A Soundpost Post

I've been meaning to write about Soundpost Singing Weekend for a couple of weeks but fell victim to a horrid cold lurgy, possibly kickstarted by sleeping in a van atop a hillside for three nights at said weekend. However, now I'm back from the semi-dead, it's time to remember it.

Folk singing is a pretty niche pastime nowadays and I can't imagine there'll be many of you who will know much about the traditional folk singing scene, who Fay Hield or Jon Boden are, or where Dungworth is. That Soundpost combines all of these things means it's pretty unknown and almost a sort of black market activity, seen as suspicious by many. I first heard about it last year, having signed up to Fay Hield's newsletter list after finding an incredible recording of her singing The Banks of the Nile at the Bullingdon Arms. I knew the song through Sandy Denny's recording of it with Fotheringay, which I love, but it was great to hear it unaccompanied, straight through and with a much simpler tune. Who is this lady? I thought to myself. After a bit of googling it turns out she's no other than a Doctor of musicology, teaches at Sheffield, sings and tours with her band The Hurricane Party and is the other half of Bellowhead's Jon Boden (but that's by the by). As an academic who specialises in traditional English song and the role of singing in the community, you can begin to see where the ethos of Soundpost comes from. Along with Nancy Kerr, Sam Sweeney and others she has put together a perfect little weekend for folkies who want to find their voices.

As I said, having been unlucky last year my little singing troupe were proper keen this time around. What we didn't bank on was how quickly all of the local accommodation would get booked up, and me and my singing wife resigned ourselves to sleeping in her little van, 5 minutes up the road from the pub. This all seemed well and good back in December, when we looked ahead to March with a degree of acceptable optimism. March? Pah. We'll be bathed in beautiful spring sunshine by then! Sleeping in a van won't be a problem AT ALL. Then this happened. We kept getting calls from the lady who owns the Caravan club checking that 'we were still coming?' and telling us about how the outside toilet still hadn't thawed.

But, despite apocalyptic / ice age conditions we made it, and Mr Weather very kindly paused snowing and gave us a little sunshine burst for the few days we were there. Having spent a day in nearby Sheffield, and powered by the most incredible pie I have ever encountered, we were set. Bring on Folk Town!

Before we arrived we'd been sent a cute little guide in the post, with all of the upcoming sessions and events. The list of tutors was pretty impressive - Sandra Kerr, Nancy Kerr, Faye Hield, Jon Boden, Martin Carthy, John Kirkpatrick and Peta Webb - and I started to panic a little about having to sing in front of any of them... The guide also had a sweet little hand-drawn map showing all of the venues available for the festival - nice to look at but nigh on useless when it came to actually working out distances and exact locations.

Map of Soundpost venue locations

Day One: Friday
With lardy pastry and a pint of ale still in our bellies we arrived in Dungworth at around 5pm, in time for an introductory chat from Nancy about the weekend. Scoping out the attendees that had already arrived in the village hall, and judging from Soundpost's roving camera planted firmly on our faces it was clear - we were the youngest and most 'London' looking of the lot. My bright red lipstick, Jen's designer glasses and Alex's sock/Brogue combination betrayed us. We weren't folk natives. None of us had beards. I could barely play the fiddle and between us we could just about manage the recorder. Our songs of industrial heritage and sea shanties were all lies. Some of us liked techno. What if we got rumbled?

Slightly nervous, but spurred on by unbridled, Church of England style enthusiasm, we went into a session with Sandra Kerr. I had been a little bit terrified of Sandra since seeing her in action at Sidmouth Folk Festival Choir a couple of years ago, boy could she whip a group of 80+ middle aged folkies into shape, but I needn't have worried. We did some fun warm ups (including a dragon style yoga pose that I've since adopted as part of my morning ritual) and sang Some Old Salty, a lovely, lilting song by Lal Waterson that I'd actually learnt from her at Sidmouth. Next up was a session with John Kirkpatrick, who I didn't realise I already knew of until after the weekend, when scrawling through my Spotify downloads on the way home, I came across his fantastic rendition of Whoever Invented the Fishfinger, which I'd been singing to myself for months before I met him in person. I left the weekend with a mild John Kirkpatrick obsession - he is a wonderfully funny, unpretentious and surreal man with an incredible skill in a wide variety of instruments. He spoke to us about the importance of enunciation when singing, and be-cried the 'wah-wah-wah' noise of many a singaround. We sang a version of The Nightingale which for the life of me I can't seem to find online - I'll post it if I find the scrappy bit of paper it's written on in my room...

John Kirkpatrick and his squeezebox family

With a couple of good sessions under our belts we went next door to The Royal Hotel pub and set in for a hearty singaround, to the chagrin of a few bemused locals. All good fun, and with beer at £2.40 a pint, it seemed rude not to make a night of it. Our London set had a go and me & Jen knocked out Santy Anno in perfect harmony (I think) at around 10pm. Despite a good run of songs from a cross-section of the pub including What Will We Do from Peta Webb (cracking voice), I must say there was a real lack of feisty female songs. Something we might need to remedy next year by convincing some of our choir ladies to join us... We headed back to the van at around midnight and cosied up in our sleeping bags under thick layers of duvet and blanket, ready for the weekend ahead.

Day Two: Saturday
Have you ever seen that sketch from Dylan Moran where he talks about hangovers? Well. Saturday was kind of like that. What a beautiful day, I thought to myself, looking out over the frosty, bright peaks in the morning, a steaming cup of tea in my hand. Funny that I feel so great, seeing as I drank a million pints of 'Farmer' lager last night. It must've been that pie I ate.

