I have been focussing on 3 songs so far and we spent time today talking about where we would go next. The 3 songs so far have been Mary Mild, Far Over the Forth and The Border Widow’s Lament. I love them all, and they are of a similar ilk – dealing with the difficult […]
Oh, Dear Me!
I went up to Maureen’s last week to have a chat and discuss what we were going to do. She sent me home with her first album to see if I liked any of the songs on it. She said she started off by learning songs with 3 or 4 verses. “Oh, Dear Me!” as […]
Wighton Heritage Centre
Instead of going to Sheena’s house this week I got to be a massive geek at the Wighton Heritage Centre. We looked through several really interesting collections – Wighton’s collection was a bizarre mix of dirty songs copied from Thomas D’Urfey and more respectable tunes from Gow and Marshall. The Thompson collection was really interesting […]
Blog no.2 – Getting stuck in to some songs!
So, having met and blethered with Ellen at the last session we were keen to do more singing this time. I have been enjoying her CD ‘On Yonder Lea’ since I saw her last and was particularly taken with the songs ‘Far Over the Forth’ and ‘Mary Mild’. I have been listening to different versions […]
Keeping up the work!
I had lot’s of homework from my last session with Anne, so I done the listening exercises and practiced the songs from previous weeks. I used my guitar for a simple accompaniment while doing Mary Hamilton this time and we both agreed there was an improvement and the guitar didn’t get in the way of […]
Beginning to relax
Linzi’s 4th session with Anne Neilson Well I was right, I have relaxed more and I am more comfortable now with trying new things, which is a massive help! I done my homework from last time and I feel that ‘Mary Hamilton’ has improved more and more each week. I found it difficult to learn’ […]
Keep practising Marie Hamilton…
Linzi’s third session with Anne Neilson. I had practiced Marie Hamilton and I sang it to Anne the way I’d learnt it again to see if there was any improvement, I suppose there was in some aspects but we had a discussion about what else could be improved upon and I made my notes for […]
The Four Marys
Linzi Murphy’s 2nd session with Anne Neilson Well I seemed to do alright with my homework from the first mentoring session with Anne Neilson, though I did find the listening exercise and critique of Arthur Argo’s version of ‘Lord Ronald’ quite tricky. It’s really useful to compare my notes to Anne’s and to find out […]
Emotion in songs
Amy Leach’s 2nd blog working with Sheena Wellington. In my last meeting with Sheena I was left with loads of resources and songs to look through, so I had plenty to sing and discuss this time! The first song I sang was Silken Snood, Sheena got me to learn this from a recording of Aileen […]
Getting the pronunciation correct…
This is Natalie Chalmer’s first Paths to Songs blog! We didn’t go into detail on any one song in our first session but we spent the time discussing what songs we intended on learning about over the next year. In my opinion Geordie Murison is one of the best bothy ballad singers and so I […]