Cornwall’s geographical position and historical maritime connections have helped to create a wonderful repertoire of both uniquely Cornish and shared tunes with other regions and countries. Explore some of the music, stories and surprising connections from the point of view of two curious musicians.
Watch the Cornish Trad YouTube channel for videos, channels and playlists.
Interview with Cornish traditional musician Merv Davey
Over on the Cornish National Music Archive website, the creator of the wonderful Sounds Like Cornwall archive, Chris Trevena, has held a series of conversations with Dr Merv Davey. Merv and his brothers are synonymous with the Cornish traditional music revival of the 1970s, and he is also a past Grand Bard of Gorsedh Kernow.…
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For music knows no bounds
Cornish music absorbs it all, celebrating not isolation but connection with other countries and cultures.The Cornish Trad ‘About’ page We began blogging about Cornish traditional music alongside our own musical journey learning and playing tunes from Cornwall. We’ve always been ‘practitioners’ first. At first we learned and played what we were told was Celtic Cornish…
The Cornish recordings in the British Library’s Fred Hamer Collection
We were recently approached by someone from the British Library’s music rights section letting us know about the digitisation of the recordings of folk and traditional music made by Fred Hamer in the 1950s and 60s. It’s always exciting to hear of news like this, as these recordings have never been publicly available before. But…
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Golowan Band’s tune Abbey Slip- a Catalan connection
One of the joys and frustrations of traditional music wherever you are in the world is often not knowing where a tune came from. Or if it’s just your tradition that plays it. The joy is in the music, in playing a tune that you love, and playing it with other people. The frustrations for…
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An old Cornish air – O what is that upon thy head?
An old tune remembered from Nancledra near St Ives and Penzance in west Cornwall from around 1852. It was published in Journal of the Folk Song Society, 1905, No. 7, p.94. We play an instrumental version here with autoharp (Laura Luing), whistle (Paul Antonelli) and violin (Tehmina Goskar). Recorded separately then mixed and mastered by…
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Cornish National Music Archive launched
In August 2020 the Cornish National Music Archive (CNMA) was launched online. In their first blog post, CNMA co-ordinator Kate Neale said: As music researchers and enthusiasts, we wanted to bring wider attention to these important pieces of Cornish musical history and culture, and help grow the collection itself – which was where the idea…
“Accidental Mini Album” of Cornish fiddle music released on SoundCloud
Cornish fiddle player Neil McMahon (of Fools Rock amongst others) has recorded an “Accidental Mini Album” of Cornish traditional music played on the fiddle. Neil said “this weekend I inadvertently made a little album (sort of). It’s rough and ready, full of mistakes like proper folk belongs to be, entirely unpasturised and GM free.” Whilst…
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Jolly Rumble-O! Helston Flora Day and its music
On 8 May 2018 we made it to our first Helston Flora Day (also known as Furry Day). We gathered at 6.30am at Penzance Bus Station for the first bus to Helston. When we arrived we headed for breakfast at the Coinage Hall pub before wandering around town on the tail of the Hal-an-Tow, a…
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Unite and unite: Padstow May Day and its music
The Padstow Hobby Hoss comes out of a building watched by a group, he is being led by a man in a very odd costume – something like a Morris Dancer. People are singing in the background. The man in the horse-like costume keeps backing into the crowd and moving them back – this appears…
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Women and Cornish Trad workshop is online
https://youtu.be/SCN2xYd64v8 As part of the Hypatia Trust’s Women of Cornish Music project we had planned to deliver a workshop in Penzance on 4 April. In a little under a week I converted the workshop into a webinar and delivered it on 11 April. It was quite an experience, a slightly out of body experience, but…
Feature interview with Hilary Coleman and Frances Bennett
Gwaryoryon (Playing People). L-R Hilary Coleman (Clarinet), Liz Davies (Accordion), Jo Tagney (Fiddle) (courtesy of Hilary Coleman). I interviewed Hilary Coleman and Frances Bennett over Zoom a few weeks ago about their journeys in Cornish traditional music. I asked them about their views of being performers, composers, teachers and leaders of a stellar list of…
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The story of Henry Jenner
https://youtu.be/-ZWfPD1fJrQ In 2018, MAGA, the Cornish Language Partnership, produced a short documentary film in Cornish about Henry Jenner (1848-1934). He successfully campaigned to get Cornwall recognised as a Celtic nation and prove Cornish is a living language, as well as helping to establish Gorsedh Kernow in 1928. Supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF),…
Discovering Mary Kelynack’s polka
It’s always exciting when you read a fleeting note with a piece of music saying it was reconstructed from a fragment found in the Royal Institution of Cornwall. I first came across Mary Kelynack’s (as it is more affectionately known) pouring over the hundreds of tunes in Racca 2 – the largest compendium of old…
Cornish traditional music playlist on SoundCloud
SoundCloud is a great place for people to upload their own recordings, and musicians in Cornwall and beyond have, over the years, uploaded tunes to share with the world. We’ve picked up on some of them and created a Cornish playlist. It’s a mixture of studio, home, and live recordings, which when brought together, reflect…
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Cornish Trad playlist on Spotify
We’ve gradually been adding Cornish trad music to a playlist on Spotify. There’s not a huge amount of material out there, as Cornish traditional music is still relatively unknown, but we have uncovered some great recordings of both old and new tunes, and some songs. There’s 46 tracks in the playlist so far. If you…
Money to the Moon live at Degol Stul – recordings of Cornish trad
When Money to the Moon played at the Degol Stul 2020 nos lowen we were lucky to have our set recorded by Brendan McGreal of Cornish Underground. We have posted four of the seven tracks to the Money to the Moon SoundCloud so that you can hear them. Scroll down to have a listen. The…
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Drive the cold winter away
To mask and to mum kind neighbours will come With wassails of nut-brown ale,To drink and carouse to all in the house As merry as bucks in the dale;Where cake, bread, and cheese is brought for your fees To make you the longer stay;At the fire to warm ’twill do you no harm, To drive…
Who were the women of Cornish music?
We’re thrilled that our friends at the Hypatia Trust, led by filmmaker, musician and researcher Florence Browne, have won funding to undertake the Women of Cornish Music Past and Present project. Supported by a £33,600 grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and further funding from the Cornwall Heritage Trust and Screen Cornwall, the project…
Cornish traditional music makes the 2019 Celtic Top 20
We’ve just heard that the track An Diberdhyans / Dons Bewnans (Trad / Mike O’Connor) from the Andy Law & Friends album The Long and the Short of It has made it to 4th place in the Irish and Celtic Music podcast Celtic Top 20. We played fiddle and mandolin on this track. The podcast…
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Vote for Cornish music in the Celtic Top 20
We’ve been listeners of Marc Gunn’s Irish & Celtic Music Podcast for some time now so we were completely thrilled when he played a few tracks of Cornish Trad on the recent editions of the podcast, from the charity album The Long and the Short of It by Andy Law and Friends. If you don’t…
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