Retreat marches

In tonight’s class we learnt the retreat march The True Lovers’ Lament.

Once we’d got the notes under our fingers, we added some chords and a hammer-on to the opening phrase. We played an open D beneath the D in the tune, at the start of the first bar. We also tried out playing the open D with the b in the lad notes into the tune. We were playing these chords in a percussive style, to add rhythm right at the beginning of the tune. We also added a hammer on from a C# onto the D at the start of the tune.

We played through Lay Dee at Dee again, and had another go at emphasising the off beats in the B part where we’re crossing from the E to the A string. W also tried out adding in a chord (an open E played along with the D in the tune that falls on the offbeat)  to add to the effect of the emphasised off beat.

At the end of the evening we played through Her Mantle So Green, Braeroy Road, and Bill Sullivan’s Polka.

We discussed the possibility of joining up with members of Corinne Clarke’s Session Tunes Workshop to play in a session together. Possible dates for this are either Monday 18th November, Monday 2nd December, or Tuesday 3rd December. We’ll confirm details next week in class once Ros has checked with people who weren’t at the class this week.

Some of us are also planning on going along to the Come All Ye ceilidh on Friday 8th November, at 7.30 in the Wash House, Adelphi Grove, Portobello.