamin Bech (Bech and Bomholt, PÚLK, Vildspil, Tyrolerband) is an excellent dancer and clarinet player from Denmark, currently researching Icelandic traditional dance music.

  14. Found in The Division Viol (1659): an interesting social comment on mid-17th Century acceptance of the idea of a heliocentric solar system:

    “(Chuse whether you will have the Sun, or Earth to be the Fixed Center)”

    Also of interest: “American English” spelling of “centre” as “center”…

  16. Video: Jelängerjelieber — Solo Hurdy Gurdy

    Jelängerjelieber played on solo gurdy as a wickler/slängpolska for an epic eight minutes (it feels like much less on the other side of the instrument!) — so grab the nearest person and wickl some time away :)

    This lovely tune is Matthias Branschke’s Säckpipa version of what was originally a Sorbish song from the Kralsches Geigenspielbuch called “Fa ßym ta jena hubena ßryota”, and was given a new name by the Verein zur Förderung traditioneller Musik des deutschsprachigen Raums (who need a new name themselves, phew), and published in 2015 in “Neues aus alten Büchern 2” — full of nice tunes and highly recommended.

    Sheet music for this tune is available here

    The instrument is a 2nd generation Vio gurdy from me, recorded with an AKG C1000S and the internal pickup.

  18. Die Tanzsammlung Dahlhoff is now available to download in PDF format, one file per book, from the internet archive:

    Tanzsammlung Dahlhoff

    If you want full-resolution, archive quality TIFF files then the best place to get them from is still the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin site, but if you just want access to complete, usable, small-ish filesize PDFs then this is, as far as I know, the easiest place to find them. Viel Spaß damit!