Category Archives: Workshops

The Road to Edinburgh 2023: behind the scenes

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The Road to Edinburgh 2023

Tom Oakes leads a workshop at the Heart of Newhaven Community venue as part of FluteFling Edinburgh weekend 2023.

The Edinburgh FluteFling Weekend took place in May and marked a return to in-person events following the Covid years. With a new venue, a Friday concert added to the usual Saturday workshops, there were many adjustments to make to ensure the weekend was a success.

Returning to in-person events was always going to be tricky as I quickly found out in January, my previous time for getting a March-April event in place. I used to do it over a week, but the post-lockdown world and cost of living crisis has caused amenities to reduce hours or even close, and for prices to rise. It began to feel as if putting on a grassroots event in an increasingly corporate Edinburgh geared up for tourists and big money festivals was no longer an option.

A meeting with Dave Francis of the Trad Music Forum helped to clarify that this issue is part of a wider debate regarding smaller venues, particularly in the capital. Previously FluteFling had been able to avoid these problems, but no longer so it would seem, and we were back to the drawing board.

John Crawford kindly offered to assist as it became impossible to meet our own deadlines and an alternative date in May was settled upon. If it hadn’t been for John, it would be safe to say that the weekend wouldn’t have gone ahead at all. We explored all manner of venues and options, including not holding the event in Edinburgh at all. All of this was useful, but brought us no closer to a conclusion.

In the end, Tom Oakes pointed us towards The Heart of Newhaven Community, which proved to be a perfect venue. Providing spaces for a concert, a workshops hub, talk and sessions in one location, the staff and volunteers couldn’t have been more helpful and the venue was perfect for us. We have already booked next year’s weekend at the same venue, which will take place 19-21 April 2024.

Challenges always present opportunities of course, and of huge assistance over the weekend were Linda Harkness and Coralie Mills, who managed the desks, checked the tickets and ran the raffle. They were invaluable in ensuring that things ran smoothly in a new venue with a tweaked format, and I can’t see how we managed before without them. Particular thanks too must be passed on to Peter Saunders who made himself available on the day.

FluteFling Edinburgh Friday concert. At the door: (L-R front) Linda Harkness, Coralie Mills; (L-R back) Sharon Creasey, Gordon Turnbull. Photo: (c) John Crawford.

Since I began writing this, I see that the Edinburgh Jazz Festival is taking some of its events out of the city centre, so perhaps we aren’t alone in our experience of Edinburgh venues. Going forward though, it is clear that many hands working together can overcome these and other barriers and long may it continue.

FluteFling Edinburgh 2023: sunshine on Newhaven

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Sunshine on Newhaven Flutes

Ali Hutton and Tom Oakes perform at FluteFling 2023 (c) Gordon Turnbull

FluteFling returned to Edinburgh with a great full weekend in May, featuring Tom Oakes and Ali Hutton in concert and workshops with Davy Maguire, Sharon Creasey and Tom Oakes.

The sun shone on a sell-out event at our new venue in the north of Edinburgh, the Heart of Newhaven Community, for our first post-lockdown weekend in Edinburgh. Just West of neighbouring Leith, it proved to be the perfect setting. (See this blog post for peek behind the scenes).

Friday

Tom Oakes had initially been invited to perform at the cancelled 2020 event, so we were delighted that he was able to take to the stage with Ali Hutton in a new duo. Support came from Sharon Creasey on her Böhm system flute, with Tom’s delicate bouzouki underpinning her strong, brilliant sound as she treated us to some of the tunes from The FluteFling Collection. It’s always a treat to listen to other flute players that we don’t always get to hear, so kudos to Niall Kenny for stepping into the other support slot despite a long shift in his day job as agricultural vet. His tone shone through as he got into the groove.

A tuning issue between Ali Hutton’s pipes and Tom’s flute at warm-up meant a last minute change as Ali took a back seat and accompanied Tom. What followed was a flute masterclass in technique, control and tone, from fast-paced cascades of newly penned tunes in tumbling time signatures to slow airs with minimal foot pedal live effects. (“The best foot pedal control from a non-driver I have ever seen”, according to Ali Hutton). Underpinned by Ali’s sympathetic guitar, sometimes driving, sometimes holding back to provide more space to the music, the packed audience were mesmerised and appreciative. For more of that considered and thoughtful control, see Tom’s album Water Street. Look out for more of Ali and Tom in the future.

