English Dance and Song April 2025
This news item is based on articles in English Dance and Song, the magazine of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. The world’s oldest magazine for folk music and dance, EDS was first published in 1936 and is essential reading for anyone with a passion for folk arts.
Learning folk songs and singing from the comfort of your home, as explored by Sammie Squire.
It’s hard to believe that five years have passed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. As our lives radically changed, organisations the world over adapted to survive, with culture, learning and working shifting online. Like so many other arts organisations, EFDSS took its classes and courses to zoom over the lockdowns, then returning in person when safe to do so again – all for the exception of Monday Folk Singers. We had run a similar class in person but realised the format for these classes worked better online as they’re more about the individual than being in a choir. Although the participants sing along with the leader, it isn’t about creating a sound together but instead working on yourself and your own singing. Sticking to online also allowed us to work with tutors from up and down the country, as well as being accessible to everyone. So after the pandemic, the decision was made to keep the online class.
Curious? What to expect from the course.
The weekly sessions are suitable for singers of all abilities, without the pressure of a public performance. Each term, singers have the opportunity to learn new and broad repertoire, arrangements and folk style singing from an established folk singer and educator, with all material being taught by ear. They learn harmonies that they can sing with others, but the focus is less on multi-part arrangements and more on developing as folk singers in a supportive environment. They get to learn about the context of songs, listen to different interpretations of songs, see examples from archives and field recordings and learn about the tutor’s approach to their singing and folk songs.
World-class folk tutors in your living room!
All tutors bring their own flavour to the classes. For example, George Samsone in 2024, shared his knowledge and specialism of queer folk songs.
We’ve been fortunate to work with some wonderful tutors, including Angeline Morrison, Emily Portman, James Fagan, Jess Arrowsmith, Jim Causley, Lisa Knapp, and most recently, Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne.
We’re excited to announce our next two Monday Folk Singers’ terms will be led by Matt Quinn for the summer term (starts 28 April) and Maddie Morris in the autumn.
Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne tells us about his experience teaching Monday Folk Singers
“I’ve been really enjoying leading the Monday Folk Singers for their spring 2025 term, it’s been wonderful to return to it having also led the summer term in 2022. Returning for my second run as tutor, I was pleasantly surprised to see what a loyal following these courses have. There were a number of faces that I recognised from my first run as course leader, along with some new faces. This shows the great value that these courses have in bringing people together, even though for the most part all participants are on mute, it really feels like there is a strong sense of community in these sessions.
On the face of it, running zoom workshops might seem like a hangover from the Covid era, a compromise that we made when this was the only option available, but from a workshop leader’s perspective there are some amazing things that are opened up by working online that don’t really translate as well with in-person sessions. The first is that it makes these sessions open to participants across the world, not just those within striking distance of Cecil Sharp House (or wherever the workshop venue may be). The Monday Folk Singers sessions have an emphasis on giving people their first introduction to folksong, and allowing them to find their voice. The nature of these zoom sessions is that all participants are on mute, which greatly reduces the pressure for less confident singers, and people are also free to switch their cameras off as desired, again taking some pressure off and allowing participants to engage with the sessions as they feel comfortable.
In the sessions, I always start with a mixture of physical warm-ups (stretches etc) as well as vocal exercises, before going into a couple of songs (in most sessions I cover one short song and one longer song).
In all sessions, I also like to include a section where I talk about something relevant to the history of that week’s song – whether it be the story of the individual that collected and/or published it, the singer it was collected from or the broader history of the song itself.
This is where the online format really comes into its own, being on zoom makes it much easier to share images and audio with the group than it is in most in-person spaces. Along with that, I also try to cover a little bit of basic theory as to how folksong melodies are constructed, how harmonies work and how we might approach setting folksong texts. The sessions are 90 minutes long and the time always absolutely flies by!
Hear it from the singers themselves!
“I come away feeling great – it’s wonderful to feel my voice soar in a supportive environment. Many of the other participants have become friends.” “If you arrive feeling grumpy, you definitely leave smiling!”
“A serial participant since lockdown in March 2020, Jill kept thinking: oh, I won’t do it next term, but they keep on getting more and more interesting tutors” – Folk London, June 2024
“I really value learning and practising folk songs in such a friendly environment and learning how to harmonise tunes."
Monday Folk Singers run across three ten-week terms – Spring, Summer, Autumn.
Classes take place on Mondays over Zoom between 7pm and 8.30pm.
