Sore Fingers 2, Learning to Learn and some English Trad Folk

Celebrating May
Day with Fowler’s
Troop

At my second Sore Fingers Summer School I was enrolled in Matt Flinner's class. He focused on the first and third Four-Finger Closed Positions and close-harmony double-stops. It was the most valuable Bluegrass tuition I've enjoyed to date and will be central to my plans for future development.

Another significant experience was reading Jonathan Harnum's The Practice of Practice. It wasn't all new to me and I didn't warm to the writer's style, but the book does bring together and bring home some essential points about how you should practice, as well as some interesting ideas for maintaining interest.

I saw a Mummer's Play marking St George's Day and sang a few English Trad Folk songs in the session which followed. I also took my concertina out on May Day to join Fowler’s Troop leading a Jack-in-the-Green procession through Deptford and Greenwich, an annual fixture and re-acquaintance with my English Trad Folk past. I also did some unaccompanied English songs in sessions during the Wessex Folk Festival.

It was interesting to find I could still play the concertina and remember some of my old repertoire, but it didn’t draw me back. I find Americana much more exciting and I feel my own performance flows much more readily in that genre.