Tom and Sharon were to be teaching the following day and third tutor Davy Maguire arrived from Belfast during the concert. He joined them both on stage for a rousing set of tunes to wind up the concert and preface the session in the concert hall that followed.

Tunes after the Friday night concert. (c) Gordon Turnbull

Saturday

A row of flute players playing flutes.

Flute players going through the paces during an afternoon workshop. (c) Gordon Turnbull

The sun really shone for us on the Saturday, with blue skies marking the end of a cold spring. It contributed to a special day, as we had taken over the Anchor Hub at Heart of Newhaven Community and people were able to spill out into the sunshine at the breaks between the sell-out workshops.

It was great to see so many new and familiar faces, with people catching up with each other, reconnecting and making new friends.

One big difference was the space that we had and in the middle of it all, a desk run by Coralie Mills and Linda Harkness who kept things running smoothly on the ground.

Kenny Hadden speaking on the traditional flute revival in Scotland. (c) Gordon Turnbull

As in previous years, the teaching was rounded off with a talk. Kenny Hadden gave a presentation on the history of the flute in the Folk Revival in Scotland.

Updated from the one he gave at the book launch in Stonehaven in 2022, it was an illustrated form of the introduction he wrote for The FluteFling Collection and introduced many people to a subject that is little known or misunderstood.

One highlight was the presence of Dougie Pincock, who had arrived during the day to give a talk in the evening. As a member of The Battlefield Band, Dougie had a significant part to play in the Scottish flute revival himself.

Dougie Pincock then and now, standing in front of a photo taken during his time in The Battlefield Band (c) Gordon Turnbull

Davy Maguire and Sharon Creasey listen closely as Dougie Pincock performs a set of tunes on the Highland pipes. (c) Gordon Turnbull

After a now-traditional group curry, Dougie went on to give a talk and demonstration in the hall on Highland piping and the flute.

Always a particularly engaging and entertaining speaker, Dougie is a contributor to The FluteFling Collection. Take-aways included a better understanding of the role of bagpipes in the Folk Revival, the need to learn correct versions of tunes and the importance of grace notes or articulation in Highland pipe tunes.

Following the talk, the remainder of the evening saw another session take place before we all had to make our ways home.

Sunday

Some of the contributors to The FluteFling Collection. L-R: Rebecca Knorr, Davy Maguire, Sharon Creasey (back), Kenny Hadden (seated), Gordon Turnbull (c) John Crawford

With another return to our previous traditions, brunch was in town near Sandy Bells. Rebecca Knorr joined us and we had a photo opportunity to have a gathering of tunebook contributors. Not the complete set, but the biggest number yet in the same place.

The session in a near-empty Sandy Bells was as good as any previously, with a great sound produced by all in the back space of the pub. As ever, we were joined by Cathal McConnell (also a tunebook contributor) who has become like a patron saint of the organisation.

The Sunday session in Sandy Bells. Clockwise L-R: Cathal McConnell, Sharon Creasey, Ann Ward, Martin Duckworth, Davy Maguire, Rebecca Knorr, Gordon Turnbull, Richard Elliot, Kenny Hadden.

While people had to make a move for the road home, there was still time for a final fling as a handful of us joined the excellent Waverley Bar session regulars for a short while.

The Waverley Bar session: L-R: Davy Maguire, John Martin, Geoarge Duff, Allan MacDonald (c) Gordon Turnbull

It wound up a fine weekend of music and togetherness, much needed by all of the FluteFling community after the difficulties of the past few years.

Now that we have broken the ice and found a way to do this kind of thing again, we have plans to do so again.

Not only do we have the Aberdeen weekend dates in place (3-5 November), we are already working hard for 2024, which will be the 10th anniversary of FluteFling, which we hope will be very special.

