So here we are! A post about the fantastic band we managed to form on the making music supported ‘form a folk band’ course. The course took place over 6 weeks and people came from as far a field as Reading, Cambridge and Swindon. Although the main bulk of money was being provided by making music 
South East each individual had to contribute £60 towards the cost of hiring the SAE and recording. The SAE itself is a fantastic building in Littlemore (just outside Oxford). It was a mental hospital but has been bought by a music college and kitted out with all the latest recording equipment (plus a very beautiful piano, it was lovely, more info on the institute and their courses www.oxford.sae.edu/en-gb/home).
Each week our facilitator (and founder of Moreland Morris) Cat Kelly brought along a different folk tutor to help us with different aspects of our playing. The schedule looked 
like this 1st week Nick Cooke (in the photo, he is really sweet and told me the tune I wrote for the first week was excellent, I melted), week 2 Paul Satin (sadly I missed this as I was in Lismore), week 3 Pete flood (Benbe rhythm, scary), Week 4 – Will pound , week 5 – Jim Moray (regular readers of this blog will know I heart him, when put into the same room I was tempted to run away) week 6 – Maclaine Colston (who was (imhu) the best/most helpful of the lot, although I was a bit ill on this week so didn’t play that much).
like this 1st week Nick Cooke (in the photo, he is really sweet and told me the tune I wrote for the first week was excellent, I melted), week 2 Paul Satin (sadly I missed this as I was in Lismore), week 3 Pete flood (Benbe rhythm, scary), Week 4 – Will pound , week 5 – Jim Moray (regular readers of this blog will know I heart him, when put into the same room I was tempted to run away) week 6 – Maclaine Colston (who was (imhu) the best/most helpful of the lot, although I was a bit ill on this week so didn’t play that much). On the first week no one knew each other so we formed into groups with others we liked the look of. I managed to get lucky with an awesome flute player (Liz) and guitarist (Danny) (as well as my long suffering music friend Kevin 
who joined me on violin). A few weeks later we added to our merry mistrels with a melodian player (Aileen) and her son (Loz) who’s a drummer (Loz’s favourite band phrase “you’ve really got to give it some rice”. LOVE IT!). The name came about as now the course is over (*sob* what am I going to do with my Sunday mornings now?) we are down to have some recording time (whih they needed a band name for, it was my suggestion and meant to reflect on the somewhat random way in which we came together) and possibly be entered into consideration for playing Oxford Folk festival (can you imagine??? How awesome would that be???) but I am trying not to count my chickens so I’ll keep you posted…
who joined me on violin). A few weeks later we added to our merry mistrels with a melodian player (Aileen) and her son (Loz) who’s a drummer (Loz’s favourite band phrase “you’ve really got to give it some rice”. LOVE IT!). The name came about as now the course is over (*sob* what am I going to do with my Sunday mornings now?) we are down to have some recording time (whih they needed a band name for, it was my suggestion and meant to reflect on the somewhat random way in which we came together) and possibly be entered into consideration for playing Oxford Folk festival (can you imagine??? How awesome would that be???) but I am trying not to count my chickens so I’ll keep you posted…
