Foxwood and East Steels at Otley Carnival 2017

If it is the third Saturday in June it must be . . . . .

Otley Carnival. Yippee! How welcome are we! Back in the day Foxwood played this gig alone, but really we didn't have enough players so we invited East Steel to join us. But this year . . . . .

There was only Lynn and Anne from East Steel. Foxwood was actually in double figures.

As it happened my mother had just been moved to Wharfedale Hospital that week. Morgan I said, mum, I am going to visit her. Do you want to come with me? I said Mig, on Saturday we play Otley Carnival and Wharfedale Hospital is in Otley. That was a coincidence too far.

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And Mig played Otley Carnival. Giving us four soprano players. Which, om a float means two either side. So good. Also, I was on the float with three of my own children. No words.

All in all Foxwood was/were me, Daisy, Vicky, Georgia, Morgan, Natalie, Charlotte, Gary, Amy and from East Steel - Lynn, Anne.

It was a lovely day. Our van was brock so John lent us one. I don't recall any real disasters, so here are some pictures.

Sparrows and Junior Steel at Headingley Festival June 2017

A quick rehearsal first with North Steel at Allerton CE. They have a concert next week without me, so must run through their tunes.





Loading the car, see the car seat, go back for Maya. Lol.


Then over to Shire Oak School. It is busy!





Having threatened, the heavens never opened. Jane opined that people didn't go to the seaside for the day because of the forecast, then came to the Festival because it turned out nice. Nice!

Shire Oak djembe players balancing on a hill!

 Sparrows players were Ella, Bella, Isha, Karam, Maya, Niall with support from North Steel: Satinder, Julia, Luke.




Junior Steel was Arthur, Rosie, Elijah, Lily, Thomas, Noah, Isabel, Phoebe. Possibly [please correct me if anyone knows different!]

I thought I saw members of the audience sighing with relief that I didn't try to drag them on stage to play! Alun agreed to be cameraman with something that almost bordered on pleasure.

Maya and Niall bonded over the tambourines

Sparrows at Meanwood Festival 29 June 2017

Gordon, from the Meanwood Festival found us somehow. I was so pleased as our new YAMSEN:SpeciallyMusic office is located at the Meanwood Community Centre and we generally would like to be more involved in Meanwood.






 It rained; we have gazebos; it was half term; we have a great turn-out.

Sparrows were Alice, Annie, Bella, Chloe, Claudia, Georgia E, GeorgiaW,  Isha, MillieC, Owen, Older Sparrows [aka Doves] were Sophie and Sheeks, support was Vicky. Leaders: me and Bex. Drummer: Bex

As the van was temporarily dead Vicky and I resorted to extreme car transport. Se  pic below of overloaded Fabia doing one of the trips.

Bassa Bassa were on the adjacent stage. See pictures below.

Bassa Bassa

Overloaded work-horse of a car!

Percussion Workshop for YAM 26 May 2017

Once a year Mavis gets me in to the wonderful Friday experience that is YAM at West Park Church, Spen Lane. Until the West Park Centre was so cruelly closed four years ago this lifeline activity took place there. Luckily Mavis was able to secure a venue very close to the centre so that these vulnerable adults were able to get the next best and closest thing. Disorientated workshoppers were easily rescued from wandering round the old closed building that had looked after us all for so long. This building with its history, its memories and its amazing unpretentious facilities . . . but I digress.

Today I am pairing up with Joanna. Always good to work with a partner; always good to work with Joanna. We decide to group our instruments into five section : pans, tamboo bamboo, djembes, dancing with ribbons and glocks. And everytime we change tune everyone changes section.  Well, not everyone! Lol!

We did three or four two chord songs. It was exhausting and thoroughly enjoyable.Here are a few pictures
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Leeds Silver Steel Sparrows, Stanningley and Oulton Steelbands play the Wharfedale Festival

It's Thursday 18th May, and three sets of steelbands are converging on Ilkley Kings Hall. Wanda is bringing Oulton Year Five, Oulton Year Six, and Oulton Fledglings. Bex and I are bringing Sparrows, and Carole and I are bringing Stanningley year Five Steel.

We played all the usual tunes, and Sparrows featured songs this year were Symphony Number 40 [Mozart arranged VJ], Wings of a Dove [Prince Buster arranged DG] and Rockabye [Sean Paul and Clean Bandit arranged BA]

Stanningley played Come and Sing Together and Russian Folk Song Sledging, both originally arranged by myself and then arranged further by Year Five themselves.

Oulton Year Five played Merrily, Skip to my Lou, Liza Jane and Frere Jacques

Oulton Year Six played Scale Song, Jamaica Farewell and Egyptian Reggae,

Oulton Fledglings played Mad World, Next to Me , Lazy Coconut and one Wanda can't remember [!]

Before we started I discussed the question of smiling with the Wharfedale Committee members. This is a thorny point for us [from the Foxwood Panyard].

At the beginning of their gigging careers our children are getting used to concentrating, performing on stage, not being nervous, being confident - all the things that go with public performance.

They are also expressing themselves through their own playing and interacting with others in a deepest ensemble. If they want to move, tap their feet or smile we think it should be natural and spontaneous and grow out of their feelings for the performance.

I know that other steelbands train their players to do [sort of] synchronised jumps and dance moves, but personally I find these unnatural and somewhat disconcerting. Our players will move when they are ready. I did discuss this with the committee The wonderful adjudicator took all my comments on board, and picked out how the players were involved in their music-making in all the other subtle ways. We were all really pleased.

East Steel play New Wortley May 2017

Saturday 6 May finds East Steel setting up under someone else's gazebo. Nice change. We  were on the play area outside New Wortley Community Centre on Tong Road. This was thanks to Emma from Cherry Bee and was a lovely little local gig.


It was a bit nippy, so we kept our coats on. We were me, Bex, Vicky, Wanda, Anne, Emma, Lynn, Sophie with Natalie drumming [now that was a nice surprise!]. Didn't find the buns till after we had packed away, but I did find them and bought a lot. Mmmm.

This is a very short blog because it was a lovely gig with no exciting disasters, and also I am writing this two months later, and we have trod a lot of playgrounds since then.


Next!

East Steel at Bilton Gala 2017

Stuart assured us that it wouldn't rain this year but we took the gazebos anyway. We were me [Victoria], Bex, Anne, Lynn, Trish, Joyce, Vicky, Sophie, Wanda. Bex was our kit-player.

There were exotic animals and people diving over vans on motorbikes, and off towers in flames into water.

The weather was mostly lovely with a just a couple of drops of rain. And we were the welcome party, greeting the mayday revellers at the entrance, but then they walked past us and into the main body of the show. Don't know which I would prefer: having too many competing sounds, or having less audience.

Only one pix of Bex as she was drumming, and I forgot to ask, so here is a couple of her, one from last year at Bilton, one from Woodlesford.

We introduced Singing the Blues and massacred Locomotion twice.

And after that the Blue Van expired!

So now the question is how Tardis is my Skoda?

East Steel practises at Swarthmore school term-time on Thursdays. Always room for new members.