Thanks again, to all of the contributors, participants and well-wishers. In the meantime, sign up to the newsletter to keep up with these and other FluteFling activities.

The FluteFling Collection: publication and launch

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Cover design for The FluteFling Collection, featuring many hands holding flutes up in the air.We are delighted to be publishing a new book of traditional and original tunes from Scotland and Ireland. The FluteFling Collection contains 133 tunes from the 13 tutors and contributors to FluteFling weekends 2014-2021.

The FluteFling Collection is compiled and edited by Sharon Creasey (of Hidden Fermanagh success), with co-editors Kenny Hadden and Gordon Turnbull, and support from Dougie Pincock, Director of the School of Excellence in Traditional Music in Plockton.

The FluteFling Collection is a landmark publication in the revival of the flute in traditional music in Scotland, arguably the first of its kind for around 150 years. The collection features traditional and original music suitable for flute, whistle and low whistle, contributed by:

  • Sharon Creasey
  • John Gahagan
  • Munro Gauld
  • Kenny Hadden
  • Niall Kenny
  • Rebecca Knorr
  • Dougie Pincock
  • Davy Maguire (Ireland)
  • Claire Mann
  • Órlaith McAuliffe (Ireland)
  • Cathal McConnell (Ireland)
  • Tom Oakes
  • Gordon Turnbull

The FluteFling Collection proofing spread.

The FluteFling Collection will be available from mid July 2022 from www.flutefling.scot and in person.

This landmark tunebook is in A4 format, printed in black and white with a colour cover. Price: £18 plus P&P. The eBook in PDF format will retail for £10.

The book includes biographies and influences for each contributor, an introduction from Gordon Turnbull, an account of the Scottish traditional flute revival by Kenny Hadden and contributors’ condensed notes. An expanded version of the notes will be freely available in PDF format from the website.

All profits will go to fund future FluteFling projects and events.

‘It has been my pleasure and privilege to know some of the people involved in FluteFling for many years, from Kenny Hadden, Niall Kenny and Gordon Turnbull via our own Festival, Cruinniú na bhFliúit, to Cathal McConnell in Tommy Gunn’s kitchen in the early 1970s.

Flutefling’s dedication to the principle of ‘The Scottish Flute’, as independent but yet related to the Irish flute, is a strong indication of the healthy position of the flute in Scottish music and is due in no small part to FluteFling’s activities.

This collection is an important step in consolidating the work that has taken place in workshops over the years, and gives the flute world access to many previously unpublished and newly composed tunes’.

Hammy Hamilton, Cruinniú na bhFliúit, Ballyvourney, Co. Cork

Music in The FluteFling Collection is suitable for most instruments, but in particular flute and whistle players looking to expand and diversify their repertoire. Tune types include:

  • Reels
  • Jigs
  • Slip jigs
  • Strathspeys
  • Marches and quicksteps
  • Highlands and schottisches
  • Polkas and slides
  • Hornpipes and barndances
  • Waltzes and mazurkas
  • Airs and miscellaneous

The FluteFling Collection is part funded by the Tasgadh small grant for traditional arts.

Trad Music Forum logoFluteFling gratefully acknowledge Grant McFarlane of Fèis Phàislig and the Trad Music Forum’s Tradmentor scheme in encouraging and supporting the project in the early stages.

 

Launch at Stonehaven Folk Festival 9 July 2022

Logo for Stonehaven Folk Festival

The official launch of The FluteFling Collection will be at Stonehaven Folk Festival on Saturday 9 July. With a festival lineup that also includes Flook and Rura, it promises to be a great weekend for flutes and whistles. The FluteFling team will be there Friday-Sunday. Tickets for the event and for flute and whistle workshops can all be bought via the festival website. See the FluteFling home page for times and venues.

Sign up for the FluteFling newsletter to learn first about these and similar events. Look out for guest blog posts on the website, too.

FluteFling Online with Tom Oakes

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FluteFling Online with Tom Oakes 22-24 April 2021

A laptop with the screen showing Tom Oakes playing the flute

In April 2021 the second FluteFling Online event took place, with a weekend curated by Tom Oakes featuring an online concert, workshops and a masterclass. Finally, I have managed to complete writing it up.

