Lewes Virtual Session – Tuesday 19th May 2020

Hello singers in Lewes (and Worthing, Chichester or anywhere else you may be reading this).

Hope you are surviving the current situation. Here are my suggested songs for another month of virtual singing together, with some basic recordings including starting notes, first verse and chorus, and some low and high harmonies (download the recordings here). For the benefit of any new or returning singers, full words are on the Lyrics and Recordings page and the New Songs page. While singing these I have on my green outfit and straw hat with white blossoms and I will imagine you all doing the same.

To warm up, a couple of old favourites – Constant Lovers and Fathom the Bowl. As I always say at Lewes, this is raucous folk singing at its best so leave aside any training or inhibitions and go for it – think Poldark, not Songs of Praise.

Next, two quieter and more reflective songs so you can go back to your best beautiful, refined singing for these – Ha’nacker Mill and All Things are Quite Silent.

A trio of songs about farming come next – Brisk Young Ploughboy, Ebernoe Horn Fair (an old faithful revisited) and Farmer’s Toast.

At this point in the evening we would normally top up glasses, so refill whatever you are drinking and take a quick break (mine was a coffee and a couple of Rich Teas while recording these songs in the middle of the day).

To open our second half, another trio of newer songs about nature - Bee Boy’s Song, Hares on the Mountain and Lark in the Morning (although the last one is only loosely to do with birds and more about larks of a different kind involving Roger the ploughboy…).

To celebrate May we then have It is the First of May, May Day Carol and Hal an Tow, not South Downs songs but appropriate to the season.

We will end with our own East Sussex Drinking Song and Thousands or More (both with added harmonies this month).

As a further bonus for the men, there are male harmonies attached for Country Life, Life of a Man, On Sussex Hills and Rosebuds in June, which I recorded in 2015 for a harmony workshop and found again the other day.

Stay safe, keep well and enjoy singing until we meet again. I suspect the June session could be another virtual one so do let me know if you have a favourite you want to be included.

Golier!

Tina

Worthing Local Group – Songs for another ‘virtual’ session this month – open to all our singers and followers

Here we are in lovely May! Still 'locked down' and unable to gather at "Ye Olde House at Home", so until we can get together again in the future we must content ourselves with ‘virtually’ sharing an evening of songs as we did last month. Thank you to everyone who responded so positively and joined in with our April session and do let us know if you sing with us again this month (replies to me or to the SDFS email to be forwarded). It’s lovely to hear how you all are and, if we need to stay ‘virtual’ for our June session, to know what songs you’d like to sing then.

So here are the song requests or suggestions made for us to try at home this coming Wednesday evening, 6th May, between 8.00 and 10.00 p.m.

Thousands or More to warm up with – and a reminder perhaps to count our blessings.
Then Ale Glorious Ale for those missing the hospitality at our usual gathering space!

Celebrations of May follow with any or all of:
It Is the First of May
The May Day Carol
When Spring Comes In, and of course …
Hal an Tow

Searching For Lambs – opens a cluster of seasonal livestock or wildlife songs, to conjure images of the countryside some of us cannot easily visit at present.
Hares on the Mountain,
The Nightingale, and if not too early in the season,
The Lark in the Morning.

Finally, The Turtle Dove – for its beautiful message of partings and promised return, and with pride that some of these scarce, shy birds choose Sussex each year for their summer visits. Lovely!

Also in this post are recordings of some of these songs, plus a few others, all generously made by Tina for the recent Lewes Group virtual session and to share with everyone. There are melodies to help guide start notes and to remind and rehearse tunes less familiar, and also some harmonies to try. Many thanks Tina.

You can of course change the set list and running order as much as you like – but whatever you choose I hope you have some fun, find comfort in and have your spirits (not just in a glass) lifted and refreshed by singing.
Stay safe and hopeful for brighter days ahead. "Cheers" to you all.

Henny

Local Group Report – Lewes – Tuesday 21st April 2020

Tina came up with a cunning plan to replace our usual face-to-face meeting. There are problems with synchronization when linking up so she decided to make sample recordings of the twelve songs that she would normally have prepared for us to work through and we posted them to our regulars. Our warm up started with Country Life and On Sussex Hills which we know so well and shouldn’t need referral to our website (except our newer singers of course)! The recorded list included When Spring Comes In, Searching for Lambs, Pleasant and Delightful, Birds on the Spray, Turtle Dove, Magpie, Nightingale and Home Lads, Home. Thoughtfully, Tina gave us both the tune and harmony or alto for some of these. She also gave us the whole of Robb Johnson’s On This Hill, written about the old Brighton General Hospital at the top of Elm Grove on Race Hill (you can hear Robb Johnson sing this here) and suggested that we finish with Thousands or More as is our habit. So we achieved a sort of virtual session and the opportunity to repeat the performance at our leisure over the coming days/weeks. The only thing missing was the Harvey’s and background noise from the bar. We are hopeful that she will spend a few more hours preparing a virtual May session when we can dress in green, put flowers in our hair and dance around the kitchen table!

You can download Tina's recordings here.