Oxford Slow Session

Added two more tunes this morning so we can have a new tune for next month. Inisheer and Willafjord are not too difficult and very popular session tunes so I hope you will enjoy them.

The fabulous musicians of the Aerialists (all the way from Toronto) and the Owl Light Trio are playing in the Tap Social Pub on Wednesday 29th January at 7.30pm (doors). Tickets available at https://www.wegottickets.com/event/491633

Hope to see you there!

David alerted me to the poetry festival in Woodstock from 15- 17th November which finishes with music and poetry including the legendary Peggy Seeger…

Details attached

FINAL_WoodstockPoetry_Leaflet2019.pdfLASTFINALVERSION

or see: http://www.woodstockbookshop.co.uk/2019/05/8th-woodstock-poetry-festival-15-17.html

Unless you’re a dancer at St Barnabas ceilidhs, you might not have heard this tune, The Flying Tweed, before, but it’s a really good tune to dance to and I think it is one of Jane Griffith’s best. I hope you enjoy it!

I’ve managed to make a playlist on YouTube on most of our Slow Session tunes, so if you feel like familiarising yourself with our tunes (or reminding yourself of old favourites), have a try. They appear as a handy list so that you can scroll through them quite quickly. However, I’ve only put one version of each tune on the list – so if you’d like to see another version be on the list, please email oxfordslowsession2014@gmail.com and make an suggestion for an alternative! Hope it’s useful.

Two tricky and one easy tune to learn by heart, and all fun to play. I’m hoping that the way I’ve written them out both makes sense and makes them easier to to understand and learn, but I’m not convinced (I have alternatives if necessary!). But listen to the links and enjoy some new tunes and hopefully we’ll get to play them soon.

Farewell to Whalley Range (by Mike McGoldrick)
Spootiskerry (by Ian Burns)
250 to Vigo (by Angus R Grant)

Johsefin’s waltz is a lovely tune I’ve learned from joining a slow session in Skye when we were there for fiddle camp in July and I thought we would enjoy it too… Lots of places on Youtube to hear it and it’s clearly travelled across the world and there are many sessions where it is played! See you soon.

Just a gentle reminder that this month’s Slow Session upstairs at the Jericho Tavern is at 2pm rather than our usual 3.30pm. This is because there is a gig on Sunday evening and they want to set up from 4.30pm. 

I hope you can come and join in!

I’ve managed to learn and add Calum’s Road to the website which has a great story as well as a great tune to learn. So if you’ve already managed to learn Tell her I will (Gallagher’s Frolics) for our June session, you can get started on learning our first Strathspey… Enjoy!

We are now part of the official Oxford Folk Fringe… and have a slot at the Royal Oak pub on Woodstock Road (opposite Oxford University’s new maths dept) on Saturday 27th April at 3pm (until 6pm).

I hope you all get a chance to join in to this extra session, some of the weekend sessions and perhaps some in May too!

Pics of schedule attached (I’m hoping that downloaded pics from Facebook will work here…) or you can investigate Facebook for more info.