Following the success of the first FluteFling online workshops with Clare Mann in December 2020, the team were keen to try to mark the Edinburgh weekend that was cancelled at the beginning of the pandemic in April 2020. Tom Oakes had been due to perform that weekend, so it was natural to approach him. 

After exploring a few options together the outcome was a core series of four workshops over two days, with an additional multi-location concert on the Friday night. The weekend finished with a masterclass from Tom on using the keys on keyed flutes for traditional music, an aspect of the music performance which is often overlooked. Delivered via Zoom, the main workshops were recorded to allow access across different time zones, a popular decision that we carried over from our previous event. 

Despite the beginning of the easing of some lockdown restrictions, cumulative screen fatigue, better weather and improving daylight hours, numbers were very healthy. 35 people attended the evening concert, 38 attended the workshops and 21 attended the masterclass. This still compared favourably with previous in-person events and has encouraged FluteFling organisers to consider including online access in the future, regardless of circumstances.

Friday night concert

The Friday concert was informal and international, featuring Tom Oakes (Edinburgh) who had invited Aoife Granville (County Kerry, Ireland), Philippe Barnes (London) and Kirsi Olja (Finland) on a variety of flutes, whistles and recorders. The musicians played solo from their homes but there was engaging crossover chat and conversation about music, instruments and traditions, ending in questions from the global online audience. 

Technology didn’t let us down and the audience at home enjoyed a journey with flutes across Europe. Aoife Granville’s music from Kerry included punchy and spirited traditional fife tunes that resonated with Scottish traditions. Her performance also referenced her project that celebrates the pioneering contributions of women to Irish traditional flute music. You can watch a video on that topic on YouTube. 

The Boehm system flute is becoming better understood in traditional music and Philippe Barnes showcased a fine range of driving tunes and slower pieces with tone and colour more associated with wooden flutes. He also played a simple system wooden flute and introduced us to a richly sonorous Boehm alto. Philippe is a multi-instrumentalist who also plays the uillean pipes, his fingered articulation carries over from them effortlessly. A personal highlight was a slow air that I failed to make a note of, so I’ll have to try and catch him again.

The music of Finland is not necessarily well-known in Scotland and Kirsi Olja introduced us to traditional airs and dance music on recorders and end-blown flutes that invite us all to learn more. However, her improvisational singing while playing primitive fipple flutes with bark intact was as elemental and arresting as it was unexpected.

Weekend workshops and masterclass

The workshop formats of Saturday and Sunday morning and afternoon sessions worked to allow everyone screen breaks and keep things fresh. From his studio in a 17th Century building in Leith, the old port for Edinburgh, Tom took us through a wide range of tunes for all tastes. These included The Keilder Schottische and Matt Seattle’s The Four Winds — Borders tunes from his time living in Newcastle, while the pipes jig The Snuff Wife and Hamish the Carpenter from Cape Breton reflected more his time in Edinburgh and Glasgow sessions. The vibrant contemporary folk scene in Scotland often features more modern tunes that play on traditional themes and Tom also treated us to one of his own compositions.

As if that wasn’t enough, the weekend finished with a Masterclass from Tom. Initially focusing on the use of keys on keyed flutes in traditional music, he also covered tuning, embouchure and ergonomics, tone, flute design and the differences between historical flutes and contemporary models used in traditional music.

With so much covered, there was something for everyone to take away and explore. Thanks again to Tom for taking it on and keeping the energy levels going. Thanks too to Pete Saunders who manned the decks admirably and kept the technology running smoothly. Not to forget the FluteFling team who worked in the background and were on hand to assist when called upon.

It has taken me a while to get around to writing this up, but Tom has been working hard. He has a new album coming out as I write. By popular demand his solo flute outing, entitled Water Street, is available for pre-order. See his website for more details: https://www.tomoakesmusic.com

Update: Tom’s album has launched and can be ordered or downloaded from Bandcamp.

