We Rocked!!

The Maleny Celtic Winter School has been and gone and we squeezed every last drop of fun out of it!! At one point during the Ceili, I counted twenty-six musicians on the stage, and more than a hundred dancers! Congratulations to all the Tunes Class players who flexed their fine repertoire on the night!

Since then we've taken it on the road, playing at the Maroochy Bushland Botanic Gardens on Sunday. Big thanks to the eleven members of the band, Mal, Kate, Keith, Philippa, John, Tania, Peter, Miggy, Steve, Nic and Jem, who delighted the crowd with six sets of tunes, one of which we learned last week. The event was run by the Sunshine Coast Council and is was part of a series called Sundayze. The other acts on the day were John Thompson and Steve Cook, Cloudstreet, and Ironstone.

Last week's tune was Inisheer, a beautiful waltz named after an island off the west coast of Clare. We played it with a harmony line, it sounded luscious.

This week is the wild card class, the fifth class in a month. We might do a new tune, or we might play through a bunch of our favourite tunes. It will depend completely on who comes to class and what they need or ask for. There will be cake. And if its as chilly as last week, we may squeeze into the smaller room for warmth!

See you there

Nic

Maleny Celtic Winter School, THIS WEEKEND!

This is it, the weekend we've all been waiting for, when a hundred fine musicians crowd into Maleny for wall to wall tunes and fun. Classes, sessions, dancing, sessions, and more sessions.

So this week's Maleny Tunes Class is all about practising for the Céili on Saturday night. Tania has graciously allowed us to use some terrific arrangements she's done of some of the reels, so we have a simplified part for those who would like to participate, but are finding the tunes a bit fast at dance speed, or for those who just enjoy sitting on the groove! For the rest of us, the melody and groove await. The sets we will practise are listed below.

See you for tunes and supper at 7pm!

Reels.

The Peelers Jacket (G)/ Miss Monaghan (D)/ The Banshee (G)

The Plough and the Stars (G)/ The Bank of Ireland (Am/D)/ Wind that Shakes the Barley (D)

The Musical Priest (Bm/D)/ The Monaghan Twig (Amixo)/ Star of Munster (Am)

Jigs.

Willie Coleman's (G)/ The Black Road (D)/ My Darling Asleep (D)

Tatterjack Walsh (Dmixo)/ The Pipe on the Hob (Dmixo)/ Nora Crionna -aka Lilliburlero (G)

Polkas.

Rakes of Mallow (G)/ Egan's (D)/ Bill Sullivans' (D or A/ Finnish Polka (Bm/D)

Barn Dances.

Thadelos (D) /Campbells (G)/Terry Teehans (A)

Here's the ad that's in the Range News this week, do pass it on!

New Tune - The Woman of the House

On Wednesday night we had a new reel, The Woman of the House. Its a beauty, and I promised to put a slow practice version up on the blog by the weekend, so here it is, in the tunes sidebar to the right.

Its been a massive couple of months, with members of the class attending the National Folk Festival in Canberra and playing their heads off. So many good tunes, so little time. Steve has been taking the class quite a bit because Nicole (me, this is hard to write between first and third person) has been back and forth to Townsville. Sadly, my mother died from her ovarian cancer on April 24 in Townsville, and the month has been full of much loving family time and of course the funeral.

I'm back in the teaching seat, though, and Steve and Jem (with John and Jenny) have all gone on a Musica Viva tour of schools in the Northern Territory. Next Wednesday is Ceili Practice, where we take sets of tunes we have learned and get them going at a more danceable speed.

And with only 29 sleeps (I think) to the Maleny Celtic Winter School and our chance to play at a real ceili (or ceilidh), we'd better get that groove going!

see you on Wednesday,

Nic

Tunes Class takes a short break - some time to practise?

Its festival time! The National Folk Festival is happening over Easter in Canberra, and we're all going. Well, lots of us are. So there will be....

NO TUNES CLASS ON APRIL 20 AND 27.

Maleny Tunes Class will resume on May the Fourth, which is of course Star Wars Day. Please don't make me explain.

Could you please let any friends know who might be planning to attend for the first time!! And just pass the message around? That would be much appreciated.

After two years of Maleny Tunes Class, the time has come for a small rise in the class fee. From May, the fee for the two-hour class including supper will be $12 instead of 10. Please tell me if this causes anyone any concerns, I'd rather you played tunes than worried about money. But it will help with chocolate cake and petrol costs!

Once again, my apologies for being absent so much due to my mother's failing health.

Nicole

May classes:

4 May New tune

11 May Tunes from the Vault - revisit tunes you have barely met.

18 May New tune

25 May Ceili practice - get those tune set closer to dancing speed.

June classes:

1 June New tune

8 June Tunes from the Vault

15 June New tune... followed by the Maleny Celtic Winter School that weekend

22 June Ceili practice

29 June Wild card night - maybe Vault tunes, maybe new tunes, maybe a guest teacher, who knows? That's what happens when you get five wednesdays in a month!

