Category: resources

Floorsinging for Beginners update

A very old document that I’ve been promising to update since 2018 and finally did. Sort of.

Once upon a time, Neil Corbett of the Bracknell Folk Club asked on uk.music.folk:

“What would be your top 3 tips for aspiring folk club floor singers? I’d lke to put a top 10 tip list on our Bracknell Folk Website.”

However, the response was so enthusiastic that it seemed a shame not to use all the advice that was offered, so I suggested putting together an FAQ. In fact, this is less an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) document than a tipsheet, but we hoped it would be of use. The site on which I was keeping it disappeared several years ago, and in fact I’d forgotten about it until I came across it in a dark corner of my network. There are probably a lot fewer folk clubs around than when we put this together in the late 1990s, but I’ve been to enough open mic nights and jam sessions subsequently to believe that there are still people who are new to singing in public who might find it of some use, even if references to cassettes seem a little quaint in the second decade of the 21st century.

David Harley

Folklife UK

Here’s a reminder of where to find the principle Folklife pages, even more important with the closure of Living Tradition.

David Harley

Trencrom – a Woolf at the Door

One of my friends on Facebook drew my attention to an excellent blog article from 2019 by The Cornish Bird about Virginia Woolf in Cornwall. While I was vaguely aware of Virginia Woolf’s connection with Cornwall and in particular with the Godrevy lighthouse, which partially inspired her 1927 novel To The Lighthouse (I’m going to have to reread it now), I hadn’t realized how large a part the county had played in her life. Nor had I realized that on a spontaneous visit at Christmas 1909, she recorded paying a visit to Trencrom hill, very close to the engine house that gives its name to this blog.

Wheal Alice and Trencrom’s Iron Age hill fort 

As Elizabeth Dale says in her article, Trencrom (or Trecobben) is indeed “a place full of history and legend”: I was very aware of that when I wrote the song ‘Cornish Ghosts’, which took shape while I was doing my daily walks around and on the hill. The next time I walk to the top, not many minutes from where I’m writing this, I’ll surely think of Virginia Woolf sitting there in the mist.

David Harley

Folklife West magazine

I’m no longer writing for Folklife West, but it’s well worth checking out for folk-related venue information as well as its articles..

David Harley