those were the days

In the sixth month of the great violin adventure, I've spent a lot of time playing folk at this year's Folk Weekend Oxford and also at the first bandstand session of the season, and not quite so much time playing Eine kleine Nachtmusik (K525) as I had planned, although we did play that at Cowley Orchestra this week, which was a nice reminder. I'll get back to that.

Christa the violin making her debut appearance at the bandstand on May 1st.

Meanwhile, as we were jamming random show tunes at the tail end of the bandstand session, it occurred to me that Those were the days might make a nice fiddle tune. Trying it out I realised I really love indulging in the dynamics and tempo changes and going a bit wild with it. It even works an octave down - lots of scope to play around.

Looking up the history of it I learned that it was originally a Russian folk song, which makes sense. Also, it is another addition to my collection of songs I heard in French as a child - it was recorded by Dalida in 1968 as Le temps des fleurs, and I did recognise bits of that now.

Although I've messed around with it for a week, this isn't quite presentable yet. So in lieu of a progress report, here's a video of a Scandi tune I played at the bandstand and recorded this weekend: Äppelbo Gånglåt