Hi everyone, I have been being mentored in ballad and folk singing by Anne Neilson, since October 2014. It\u2019s been a great journey, so far \u2013appropriately I was with Anne today demonstrating my efforts thus far on \u201cTramps and Hawkers\u201d a beautiful \u201cRoad Trip\u201d song.<\/p>\n
I have done cabaret singing for a number of years (on and off) and was familiar with that type of music as I grew up listening to Jazz standards. I was keen to explore the music of my own country and that is what started me on this journey.<\/p>\n
Anne gauged my enthusiasm when I initially emailed her by getting me to listen to a number of songs and write about what I thought they were about and how they made me feel. The subject matter was varied (and I have since found out that all are perennial subjects). There was one warning of the perils of marrying an old man-now thankfully outdated due to medical advances! There was another featuring the tragic death of a man at the hands of his own brother and the haunting \u201c I Wish, I Wish\u201d sung by Jeannie Robertson on the subject of forsaken love.<\/p>\n
\u201cI Wish, I Wish\u201d was the first song which Anne, set me and I am still plucking up the courage to give it a real go. I have decided to do this for next time! I have reached that stage through the wonderful encouragement that Anne has given me and by learning other songs and nervously singing them in Anne\u2019s living room. The nerves are starting to abate and I now feel that I can work on pace and pitch and storytelling. I have learned \u201cFine Flowers in the Valley\u201d, \u201cFarewell to Tarwathie\u201d, \u201cAllan Water\u201d and many others.<\/p>\n
I have been along to a number of Anne\u2019s Ballad workshops-I even sang at one of them! Ok, it was a cabaret song after about 2 glasses of wine but still\u2026.I have had the privilege of seeing some great singers, meeting some lovely people and learning lots. One particular highlight was getting to see footage of Lizzie Higgins, The Stewarts of Blair, Ray Fisher and a number of others from Doc Rowe\u2019s collection.<\/p>\n
I will keep you updated from now on-The challenges for this month are \u201cMary Hamilton\u201d and \u201cAnce upon a Time\u201d as well as more than wish wishing I can give \u201cI wish,I wish\u201d a shot.<\/p>\n
Rachel Kelly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hi everyone, I have been being mentored in ballad and folk singing by Anne Neilson, since October 2014. It\u2019s been a great journey, so far \u2013appropriately I was with Anne today demonstrating my efforts thus far on \u201cTramps and Hawkers\u201d a beautiful \u201cRoad Trip\u201d song. I have done cabaret singing for a number of years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,37,6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-newsletter","9":"category-scotland-sings","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/files\/2013\/12\/ScotSings_ora-yel.jpg","featured_image_src":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/files\/2013\/12\/ScotSings_ora-yel.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/files\/2013\/12\/ScotSings_ora-yel.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"simon","author_link":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/author\/simon\/"},"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcv15g-16D","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4255"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4257,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4255\/revisions\/4257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}