Ready for Woodford

That's it for the year as far as classes go folks.  We're all practiced up ready for the ceili at Woodford Folk Festival.  Come along and dance to our tunes in the Dance Hall on Monday 29th December at 9.00pm.

 

Classes will resume on 4th February as many of us will be away during January.  In the meantime those remaining in the area are still likely to be playing in the usual sessions at Finbar's and wherever else Celtic tunes may be found.  Finbar's sessions start around 5.00pm every Sunday, and intermediate sessions on 1st and 3rd Sundays of each month from 2.00pm to 4.00pm.

 

Have a great festive season everybody!

New class format and preparing for Woodford

Last week we changed the format of the Wednesday evening classes and practice. The session now starts at 6:15pm with teaching done at a slower rate, more suitable for players new to Irish music. At about 7:00pm the pace picks up for the more seasoned players. This change appears popular so we'll continue doing it this way.

Maleny Ceili Band will be playing for a ceili at Woodford Folk Festival again this year, on Monday 29th December at 9:00pm. For the next few weeks we'll be concentrating on practicing our sets, many new ones but some of the old favourites still included.

Tune learning, ceili set practice, and session playing have all been continuing as usual, although several members, including the editor of this blog, have been away at various times.  Perhaps not surprisingly the majority visited Ireland to experience the music at it's origins.

The experiment of learning at higher speed has been successful but we are aware that this method is not practical for newer players.  In the near future we will trial starting the Wednesday evening class half an hour earlier, teaching at a slower pace for the early part of the evening then picking up speed later.  We'll let you know when this begins.

The next major event on our calendar is the Woodford Folk Festival where once again the Maleny Ceili Band will play for a fun-for-all dance.

After a few busy weeks including the Maleny Music Weekend and Neurum Creek Music Festival the tunes class is relaxing back to our routine.  Last week we concentrated on some tunes that we learned a while back but hadn't been playing.  This week we learned a new reel, The Tap Room, then continued with revision.  It's good to see a few new faces around the place, and the return of some who haven't been for a while.

At the Winter School a couple of tutors taught new tunes by playing them over and over at varying speeds until everybody had picked them up.  Last week Steve trialled that method when teaching two hornpipes, Hills of Tara and Glenbeigh.  It worked quite well for us.

This week we found it wasn't so easy with the reel being taught so broke the tune into phrases of about four bars each.  This worked efficiently and we now have The Belfast Traveller mastered.  (well, perhaps a little more practice needed. :)  )

Those currently attending the classes have been at it for a year or two now and are comfortable with the pace.  However don't be put off if you are a beginner and want to come along.  We are more than happy to provide more individual tutoring at a slower speed.  Just let us know.

Thanks to Steve we now have another fine reel in our collection - The Killavil Fancy. 

The ceili sets for this coming Saturday's fun at the Maleny Community Centre are practiced and rocking along.  We can't wait, it's going to be a brilliant weekend!

Last night Steve taught us the jig Old Tipperary - nice one Steve, thank you.

We also ran through a few of our sets for the Winter School ceili.  Rather than try to get new sets up to speed we plan to use the Caloundra sets from a few weeks ago, revisit some of our older sets, and also the Australian sets of Cath's tunes.  There are only two more Wednesdays before the Winter School so if you wish to play it would be good if you can come along to them.

Do you think it's getting a bit too chilly to venture out to the hall on Wednesday?  Not so!  We set up in the smaller room last night in anticipation of needing the heaters but didn't have to turn them on.
Steve taught an Ed Reavy reel, The Hunter's House.  It really rocks along, logical to follow but interesting to listen to.  Thank you Steve, good choice.

The ceili sets have been well practiced, we're up to speed, and now looking forward to a Celtic music-packed weekend at the Caloundra Powerboat Club. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dZodwh_b58&feature=youtu.be

It's been a while since we learned a slip jig.  Steve rectified that last night with Elizabeth Kelly's Delight, a tune in A Dorian.  Thank you Steve.
Following that, and a tea break with Tim Tams, we continued with the ceili practice.  We have some good sets put together for that and are looking forward to using them.

Yesterday evening was another productive one.  Steve taught a nice new jig, The Cuilinn, which will be heaps of fun to get up to dance speed.  The sets for the Caloundra ceili have now been decided upon, one of reels and four of jigs, and we'll be getting stuck into those over the next couple of weeks.

In other news, we have a new venue for the Maleny afternoon session.  On the 1st and 3rd Sundays of each month we'll gather at about 2:00pm at Finbar's - there's always a warm welcome there.  This session runs at a more moderate pace than the late afternoon/evening session, includes tunes from other traditions such as Australian, Old Timey American, Morris, as well as the variety of Celtic music, and sometimes we have a few singers.  If you've felt a bit out of your depth at the speedy session this might be the one for you.
Finbar's "traditional" late afternoon/evening session which runs on every Sunday from 5:00pm will continue unchanged.

Welcome

Welcome to the new blog for the Maleny Tunes Class and Ceili Band. 

During the few years since Nicole Murray first started the Maleny Tunes Class, students who were new to their instruments have progressed to playing regularly in sessions and, from time to time, for dances at festivals around the Maleny area. 

This new blog reflects that progress and the change in our group's title.

 

Our most recent gig was the very successful IDAHO concert at which we backed Cath Ovenden.  A picture of that event is the header to this page.  Cath had spent several weeks prior to the concert teaching us some of the many Australian traditional dance tunes which she has collected over many years.  Thank you Cath, that was so much fun!

 

The next dance will be coming up soon at the Caloundra Celtic Festival weekend to be held at the Caloundra Power Boat Club from 13th to 15th June.  We will be playing on Saturday afternoon.  Of course our Wednesday meetings will continue as usual with the emphasis being on practicing old and new sets for that event.  Hope to see you there!

 

Mal