Live music on camp is amazing. And just as FSC singing is great because there’s a mix of abilities, camp can be a wonderful opportunity to have professionals, amateurs and children all playing instruments together. A scratch ceilidh band of 10 is much more fun than just listening to two pros playing together.
There are loads of musical staff on FSC, almost none of whom bring their instrument on camp, and many of whom haven’t played for years (or decades) and lack in confidence. To make a band on camp, you either need to get them to bring their instruments by telling them in advance to do so, or bring extra instruments for people to play (this has been wildly successful for us, but does rely on being able to bring extra instruments. Tin whistles & recorders are good if you don’t have a car). Often people need encouragement, and if you’re organising a band for an FSC event send around the setlist in advance so less experienced musicians can practice and get involved.
In the Country Dancing Manual, we have chosen specific tunes to go with specific dances to make it easier for beginner dancers and musicians. However, they’re mostly interchangeable with other tunes of the same length. The purpose of the Manual is to give a shared FSC lexicon of country dancing music, just as the songbook is for singing. Traditionally in folk, you learn tunes by ear, and know them off by heart. And it is definitely really amazing to play like this (and also practical because you can watch the dancers) – but it’s also just fine to use the sheet music if it makes it more accessible for you. Democratising music is all about collective playing, in whichever way people find it easiest to play.
Some ideas on how to practise (beginners & returners)
There’s loads of different ways to practise a musical instrument, much depending on the instrument. The below are just some ideas and things that have worked for us – feel free to ignore or adapt.
- If you’re beginning or returning, short sessions are better than one long one. 10 mins a day is great – anything more and you may find your body getting tired
- Your posture is much more important than you think to get good sound. You probably need to relax your shoulders. Other posture details vary by instrument, search up tips
- The difficultly of each tune varies by instrument, but Heel & Toe and Alunelul are easier, then Old Joe Clark, I Want To Be Near You and Oh Honey Oh are next
- It really helps if you know a tune well, so start with one you know and listen to the recordings before you begin
- Start by playing the piece through and marking the bits you can’t play with a pencil. The bits with no marks are the scaffold – the bits you can already play. Then do each of the pencilled bits you can’t play over and over until you can
- It can be helpful to play the scale of the piece you’re going to play before you play it, because it gets your fingers on the right notes. Our pieces are all in the major scales of D (2 sharps), G (1 sharp) or C (no sharps)
- Chunk up music to learn it. You’ll benefit more from playing the same four bars four times, rather than the entire 16 bar piece through once
- Playing correctly is more important than playing fast. You want to play any given piece many more times right than wrong, because then muscle memory helps
- Our recordings can be slowed down. Playing alongside them slowly is a good way to learn
- Playing with a metronome is genuinely worth it – it keeps you in time and puts more pressure on, so is good preparation for playing with other people
- To get faster, play slowly to start. Then once you can play a tune 3 times correctly, turn up the metronome by 5-10 bpm and play it faster
- Playing with other people is a completely different experience to playing alone. And playing with just one other musician is different to playing in a band. It can be just wonderful to sit in a field and play through the book as a duet (harmony available)
- With wind and strings, spend maybe 5-10% of each practice session listening to your tone and trying to improve it. Search up how to do this by instrument, and actively practise listening
- Practise infront of the mirror to improve your posture
- Practise with your eyes closed and a tune you know to improve your finger placement and tone
- Consider getting some sort of stand for your instrument to stay out so it’s easier to grab and play
If you can’t read music and are learning by ear….
Learning by ear really is the best way to learn folk music, and it’s a completely different skill to reading sheet music – even if you can do the latter, when you’re ready, it’s great if you can also start to learn by ear.
- Ideally get someone who knows the tune (or who can read music) to teach you it a phrase at a time. Learning from a real person is much easier and much more fun
- It will take a while – maybe an hour or more for one tune, so don’t get disheartened if after ten minutes you don’t feel like you’re getting anywhere
- If you are going to learn from a recording the key thing is to use an app that allows you to slow the speed down and, crucially, to pause and restart very easily. On a laptop if you open the audio file in Google Chrome (click on the three dots) it gives you the option of playback speed, and space bar functions as play and pause. About 8 notes at a time is generally best. If you are struggling get in touch and we’ll upload a youtube video for the tune you are trying to learn (email Jon Boden or Emily Kerr)
Learning tunes by heart
It is a really great thing to learn one or more of the twenty FSC dance tunes by heart, if and when you can do so. With singing, there’s something special about knowing the songs without needing to read the words. With music, playing tunes by heart fosters a collective creativity with other musicians – and allows the band to move around.
Knowing tunes also frees up your brain to improve your playing and your tone (how you sound), rather than focusing on reading the ‘dots’. If you start by knowing just one tune by heart, you can play it when you’re practising other things like posture and improving your sound.
It’s worth noting that good session players will put hours and hours into learning repertoire so they can play at a particular session, and if you’re a beginner you may struggle to even play the tunes. Musicians don’t just wander into a folk session and start playing tunes perfectly, they’ve worked extensively on it at home (they may record tunes at a session and take them home to learn by ear or look them up online or copy from a recording they like). Learning our FSC tunes is the same: start with the easiest ones first, and learn a couple – don’t worry if you’re still playing the others with sheet music. Learning tunes isn’t always easy, but it can be wonderful.
Things to try when learning by heart
- Learn in ‘chunks’, usually 2 or 4 bars at a time. Repeat, a lot
- Stop using the sheet music as soon as possible
- Walk around whilst playing if you’ve got the space – and only return to the sheet music if you really need to
Tips for FSC bands playing in the field
We think that people of all levels can have a brilliant time playing musical instruments on FSC and that live music brings something joyous and magical to the FSC experience. So here’s some tips for beginners and experienced musicians alike when playing on camp.
- An inclusive band where beginner adults and kids get involved on a multitude of different instruments works as long as everyone tunes instruments and you’ve got one decent musician. If kids can play one note, they can join in on the chords (e.g. play an open D string on the violin for any of our tunes in the key of D)
- FSC standard is to have a 4 bar intro by one player, and then other musicians join in at the moment when the actual dancing should start. This helps beginning dancers by being consistent
- Country Dance tunes are played at about 110 beats per minute (BPM) with adults dancing on a hard floor, on FSC with beginners and children in a field it’s probably more like 90 bpm as a starting speed
- It is often good to start a bit slower and gradually speed up, ideally getting faster when the tune comes back round to A1. The one thing the band must really try to avoid is slowing down. Strummed guitars and percussion often do this as they are physically more demanding
- It can be helpful to have one of the players in charge of the band to keep time and communicate with the caller – FSC callers may be inexperienced and need help from the band
- Band rehearsal at Peafair followed by end-of-camp Ceilidh has worked well for us (kids occupied, music at Peafair, everyone festive)
- A junk percussion station next to the band works well: upturned A10 tins & metal tent pegs; lentils in jam jars
- It’s helpful if musicians can also learn to call
- It’s tricky to be quiet during the calling rather than rehearsing or discussing the next tune. But it’s really important especially for inexperienced callers
- When playing, there are a number of ways to keep it interesting:
- Speed up (each round getting faster)
- Add a harmony above or below the melody (available in the sheet music)
- Go quiet for a round and then get louder for the next round
- Vary the percussion pattern (keeping the same pulse)
- Take it in turns to play different groups of instruments for a line (e.g. “just strings & percussion” or “clarinet solo”)