On our way down the hill to Dungworth

This euphoria lasted until about 11am when I had a sugar crash in the middle of Jon Boden's How to Make an Impact workshop, which to be fair to Jon, was really fun and informative, just difficult due to the overwhelming tiredness that suddenly smothered me. Jon's advice during the session was interesting, if a little obvious, and really entertaining. He has a really friendly teaching style, a humour and a lightness that his brooding official photography certainly doesn't hint at. We spent our lunchtime at a Politics & Song session led by Sisters Unlimited, where we discussed the merits of keeping unsavoury verses in otherwise lovely songs in order to reveal a message, and I finished the afternoon in a Poor Mudered Women in Ballads session which though a little dry and academic, brought my attention to this incredible, horrible song which I fully intend to learn for a singaround.

The day ended with a tutors concert in the local school hall, where we were treated to songs from... oh, everyone, before once again retiring to the pub for more singing.

Martin Carthy, John Kirkpatrick, Fay Hield, Sisters Unlimited, Jon Boden, The Melrose Quartet

Day Three: SundayI started Sunday with a bout of nerves. Having attempted and failed to confidently sing in front of Jon Boden the morning before (I blame the hangover), I was now preparing myself to sing a ballad in front of none other than Martin Carthy, probably the most important folk revivalist in the country. What should I sing? Even if I chose something I can sing half-decently, he was probably the originator of the tune, and if not he would have done the defining version of it... I had veered between Lovely Joan (but was later informed he had recorded a storming version back in the 60s) and If I was a blackbird, (a lovely Scottish ballad we sang in choir) but I kept forgetting the words. And were they even ballads? What counts as a ballad? I was getting my proverbial folk knickers in a bit of a twist.

I needn't have worried. Ten minutes into our 2 hours with Martin it was clear that this wasn't a 'share a song' type of session, but rather 'an audience with', which though a little frustrating, was still a great way to spend the last morning. What was impressive and immediately evident was how much academic research Martin had put into song collecting and musicianship over the years. As a younger singer and guitarist he would literally read the Childs Ballads from cover to cover in his old room in London, editing them, bringing them together, deciphering them and adding to them. It was great for a newbie like me to realise how the songs we learned from the revivalists had already been doctored, that these songs were in a constant state of flux. He talked in particular about the joy of discovery - citing Bill Norrie (which he had played the night before) as a prime example. Suddenly it didn't matter too much that I wasn't a folk native. It only mattered that I was interested, and that I kept singing.



If nothing else, that was what I took from the weekend. Sure, I learned some good skills (particularly from baritone Peter Taylor, who showed me ways of singing I didn't even know existed in our 'How Singing Works' session) and picked up a few good songs too, but the most important message from Soundpost was that these songs are our songs, and that we must keep singing them. Suddenly, being a brogued Londoner didn't matter too much - better to keep a tradition alive and evolving than to let it die because you're too scared to sing.

Hey Jude...

So, in the spirit of the fantastic WOW festival that I attended this weekend, I've decided to revitalise this tired thing, which was sorely lacking in any attention. Here it is. My first proper blog post. Written on my old Sony Vaio with a broken 'e' button.

It seems apt that the Women of the World festival spurred me back into writing, given that I opened up this blog about 2 years ago as a collaborative project with two female friends, both publishers, whilst I was working in the theatre. Fancying ourselves as arty ladies we thought it would be amusing to create a blog dedicated to the 'cultural musings of three London ladies' and name it after a euphemism for a vagina. We talked endlessly about it. And then never wrote a thing. We should've named it 'Fickle fannies'.

But I digress.



Those who work with me know how much I admire Jude Kelly. Just LOOK at her! With her sexy European fringe and vaguely masculine dress sense, rocking an in depth knowledge of the arts and a kick ass, unapologetic attitude to programming, she is what I imagine my ultimate lesbian crush to be. And sort of how I'd like my own life to be in 15 years or so, frankly. Every time I see her talking on the news about how unecessary the arts cuts are, or explaining the inspiration behind another one of her amazing festivals I think 'go Jude!' and I think 'go clever women' too, which is essentially the tagline of her brilliant WOW festival, now in its third year. It's a forum where women can 'help other women', and includes talks, workshops and, in my case, 'speed mentoring', a brilliant concept that left me feeling giddy with all of the possibilities open to me, and extremely grateful to the women taking part.

Arriving with a friend from a similar industry who had just had a change of heart and handed in her notice, and me feeling as though I knew something had to change in my current job, but unsure exactly what, we were told to sit in the outer ring of one of three larger circles and wait for our mentors to trickle into the inner sanctums... Preferring alchemy to any forced match-making, I was sat opposite a warm faced woman called Sandra and waited for the gong. A few questions deep, and with a gentle goading from this articulate and sharp media professional I found myself spitting out the words 'I THINK I WANT TO BE A COMMISSIONING EDITOR AT THE BBC!!'. In just three minutes I'd managed to work through a nagging feeling that had been festering at the back of my cranium, and in some strange confessional moment of clarity I realised something - my current job wasn't creative enough and I wasn't happy with it. It was as simple as that. What was fantastic was being in an environment where I was a) encouraged to want more from my career, b) allowed to be unapologetic about wanting a more creative role and c) allowed to admit that my skills and CV were, actually, pretty good. This, after a week at work where I had been 'warned off' asking my superiors about pay inequalities in the team and told that discussing salaries was simply not the done thing, was quite enjoyable.

Sandra's suggestions were equally as simple - write more, think more, do more. Use my job to get what I need. Make new friends and don't be afraid to ask people for their time. Do what I do, well, and take credit for it. Simple words, but quiet inspiration. So thank you Sandra, and thanks Jude. You're a star.