Music, Music, Music, we love our wonderful variety of music for dancing and listening but sometimes it’s hard to find ECD music. Here are some places you can buy music: iTunes has a few CD’s you can download right off the internet quite inexpensively- Bare Necessities, English Echoes, and Dan Hall Players are very good and include dances that we are doing. In iTunes you can actually see the list of dances and listen to samples online prior to purchasing. iTunes is a free download usable on any computer, not just Apple products. Another source is http://www.cdss.org which has lots of CDs and books but they don’t always have lists of the contents/tracks. See: http://www.cdss.org/tl_files/cdss/documents/how-to/ecdrecordinglistcdss.pdf. Some direct sources:
http://www.nicolasbroadbridge.com/Welcome_to_Nicolas_Broadbridge.html
http://www.cds-boston.org/ecdc/
http://home.earthlink.net/~gmrwebsite/
Dance Opportunities: Sydney Playford Dance Group, first Tuesday of each month except January – unless other things like Easter or festivals clash. 7.30-9.30pm, at the Bush Music Club hut (Hut 44), Addison Road Community Centre, 142 Addison Road, Marrickville (in Sydney, NSW). Led by Julie and Alex Bishop (who met at Sydney Playford in 1978). See their facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/sydneyplayford Map and directions for the Addison Road Community Centre’s location at http://addisonrdcentre.org.au/contact-us/ Parking is available: turn right after entering main gates. The Bush Music Club hut is towards the far end (recognisable by the painting of bush music activities along the outer side wall!)
Netherfield Ball “Recreated”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1yWRbyRX7Y&feature=youtu.be&t=01
Amazing Resources:
Find dances! Search by name, author, formation, figures, etc. Database by Anthony Heywood
Wow! List of 1,200 videos of English Country Dancing organized alphabetically by David Tilove, complete with links: http://lambertvillecountrydancers.org/videolist3.html Even though videos can’t really capture the “Oh, I’m flying to music!” feel of ECD, this is an eminently useful resource for learning dances. Take a look at all the terrific links on their Notes page.
Here’s a great resource for musical notation: http://abcnotation.com/searchTunes?q=site:playford&f=c&o=a&s=0
Want to know Sydney better? Google “Inside Sydney Australia” to find a very useful site with many links to more about places to go, things to see, how to get there, etc. If you’re visiting, please let us know, perhaps we’ll get to dance with you! Our site features on the Sydney dance page of Inside-Sydney-Australia.com but we aren’t able to link to it at the moment.
News From Friends:
Australian Early Colonial Dance – new research http://www.colonialdance.com.au
Heather Clarke is pleased to announce the latest update for the only website which presents
the history of early Australian colonial dance and music.The Quadrille Arrives, explores how the French Revolution inspired the quadrille and how Francis Girard, the convict dancing master, introduced it to the colony. They’ve included the earliest quadrille music published in Australia and a beautiful photo of the first Australian-made piano. All this plus news of a heritage ball in Sydney.
Bush Music Club, Sydney, http://www.bushmusic.org.au/ For over 50 years The Bush Music Club Inc. has pursued its aim of collecting, publishing, performing and popularising Australian traditions of song, dance, verse and folklore. It runs two bushdancess each month, a dance workshop at Pennant Hills, a music workshop at Addison Rd Community Centre, Marrickville, two colonial balls, as well as publishing a regular magazine called Mulga Wire and various books, tapes and CDs.
Country Dance and Song Society: http://www.cdss.org/ a source of music, books, lists of dance organizations, etc.
Dance Kaleidoscope: http://www.dancekaleidoscope.org.au/ note their invitation to Join them at Zamia Hall on April 13, 2013 for a day of dancing workshops and an evening dance.
Early Dance Consort: http://www.earlydanceconsort.com.au/
Earthly Delights: http://www.earthlydelights.com.au/ Canberra and around the world with Classes, Trips, Jane Austen Festival and more.
Folk Federation of New South Wales: http://jam.org.au/
Sydney English Country Dance 