FluteFling online with Claire Mann

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The first FluteFling Online event took place in December with a mini-series of workshops led by Claire Mann. The event marked what would have been a weekend event in Aberdeen and attracted a great turn-out, with participants from across the world.

When John Crawford approached me in September and asked what the plans were for the FluteFling Aberdeen Weekend, which usually takes place every November, I confess that my heart sank a little. It was a good question and needed addressing in some way, but it meant that we had to bite the bullet as so many have done and dive into the Online experience.

What did we know about putting on such things? Had we attended any? I personally had shied away from teaching online so didn’t really know what was involved. In addition, so much our working and personal lives are lived online during the pandemic, did we want to spend our spare time wrangling with setups, links and connections? And each of these questions seemed to have others lining up behind them. Wasn’t there online fatigue? Or was that just me?

John has been involved in the FluteFling weekends for many years and has been active in the Aberdeen event too and links up the Aberdeen flute community. He brought in fellow FluteFling supporter Pete Saunders, who has been running the SCaT flute and whistle classes in Aberdeen online this autumn and the technical experience and confidence that was needed. John had also attended a number of online workshops over the summer and had been taking plenty of notes of what worked well.

Over Zoom calls and emails with Sharon Creasey and Kenny Hadden, we realised that it was doable with manageable risks. We quickly identified Claire Mann as a tutor we wanted to involve and with her we were able to shape an event. We all wanted it to be a little different and supportive of those facing the common experience of not being able to meet and play music with others, having to dig deep for inspiration and motivation.

The result was a two-weekend event just towards Christmas. People were unlikely to be going anywhere during the pandemic and we felt that a week between the two workshop days gave people time to work on the material and learning, whatever their commitments. Providing the music and recordings from Claire a week in advance extended the learning focus and we extended it further by including a joint recording project for a video that will be completed soon.

The workshops were timed to be short and focused to avoid fatigue, which meant that they flew by an a lot was packed in as Claire took us through some choices from the online archive of the William Gunn Collection and Shetland reels. The Q&A session became highly technical as Claire responded to questions about rolls, cuts, strikes and alternatives with ease and clarity.

An unexpected development came from those looking to attend from USA and Canada. We had timed the workshops to be either side of lunchtime here in Scotland, but this was still 4 in the morning for some people, or even earlier. To attend at that time was a level of commitment that we hadn’t expected and we responded by recording the workshops and making them available to attendees for several weeks afterwards.

The implication for data protection was a concern and we had to seek consent. However, the way we ran the workshops helped enormously. Pete was a co-host and managed all of the running technical concerns — anchoring the workshops, muting participants and fielding questions through the chat facility. It meant that Claire could focus on the teaching, which was new to her in this setting too. The format was a success and was raised by a few as such in the feedback.

Claire Mann teaching online. Photo: (c) Gordon Turnbull

We were quite unprepared for the response, which was overwhelming. With over 70 participants, this was by far and away our biggest event and has caused us all to positively review future plans, including when we all get back together in person.

As participants began joining in the online session, people recognised each other and began chatting and creating a buzz. We have all seen each other on social media, but here we were again, with new faces coming in, some familiar names that are on our mailing lists but are never able attend. People spoke about the friendliness, as visitors from around the world logged in — from a chilly Niagara Falls to Spain, France and Germany. Meanwhile, Claire was in Newton Stewart, Pete was in Aberdeenshire and I was in Edinburgh. There was a definite community feel that spanned the globe.

The recordings enabled people to revisit the workshops and review the learning but also enabled those in California and Japan to be part of the event. Additionally, some people couldn’t attend all of the workshops or had to change plans at short notice, but didn’t miss out. In a non-online situation (IRL – in real life), these people couldn’t have attended or would have lost money or needed a refund.

Our eyes have been opened and while there is no substitute for an IRL experience, this has proved to be a decent substitute with a lot of potential. We are already in the process of organising our next event and what we continue to learn we will be taking into the regular workshops when they are able to resume. Can they be live-streamed or recorded? Or can they be sit alongside our regular events diary? Maybe, maybe.

In the meantime, look out for the video and also for news of our next event.