Reviews
scale to improvise in sessions and
how to hold/angle plectrum to
improve tremolo on mandolin. Nigel
is an excellent tutor; I learned so
much from his course but, most
importantly, I had fun!”
Audrey Todd: “I headed for
Knuston Hall with some trepidation,
having signed up for Travis Finch’s
Classical Mandolin and Guitar
group anticipating a ‘challenge’.
Travis’s choice of Bach C# Minor
Prelude and Fugue from ‘The
Well-Tempered Clavier’, which has
more accidentals than you can
shake a stick at, certainly met my
expectations! The theme for this
course was ‘musicality, phrasing
and constructing musical line’ and
he approached it by first getting
us to work on a tremolo exercise,
with emphasis on clarity, control,
phrasing and dynamics. This
seemed counter-intuitive as we
were not planning to use tremolo
in the Bach, but over the weekend
the improvement in our tremolo
improved enormously and I am
sure even the more experienced
players learned a great deal. It did,
indeed, inform our approach to the
fugue as well as generally tightening
up responses to the conductor’s
instructions. As we worked on the
fugue we learned when to ‘step
back’ or ‘step forward’ to allow
section(s) playing the subjects to
dominate and also that, while wrong
notes were acceptable, certain notes
were more crucial than others to
really ‘nail’! We briefly ran through
the Prelude, not for performance
purposes but to give a sense of
completeness regarding the whole
work. We had lots of laughs, as
well as lots of music. Lorraine’s
interpretation of what was going
on in the Prelude as a conversation
between mandolins and mandolas
– mandolins are saying “Look at
that lovely blue sky!” and mandolas
are saying “Oh, but what about all
those white clouds?”’ did make us
wonder what she had been taking.
Whatever it was, we all wanted
some! When time for performance
came, my 2nd mandolin neighbour,
Gwyn, and I were delighted to
start together, finish together and
agree over the middle too – I guess
there’s a first time for everything.
Finally, to delight and relief of all,
a very crucial E# materialised, just
when it really mattered – Tierce de
6
Picardie, eat your heart out! Travis,
you are a miracle-maker. I hope
you’ll be back.”
Jane Smith-Haddon: “Travis was
as enthusiastic and wonderful as
last year. We learnt a lot about
musicality in ensemble playing:
importance of listening to each
other; recognising which parts to
bring out and which to hold back
to let another line come through;
keeping an eye on the conductor;
the need to play differently when
there’s more than one player to
a part. You wouldn’t think one
Bach fugue could keep us happily
occupied for a whole week end….
but with Travis, it did!”
Trevor Boyd: “Before I attended
the Celtic course I thought session
tunes were entertaining melodies
that were fun to play. I knew
there was an element of repetition
but didn’t really understand the
structure. Nigel showed us how
tunes are divided into short
sections, some repeated exactly,
some with slight variation, some
quite different. He showed us how
to build them up from simple major
scales and arpeggios. As a guitarist,
I thought arpeggios were simply
used for accompaniment but Nigel
showed, using various examples,
how they form a key element of
the melody. More importantly we
learned how practising arpeggios
helps with playing tunes. Nigel
brought all these elements together
during his very entertaining session
in Saturday evening’s communal
playing. I also learned helpful
technical tips from the course –
using notes of major pentatonic
Ian Fisher: “The Celtic class had
players with some years experience
of the music and as many who
were comparatively new to it,
so it was to Ni