Hi everyone, I have been being mentored in ballad and folk singing by Anne Neilson, since October 2014. It’s been a great journey, so far –appropriately I was with Anne today demonstrating my efforts thus far on “Tramps and Hawkers” a beautiful “Road Trip” song. I have done cabaret singing for a number of years […]
The Singer and the Song featuring Amy Leach with Sheena Wellington
This exciting project came our way. Read more below. Amy Leach is a final year student of traditional music at Newcastle University who has also been mentored by leading folk singing authority Sheena Wellington. Earlier this year, 1320Radio took the opportunity to make an audio/visual record of Amy in performance at the Wighton Centre in Dundee. We also recorded […]
Paths to Songs, Blog number 4 – more songs, more noise.
I must admit that I have fallen behind on my blog, but have been to see Ellen a few times since I last wrote and I think things are going well. I have been on an exploration into musicology – specifically Women’s Songs of defiance and social change and I have been doing a course […]
The Voice As An Instrument by Amy Leach
Travelling through to Dundee on the windiest, rainiest day of the year (albeit only the third day of the year…) would have been totally miserable, if I didn’t have a warm cup of tea and a friendly welcome waiting for me! Once I arrived at Sheena’s, and warmed up, the singing began. It had been […]
After tea…
I arrived at Rona from Sabhal Mor in Skye just before teatime. Once we’d finished the lovely meal we tucked into the songs. I went into these lessons with Rona with intention of learning songs connected and similar to pipe tunes. With Rona’s huge knowledge of pipe tunes and song we soon got stuck in to learning. These songs […]
Auld Grey Beard & Drumdelgie
First of all – apologies for the lateness of these blogs! I have been a busy bee these past couple of months! A holiday to Rome, starting my dissertation at University and the Aberdeen TMSA branch have had some brilliant concerts – Cookney and the Doric Concert in Midmar, so I had my committee member […]
My Son David
I’ve had two sessions since my last blog and Anne and I have been working hard on lots of different songs to try out new things. I’ve still been practicing ‘Mary Hamilton’, ‘Rothesay O’ and ‘My Son David’ (a variation of the ballad ‘Edward’) and at the most recent session I tried ‘Thomas Muir of Huntershill’ and […]
The fun of singing!
I was just sitting on the train to Glasgow on my way to a band practice when I realised I had forgotten to write this blog. I remembered because the train went past the Victorian bandstand on the Magdalen or “Medlin” Green which features in Sheena Wellington’s song “Newport Braes”. After being away for two […]
Newport Braes
Ailis Sutherland’s 2nd blog. Maureen gave me a few local songs this week. Amongst them were “Tatties and Herrin’” a great wee song with a catchy chorus that mentions places like “Aiberdeen and Stonehaven” – Stoney – by the way – has a really good chippy/chipper that do the best chips, cheese and curry sauce […]
Singing in front of a single person
Sinead Leach’s first Paths to Songs blog Sitting on a bus rolling slowly through Angus, on one of the last days of summer, I was fairly scared of the prospect of what was to come. I had been in contact with Christine Kydd to arrange our first meeting, but the prospect of meeting a completely […]