A Teetotaller on St Patrick's Day

Just for a stir, we learned The Teetotaller, or the Temperance Reel, on the eve of St Patrick's Day. There is a song which goes with the melody, about some fellas that go to a funeral but end up pawning their duds to get a mate out of gaol..... if anyone knows all the words it would be much appreciated!

And until then, a slow version of the Teetotaller is now in the tunes sidebar. Just click on it to get a version with which to practise.

This week is Ceili Practice week, and Steve will be guiding the group that are getting it all up to dance speed, with Tania teaching one of the tunes from the dance sets to people who haven't encountered it before.

Nicole will be away in Townsville.

Tunes from the Vault

In our Tunes from the Vault class last week, we looked at The Ash Plant, a single reel. First we played it a few times to familiarize ourselves with it again, then we listened to the very funky version from Mike McGoldrick's album, 'Fused', and borrowed a few of his ideas and infused our version with them. We played along with his recording, and we played along with a vintage rock rhythm from Garageband, just because its way more fun than a metronome, and it gave us a chance to even out all the beats and not rush any passages.

Meanwhile, Tania was teaching the tune to a group who hadn't learned it the first time round. We had supper (choc cake, of course), then came back together as a group and played the Ash Plant. For people who were still struggling with the newness of the tune, we set up a two-chord rhythm, led by Bec on cello and played on several other instruments including whistle, to create an underlying groove for the tune.

It was fun! After that we had just enough time to have a look at Lannigan's Ball, the jig in Em. So, two Em tunes from the Vault are now much closer to hand when we need them.

This week, Nicole is on tour with Cloudstreet in NSW and going all the way across to Perth on the Indian Pacific, so Cath Ovenden will draw on her vast repertoire to teach a new tune.

And here's the chocolate cake recipe we have been enjoying:

Moist Chocolate Cake for Tunes

Makes a dozen slices.

200g self raising flour
150g brown sugar
40g cocoa
175g butter
2 large eggs
150ml yoghurt
a dash of milk as required

The quick way: put all the ingredients in a food processor and process til smooth and thick.
The next quickest way: Melt butter and sugar in microwave til butter is almost all melted. Don't let it get hot, just melted. Mix together. Add eggs one at a time and beat in to mix.

Measure flour and cocoa together. Thin yoghurt with some milk (about 50ml). Add flour alternating with milk and mix all together.

Pour into a greased and floured tin, cook in preheated oven at 180oC for about 50 mins but test with a thin skewer from around 40mins. When skewer comes out clean cake is done.

Ice, or just sieve some icing sugar over the top.

The Scholar

The first class of the year was like a party, with 14 players, a chocolate cake, chocolate crackles and a reel. We learned The Scholar, and a slow and medium version are now in the slow tunes sidebar on this blog.

To keep intermediate players challenged and to welcome new players into the class, there is a little bit more structure to this year's classes. Only a little bit. This is how the month will look:

Week One: New tune. Everybody learns a tune together, as usual, slowly by ear with lots of relaxing repetition to get it nice and solid.

Week Two: Tunes from the Vault. We have a look through the archives of tunes classes past, and choose a couple of tunes to get to know better. If possible I will post the likely tunes on the blog beforehand so you can revise if you would like to, and we'll work on ornamentation, groove, tempo and style. There will be a second teacher on Tunes from the Vault night, to introduce new players to at least one of the tunes in question, so we all build up the same repertoire.

Week Three: New Tune. Just like week one but a different tune.

Week Four: Ceili Practice. With two teachers again, the intermediate group will play through sets of tunes and put new sets together for the Maleny Ceili Band. Everyone is welcome to be in the band, and we plan to play for some dances this year for extra fun. We'll be working on playing the tunes at the speed required for dancing, and new players will learn at least one of the ceili tunes with the second teacher, so they can work towards playing at dances.

Some months have a week five. This is a bit of a wild card, and we'll decide what we'll do with that when one turns up!

I have invited a number of terrific players from around the Range to be the extra teachers.

On Wednesday 9 Feb, we will unearth The Ash Plant (reel in Em) and Lannigan's Ball (jig in Em) from the Vault, as they've been requested.

And here is the recipe for Chocolate Crackles without copha (much nicer):

About 60g butter and 4 tablespoons of golden syrup, cooked up together til it bubbles for about 5 minutes.
Two or three cups of rice bubbles with a couple of tablespoons of cocoa mixed through. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones, fold, and add more dry ones if needed to get a nice consistency. Quickly spoon the mixture into patty pans and let it set. It might set before you've finished if you don't work fast! Enjoy this yummy gluten-free snack!