Halsway Manor Acoustic Guitar Weekend 2016 - FULL REPORT

When I read this post from gavdav last August...

"Hosted by Gavin Davenport (Albion Band, Morris On, Crucible etc.) we present a residential guitar weekend with Sam Carter (solo, False Lights), Sarah McQuaid (acclaimed singer/songwriter and author of the Irish DADGAD guitar book) and Tristan Seume (Jackie Oates, Guitarist columnist and more). This will be a chance to stretch your skills, get some new inspiration, explore tunings, song accompaniment melody playing and more. Courses will include exploration of double course instruments (mandola,bouzouki,cittern etc), and luthier Kai Toenjes who gave his time last year will be joining us for set ups and questions on instrument making, with more to be announced. Chances to jam, network and a tutor concert as well..."

...I booked and paid my deposit right away. The 2015 weekend that Gav organised was superb, so attending the 2016 weekend was a must.

Halsway Manor is only a short drive away from where I live and lies just over the other side of the Quantock Hills. Despite the proximity I booked as a "boarder" so as to enjoy the excellent creature comforts and copious amounts of food available at Halsway. More importantly, being resident gave more time for sharing guitar geekery and songs and tunes in the bar in the evening.

You can find out much more about Halsway Manor and the things that happen there here - Halsway Manor

I spent most of Friday morning retrieving guitar cases from hiding places, filling them and then collecting all the other stuff needed - straps, capos, spare strings, guitar fettling tools, spare thumbpicks, camera, Glenlivet etc and set off for Halsway Manor later that afternoon. I was perhaps a little early, but checked in, dumped my instruments in the hall and found my room, which was comfortable and equipped with everything needed, including the usual toiletries for very small people.

Halsway Manor is a lovely building in equally lovely surroundings -




Hanging around in the hall with coffee and biscuits gave me the chance to meet quite a few other folks as they arrived, and to promptly forget their names. However, familiar faces began to arrive too - Richard (Riverman) with his German friend Thomas, Phil (Phil Taylor), Gav (gavdav), Dave (davewhite), Kai (who I met here last year), Sarah (ditto), Richard (ditto) and Ben (who I haven't seen for some years despite the fact that he lives locally too).

Dave set up his display in the hall -



-and soon attracted interest. His instruments proved to be good talking points and were much appreciated by all who tried them.

After an excellent evening meal (chicken and things but can't remember what the pud was) we congregated in the bar for the evening. Housekeeping issues and logistics were soon dealt with by Gav allowing the real business to proceed. After songs and tunes from Gav, Sarah McQuaid, Tristam Seume and Sam Carter, our tutors for the weekend, the floor was open to any who wished to sing/play. Kitty Macfarlane (@kittymacfarlane) began with one of her own songs. Very impressive indeed - she is only 22 and has already made a good start to her musical career.

She so impressed Dave that, after some discussion he later decided to pass on Samhradh to her as the "winner he'd been looking for" of the Young Musician Competition for which Samhradh was to be the prize. She demonstrated the wiseness of Dave's decision throughout the rest of the weekend!

It was a lovely singaround evening, though most people, possibly in an attempt to avoid turning into pumpkins, went to bed well before midnight. Once the bar closed it was time for the remaining few to bring out the whisky bottles and while away another couple of hours...

8.30 breakfast (self service) seemed very early for a Saturday morning, but was very enjoyable anyway. Most people were still undecided which workshops to attend. These were to be held on Sat morning, Sat afternoon, and Sunday morning. Although the workshops from any particular tutor were to build on previous ones, the prospect of hopping between tutors would be possible as each workshop would begin with a brief recap of the story so far. The choices on offer were-

i) DADGAD with Sarah McQuaid (@sarahmcquaid)
ii) CGDGCD with Tristan Seume
iii) English Folk Guitar with Sam Carter (and the promise of attempting to learn how Nic Jones played Canadee-i-o)
iv) Personalised topics with Gavin Davenport

It had been my intention to have yet another bash at getting DADGAD into my head, but at the last minute I thought I'd give CGDGCD a go with Tris.

Good decision! Although I'd never tried this tuning before, by the end of the morning session we were just about coping with the Irish tune Slane, perhaps best known as the tune for the hymn Be thou my vision, but also used in many folk songs in various forms.

Tris (on the right in the pic above - luthier Kai Toenjes in in the centre, and Gav on the left) proved to be not only a superb player but also an excellent teacher.

We began by looking at the intervals in the tuning, comparing them to other tunings, learning some basic chord shapes, learning the tune fingering and then incorporating the tune into an arrangement based on the chords and variants that we had learned earlier. Everything was taken slowly and steadily, with much welcome repetition - we learned everything by ear and copying Tris as he played - yay! Only after we had pretty much got the hang of each stage were we given handouts with diagrams and tab for what we had learned. Excellent order of doing things!

I enjoyed the morning session immensely, and so after a self service lunch of ham, cheese, bread and all sorts of unmentionable plant-based foods I decided to stick with Tris for the afternoon. This was another excellent session, and after a brief recap for the benefit of those who hadn't attended the morning session we learned another tune - Michael Turner's Waltz. Once again we learned the melody by ear, working out different ways of fingering it along the way, then bashed through a basic chordal backing, then learned an arrangement of the tune based on the melody plus some sparse chordal backing. Once almost there, the tab sheets were given out and we could alter them to taste. A great afternoon!



