Greenbank Folk Club presents a tune writing workshop with Miranda Rutter – exploring how to draw inspiration from nature and our surroundings.

Miranda is a fiddle and viola player who has recently written ‘Bird Tunes’: a suite of tunes inspired by bird song.

This workshop will cater for all abilities of players and will be suitable both for people who have never written a tune before through to seasoned composers wanting to explore a different approach. We’ll start by examining the structure of traditional tunes by way of giving ourselves a structure or safety net in which to experiment and play with notes and phrases, en-route to making a tune.

If you've never written a tune before - this workshop will be a valuable 'way in' for you - providing structures and starting points as well as exploring how to draw inspiration from your surroundings.

The workshop will run from midday until approx 5pm, upstairs at The Greenbank Pub and there will be a lunch break as well as break out times to try your own tune writing. Do bring along any recorded ‘found sound’ that inspires you or photos of landscapes, for example - however this is not essential as we will find inspiration on the day.

This workshop day is intended to be accessible for instrumentalists of all abilities - if you're not sure whether it's for you please reach out to Alex from Greenbank Folk Club and they will be happy to discuss any questions you have. Contact details below.

More about Miranda and 'Bird Tunes':
Miranda is a folk musician, fiddle and viola player, composer, performer and teacher. She performs with Methera who focus on making folk music through the voice of the string quartet. She has also performed with the English Acoustic Collective and Morris Offspring in ‘On English Ground’ and with Chris Wood in his ‘Listening to the River’. Miranda also regularly performs with Rob Harbron and Sam Sweeney for Boss Morris.
She is also a much sought-after tutor, having taught on Newcastle University’s Folk Music degree course, at Folkworks’ Fiddles on Fire Festival, as part of the English Acoustic Collective Summer School team and is a core tutor for the National Youth Folk Ensemble.

Miranda Rutter is joined by Rob Harbron on concertina and Sam Sweeney on fiddle to present Bird Tunes, an exquisite new suite of folk tunes with birdsong at their core. Miranda has crafted every tune in the project out of fragments of birdsong which she recorded on her phone during woodland walks near her home. The suite is both a love-song to the intricacy and beauty of birdsong, and a timely reminder of the struggles with habitat loss and human-made dangers faced by migrating birds today.

“This is a suite of tunes inspired by birds and their song. I’ve become so entranced by birds, I’ve found myself recording them in the woods, fields and wetlands near my home. Excitedly bringing home these slivers of sonic magic, I ‘transcribed’ or learnt to play snippets of these birds’ songs on the fiddle, then wove these fragments of melody into folk dance tune forms – my other musical fascination. In some of these tunes, I’ve purely pieced together birds’ phrases, in others I’ve written ‘answer’ phrases to their ‘questions’ and in others I’ve written the whole tune but been inspired by a bird in some way.
I follow in a long line of musicians through from prehistory, who’ve been inspired by birdsong – it being such an enchanting wonder of the world! For me, listening deeper, discovering intricacies and learning to recognise birds by their song has made me care even more about birds and their habitat. As so many species are struggling in this rapidly changing, human- dominated world, I hope that my contribution can help spark intrigue, spread awareness and in turn, generate action to turn the tide of fortune for these awe-inspiring creatures.”

Greenbank Folk Club is committed to developing our access & inclusion in every aspect of what we do. Please get in touch if you have any particular access needs or would like to make a suggestion for how we can do things better in the future. We encourage you to fill out our survey after each event so we can hear your thoughts - QR code available in the venue.

This event takes place upstairs at The Greenbank Pub, Easton, Bristol BS5 6DP - unfortunately there is currently no wheelchair access to this space as it's accessed by stairs.

£20 tickets are available in advance - tickets on the door will also be £20. We strongly advise that you book in advance if you'd like to attend as we cannot guarantee there will be door tickets available if the workshop sells out.

Please tell your friends and share this event - live music, storytelling and dancing only takes place with the support of the community around us.

We would like to thank our partner projects, The Greenbank, EFDSS (English Folk Dance and Song Society) and Arts Council England for their support in this project.

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Entry requirements: no age restrictions (under 18s to be accompanied by an adult over 21yrs, 1:1 ratio) — Read more — Read less