The Bagpipe Society

Hurdy Gurdy

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Ruth Bramley:

I always look forward to the Blowout, and this year was certainly no exception,

especially because I knew that the hurdy-gurdy workshops would be extremely good. This was my first year of running the box office, although I have assisted Robert for several years, so I wanted to get to Polesworth quite early on Friday, armed with all my paperwork, tickets for collection, etc. Almost as soon

as we arrived, people started asking me for tickets, or wanting to pay for previously booked tickets.

Anyway, back to the review… Once the tent was pitched we met up with Chris Allen and Mike Gil- pin, who were to do the gurdy workshops over the weekend. Mike and Chris are very good friends of ours: Mike was my teacher when I first started playing and it was through him that we met Chris. Both are hurdy- gurdy makers and I have had the pleasure of attending the Over the Water hurdy-gurdy festival in Seattle a couple of times, when they have been teaching there. I had found out that it was Chris’s birthday so had baked a big chocolate cake, complete with dark and white chocolate barber-pole edg- ing, in pseudo-hurdy-gurdy style. I knew that Chris would be embarrassed if we announced his birthday in the hall, so instead we had a quiet celebration with those in the vicinity, with just enough cake to keep us go- ing until dinner time. Dinner was, as usual, delicious and a truly sociable event. Julian Goodacre then summoned us all to participate in his planned discussion on the “standard chanter” – or how

to construct a chanter using a wooden standard lamp and an enormous reed. He invited people to drill finger holes, which caused much hilarity. A number of brave souls volun- teered, including Sean Jones, Dominic Allan and Chris Allen. Very soon the sessions were underway and the beer was flowing freely.

After a healthy breakfast, the workshops commenced, with the hurdy-gurdy play- ers trooping over to the refectory where Mike and Chris were getting ready to lead the workshop for the morning. As usual there was a mix of abilities, and gurdies in both G and D, but Mike and Chris were well-prepared. They decided to concentrate on just one tune, Bourrée de Glux, a traditional tune from the Morvan area of France. Mike and Chris had cleverly arranged the tune in two parts, one part for the G and the other for D instruments, but both parts equally interesting, with enough challenging bits for the more advanced players, but without being too daunting for those not so experienced. The morning flew by as we all worked on getting our fingers to go in the right places, and very soon it was time for lunch. In the afternoon hurdy-gurdy workshop we continued to work on the same piece, now adding the trompetting. I think we all came away from the workshop feeling that we had learnt a lot. It was good to see so many in the class, with at least ten participants attending both workshops.

After dinner we made our way over to the church for the concert, where Paul Martin and Rémi Decker played magnificent sets. I was also very impressed by the group from Tony Purnell’s workshop who opened the concert. We rounded the evening off with a few pints of beer (well someone had to do it) and lots of dancing in the com- munity hall before crawling back to our tent.

There was some interest in continuing the gurdy workshop on Sunday, and Chris said that he was willing to do so. As the refectory was theoretically available from 11.45 we headed over there, but weren’t able to get in until a little later. In the short time we had we revised what we had learnt the previous day, before heading back for lunch. As always, the final concert was a very intimate and delightful end to another enjoyable Blowout. All too soon it was time to bid farewell to our friends, many of whom we may not see until next year’s Blowout.

As always, I was looking forward

to the Blowout, knowing that it

would be a great weekend, filled

with music, dancing and good

company, this year extending into

the Monday as it was over the Bank

Holiday weekend. This would be an

extra special weekend for my friend

Michael Opp (pictured far right),

who had planned his trip to

England, (to collect his brand new

hurdy-gurdy from Mike Gilpin), to

include the Blowout weekend. I

met Michael at the Over the Water

Hurdy-Gurdy Festival in Seattle in

2008, when he came along hoping to have his first go on a hurdy-gurdy. He left the festival the proud owner of a gurdy made by Cali and Alden Hackmann. Having worked hard at his playing, he decided that he should now have a more traditional instrument, and duly ordered one from Mike Gilpin, who lives quite near us in Cambridgeshire (Mike taught at OTW in 2008 and 2009). This was Michael’s first trip outside North America, so a big adventure for him. He is a big fan of Blowzabella (and loves French dancing too), so was absolutely delighted when I told him that Cliff Stapleton would be running the gurdy workshops at the Blowout.

We arrived at Polesworth and pitched the tents before heading over to the community hall to check people in for dinner. The after-dinner competition was hilarious! I’m sure that John Cage would be delighted that so many people chose to play his well-known composition… And then the session began. I’m not sure what time the session finished, but it was in full swing when I headed off to my tent.

Saturday morning arrived and we were soon breakfasted and ready for the first workshop, which took place in the refectory. All too often workshop leaders try to squeeze too much into a short time, leaving all the participants (except, perhaps, the best players), gasping for breath and feeling swamped. Thankfully, this was not the case with Cliff. He had supplied music in advance, for just one tune, Spider. On the face of it, this is a fairly simple tune, but presents a number of technical problems for the gurdy player, mainly to do with the fingering. During the first workshop we worked on just the first part of the tune, playing the melody over and over until we were all happy with the fingering. The tune is in two parts, in G minor and C minor, which meant that it could be played on both G and D instruments. The time flew past and very soon it was the end of the first of Cliff’s classes.

After lunch we returned to the refectory for the next instalment. Again, Cliff worked steadily, this time concentrating on the second part of the tune (in both keys), until we were all confident that we could play the whole tune reasonably well, at first just the G, then just the D instruments, and finally all of us together playing in harmony. What a lovely sound we made! Up to this point we had not even looked at the trompetting side of the tune - that was to be saved until the following day.

Cliff ran a further two workshops on Sunday afternoon during which we worked on the trompetting, looking at possible variations and decorations to both the tune and the rhythm. By the end of the final class we were all able to play the tune confidently, and most managed the trompetting as well. I certainly felt that I had gained a huge amount from Cliff’s workshops and I think the other participants felt the same. Nice one, Cliff! And as for Michael… well, he’s hoping to be able to come back to England and says that he would love to come to the Blowout again.

This edition is from our archives, so it is presented as scanned pages rather than text.

You may need to scroll to find the article you’re looking for.