L to R in the pic are Richard (Riverman), Thomas (trying to hide in his rucksack), Sarah (not tutor Sarah) and Chris (with a very nice David Oddy instrument).

After an excellent evening meal (beef stew and veg, creme brulee)and some socialising time we gathered in the biggest room for the evening concert. All the tutors performed, beginning with Gav and his Avalon-



Gav is always very modest about his capabilities as player and singer - usually referring to himself as "just a strummer", but once you've heard him perform it is obvious what a great flatpicking accompanist and soloist he is, and a cracking singer too.

Sarah McQuaid was next up with some of her own songs beautifully sung and tastefully accompanied (in DADGAD, what else?!) on her Manson guitar -



Sound for the evening was run by Martin, who does Sarah's sound on tour - and a superb job he made of it too.

Tristan, who had donned a tweed waistcoat for the occasion, then treated us to an instrumental set played on his Fylde Custom Falstaff -



Among other tunes, he played an arrangement of Michael Turner's Waltz that we had looked at in his workshop. The first time through was pretty much what we had learned, but subsequent repeats got progressively fancier - excellent and very musical. He closed with an instrumental version of Time after Time, encouraging us all to sing along on the long gradual fade out of Time after Time....Time after Time ...etc. Excellent set!

And finally, Sam Carter and his Osborne guitar took to the stage...



... with some great songs. I suppose he is best known for his playing (and his Youtube videos on Nic Jones' guitar style), but his singing is uperb, and he writes excellent interesting songs too. A great set to close the concert.

Where next? Yes, the bar. Another fine singaround followed - here's Hilary and her Brook -



...and Louis and his Yamaha - a 16 yr old singer/player/songwriter who is showing tremendous promise -



This is Kitty playing Samhradh -



- sorry it's a bit blurry but it was getting late and light was not great. Nick is dozing off in the background - a pity, as Kitty's songwriting and singing is just beautiful.

Nick also managed to miss Richard's fine playing (Larrivee) and singing too -



Yes, it was getting late, though Chris did a fine job of keeping us awake with some hilarious Les Barker songs accompanied on his melodeon -



Once the bar closed, most people took themselves off to bed, again leaving the diehards to their whisky bottles. But tonight the final half-dozen did carry on playing and singing rather than just talking. Great fun, especially accompanying (or attempting to...) some trad tunes from Gav on guitar and Chris on melodeon. And so, eventually, to bed.

Another cooked breakfast on Sunday morning, and yet again I decided to attend the workshop led by Tristan, which had us attempting frailing on the guitar. Interesting...
Once we'd had a good go at the very initial stages Tris demonstrated frailing on a ukulele and also on his favourite instrument, a Fylde banjola - a five string banjo with a mandola body -



We went on to learn another tune in CGDGCD, appropriately enough it was the Halsway Schottisch - a dance tune, which Tris played whilst doing the appropriate dance moves. I'll give the latter a miss I think...

A "proper" Sunday lunch of roast pork etc and apple crumble and custard was very welcome and enjoyed by all. The afternoon was bright and sunny and with no timetabled activities on the plan, people chatted and played and guitar geeked not only in the Manor but also outside.

Here's Richard playing my Alexander, and Phil playing Richard's Orsino -


Thomas playing Tristan's Falstaff -



Tris playing my Alex -



Yes, a fair few Fyldes frequented Halsway that weekend, so, as I did last year, I proposed a Feast of Fyldes photo be arranged.

Tris and Sam seemed unwilling to stop playing Canadee-i-o -



.. but eventually we got it all set up -



L to R are - Banjola (Tris's), Olivia (mine), Custom Falstaff (Tris's), Ariel (Richard's), Orsino (Richard's), Custom Alexander (mine), Walnut Touchstone mandolin (mine).

Fyldes are really beautiful, especially en masse, but guess who thought he could improve the composition?...



And that, I think, is quite enough of that!

I was lucky enough to play Kai's lovely instruments again, and also Richard's Fyldes and Phil's Brooks that afternoon too, as well as several of Dave's creations - I really did like his little one - a piccolo guitar - fabulous instrument. And it's always a delight to play his guitar-bouzouki!

Those who hadn't yet packed up and set off home were able to stuff themselves with a cream tea at four o'clock - as if we hadn't had enough food already! I did my best, then with Phil's help, packed cases into car and set off on the arduous 10-minute journey home!

What a superb weekend it had been. I have to thank Gav yet again for organising it so well, for hosting it so welcomingly (is that a word?) and for his huge contribution throughout the weekend, not only playing and singing, but in ensuring anyone who wanted individual help could receive it. The guest tutors Sam, Sarah and Tristan were wonderful - thanks to all of you for such helpful and entertaining workshop sessions as well as a cracking concert (and thanks Martin for running sound - it was great!)
And thanks must also go to everyone who attended - it would have been a bit lonely without you all!

I believe that preparations are already underway to sort dates/tutors for 2017 - I'm looking forward to that immensely, and will certainly be booking as soon as is possible - I thoroughly recommend that you do too - all abilites will, I'm sure, be catered for, and you'll have a great weekend in an excellent venue with friends old and new, as well as music old and new. See you there!

Keith