Sessions

The Walthamstow Folk Club Traditional Tune Session happens on the second Tuesday of each month.

For the first half of the evening we are a "slow and steady" session suitable for beginners and people getting used to playing in sessions. We'll play the tunes as slowly and as many times as you like!

After the interval the more experienced players can have their heads out and pick the pace up!

The session is led by Alison Scott and Frankie Cleeve. The atmosphere is really friendly and supportive.

We kick off at 8:00pm. Everybody is welcome and admission is free.

The next session is on Tuesday 14th September 2010

[We don't run the session in August.]

The Tunebook

This is an English session which isn't to say we have any sort of bar on tunes from other traditions and we'll generally play quite a few Irish and Scottish tunes in an evening but we concentrate on the standard English repertoire and play in the English manner.

Alison has put together some of the tunes you can pretty much expect us to play any week and you can download it from the link below.

Click here to download the Walthamstow Folk Club tune book

Right click and select "Save Link As" to download to your computer. Requires Adobe Reader.

A Musician Writes...

Here's a review of our second session from Steve Cain:

"Well, this was my first time at the Walthamstow session, and I really enjoyed it. Seventeen or so came along with fiddles, melodeons, concertinas, guitars, a bodhran and miscellaneous other instruments.

We were led gently through 16 or so core tunes by ‘the management’, while others took us into Sheperd’s Hey, Bobby Shaftoe, Hesleyside, the Sportsman’s Hornpipe, Blue Eyed Stranger, Jack of the Green, Rusty Gulley, Enrico, and Buttered Peas. We slipped in Belgian tune Bear Dance, and Shetland fiddle tunes Willafjord and Margaret’s Waltz. A mysterious stranger amazed us with the modern French composition L’Inconnu de Limoise and the older La Cinq-Cent. We played Irish classic Tobin’s Favourite in local Chingford style, Barrack Hill and Dribbles of Brandy.

I’m new to the session thing, but could play along with two or three of the easy tunes, and bits and pieces of other tunes I knew. Sometimes I was happy to pick out odd notes, and otherwise I just relaxed, drank nice beer and soaked up the music. There looked to be a number of beginners like me, some more experienced players, and some very capable indeed. The mysterious stranger turned out to be Dave Shepherd, fiddler from Blowzabella, who popped in after giving someone a lift: I don’t think we can hope for such a stellar attendance every month, but it was lovely to have him along."