Talk at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution

[ConcertinaChap]

Different bit of self-promotion, perhaps. This coming Friday I'm giving a talk at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution (a beautiful Georgian building in Queen's Square in the heart of Bath). The subject is one dear to my heart: Traditional English music as might be heard in pubs. I'm looking at the history of traditional English dance music and its revival and also talking about the music itself. I'll be playing lots of audio examples and also live music with some of my musician friends.

This talk will (all going well) be available to view over Zoom as well as live at the BRLSI. If you're interested there's more info here:

https://www.brlsi.org/whatson/tradition ... d-in-pubs/

CC

[ConcertinaChap]

Couldn't resist adding this, a picture of the room where I'll be giving the talk. Talk about grand!



CC

[Folderol]

Best of luck with this. Hope it goes well.

[Drew Stephenson]

Is there going to be a catch-up option available?
Might be travelling at the time.

[ConcertinaChap]

I've asked BRLSI to record it for later upload to Youtube but I don't know yet whether that will happen.

CC

[Drew Stephenson]

Thanks CC

[Ben Asaro]

That sounds great! GL! If you could share your notes and references afterwards, that would be great!

[ConcertinaChap]

Well, here's a taster from my opening remarks:

Once, a good few years ago, I was in an impromptu pub session in Derbyshire with some really excellent musicians. The music was superb. After a while a woman from a nearby table leaned over and said it was great and where did it come from? “England”, we said. She looked puzzled, then said, “Oh, you’re joking. Where does it really come from?”. “England”, we said. She subsided and we played for a while, then she piped up, “No, it’s Irish, isn’t it?”. “No, English”, we said. But we could see we hadn’t really convinced her.

It’s amazing how little the English know about their own music and dance. We have a rich tradition of music and song that’s the equal of anywhere else in Europe, but you wouldn’t know that from listening to the English media! You wouldn’t catch the Irish or the Scots doing that!

So how did we get to this?

CC

[Ben Asaro]

More!

[awjoe]

Well, here's a taster from my opening remarks:

Once, a good few years ago, I was in an impromptu pub session in Derbyshire with some really excellent musicians. The music was superb. After a while a woman from a nearby table leaned over and said it was great and where did it come from? “England”, we said. She looked puzzled, then said, “Oh, you’re joking. Where does it really come from?”. “England”, we said. She subsided and we played for a while, then she piped up, “No, it’s Irish, isn’t it?”. “No, English”, we said. But we could see we hadn’t really convinced her.

It’s amazing how little the English know about their own music and dance. We have a rich tradition of music and song that’s the equal of anywhere else in Europe, but you wouldn’t know that from listening to the English media! You wouldn’t catch the Irish or the Scots doing that!

So how did we get to this?

CC

I blame the Beatles.

[ConcertinaChap]

Fair enough ...

In the event it all went very well. We had about 25 in the live audience and another 12 watching and listening on Zoom, which BRLSI tell me is a decent turn out. All my audio samples (being played by Anne on her faithful Macbook through a Bose S1 Pro) sounded good and the band played excellently. BRLSI think they should be able to put it up onYT in due course.

I'm feeling pleasantly buzzed about it right now. This glass of Jura is helping nicely.

CC

[Martin Walker]

Bravo CC - after that tantalising opening paragraph, I'm now looking forward to hearing more in due course.

Martin

[Eddy Deegan]

Well done Chris, great to hear it went well!

[Folderol]

Delighted to hear this, and looking forward to being able to watch it.

[Arpangel]

Looking forward to seeing this on YouTube.

[IAA]

Well done , and I’m looking forward to the video too. I’m quite admiring of the troupes of Morris dancers around the country and wondered if you referenced the musical accompaniment to them, and which came first the dancing or the music?

[Drew Stephenson]

Good work CC.
Looking forward to the video.

[ConcertinaChap]

A couple of small things I've been sent. First a short video of the band playing Michael Turner's Waltz:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6yih1qpnkbq3h ... 0.mp4?dl=0

Second, a photo of the event:



CC

[ConcertinaChap]

The talk is now online!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGM1Mt2kdHI

Note that the sound quality isn't too great at first but improves markedly at around 20 minutes in.

Cheers,

CC

[Ben Asaro]

Thanks for the update, looking forward to watching this!

[Drew Stephenson]

Cheers CC, will look that up later.

[Folderol]

Thanks for posting this. A very interesting talk indeed, and well done for such a long coherent session. I've done that myself and know just how easy to forget bits, and get out of step etc.

[Martin Walker]

Thanks CC - will watch when I can give the talk 100% attention.

Martin

[Eddy Deegan]

Well delivered and very informative indeed Chris!