Martin and Shan Graebe's website

 
 
 

 

 

Welcome to our website!

From here you can find your way to the other pages using the links to the right of the screen. The main pages are:

   Latest News - for the latest news about what we are doing see below

   About us - who we are and what we do

   Lists  -  Gigs and talks, bibliography, discography and links to related websites

   Parallel Strands - pages for our 2005 CD with details, words, samples and photos

   Dusty Diamonds - pages for our second CD, released August 2008

   Martin's Songbook - A Collection of songs written or set by Martin

   Voice - download the hand-outs for Shan's Voice workshops

   Education - download the hand-outs for Shan's work with SEN teachers

  Song School  Songs - as taught by Shan at the Baring-Gould Song School

We will continue to add material to this site and try to keep the 'Lists' page up to date. Shan is still writing handouts related to her voice workshops and teaching and we will add anything new as she does so.

We hope that you enjoy exploring the site. If you would like to get in touch with us then contact details are on the card below.

If you have found this site useful, then you might like to have a look at our other site that deals specifically with the song collection of Sabine Baring-Gould - www.sbgsongs.org. There you will find information about that wonderful collector and an increasing number of songs selected from his marvelous hoard.

 

Martin and Shan

Updated 31st Oct 2011

 

 

 


 

Latest News:

Falling back to Earth

In the last of these notes I was talking about Spring flowers.Now the colours are all in the leaves that are only just starting to fall from the trees. And in between we've done a lot of singing (and talking) in some lovely places and met some old friends as well as made new ones. The Sea Music Festival at Mystic was certainly a highlight but there have been so many other enjoyable festivals - Chippenham, Sidmouth, Whitby and, of course, the Baring-Gould Folk Festival and Song School that we have just returned from, tired but happy. Next weekend we head for Hungary for a few days and then settle down to doing a few folk clubs during the winter.

After a friendly discussion over a few glasses with Ron and Maddy we have decided that we are not going to continue to sing together as G and T. We are pleased that a number of people said how much they enjoyed what we did together and we are sorry that we have disappointed some people who had been hoping to hear us again. We plan on sinking a few more glasses together and you can be sure that we will still be singing in the other combinations that you have seen us in.

We have just produced a second edition of the book of songs from the Baring-Gould collection 'Come And I Will Sing You' that we have been using to teach songs at festivals and other events over the last year. We are now planning to produce a second book, this time of sea songs - watch this space!

We also plan to revise and add to the songs that are on this site and also those on www.sbgsongs.org.  Shan has now completed the transcriptions of Baring-Gould's 'Personal Copy' manuscript and we are now checking these through. Once this has been completed (and it will take some months to do) we hope to find a way to put them up on the web. So we'd better get on with it. We'll look forward to seeing you at one of our gigs - see 'Lists'. (31st Oct 2011)

 

Springing into action!

The daffodils and crocuses are out, we are enjoying the Cheltenham Folk Festival weekend, and it has been an amazing couple of weeks. Most importantly we became grandparents. Eleiah Cowan has joined the family - the smallest and brightest of our jewels.

Now back to folk song. G and T sang at the Cheltenham Festival last night and we got some great feedback. We are now gathering pace as a quartet and looking forward to more appearances during the year. But Martin and Shan are also taking on more gigs and there are still a number in the pipeline - see the lists page to find a date near you.

The launch event for the Baring-Gould Manuscripts on the EFDSS 'Take Six' website went off well last week, and we are already seeing the site being accessed and used. Visit the Devon Tradition Project website to find out more and then go to the Take Six pages to look at the manuscripts.You can see a YouTube video of Martin and Shan singing at the event here.

Now the sun is blazing on my keyboard, time to get on with the singing. We hope to see you soon. (12th Feb 2011)

   

Digging in - or out!

After a hectic few weeks we've settled back home - just in time for the weather to go all funny and unseasonably cold. A great excuse to settle in and update websites, tidy up files and then get on with all that writing that needed doing. And, of course, to start planning next year's travels, gigs and diversions. A few things have already been added to the gig list for 2011 - more will be added as they happen.

Over the last few months we have started working with Ron and Maddy Taylor in a new group that we have named 'G and T' (for Graebe and Taylor). We will be performing at a few venues with this line-up over the next few months. See the gig list and, if you want to know more about G&T click here 

This time last year I was working on the article that has just been published in the Folk Music Journal - Gustav Holst, Songs of the West and the English Folk Music Movement. Though it started with Baring-Gould it moved far beyond what I had expected, both in terms of content and length. But it was an interesting and educational exercise and has brought me into contact with some more very interesting people. (8th Dec 2010)


Our 'World Tour' 2010

We had a great time travelling in Hong Kong, Australia, Fiji and the USA and thoroughly enjoyed meeting and making friends. Thank you to all who made our trip so much fun and for exchanging your songs with us. If we still have any money when we've added up the cost of our lovely holiday we just might do it again. It is a real joy to be with people who enjoy the music that we love so much ourselves.

And now back to summer of singing nearer to home. Even though Shan is saying that I'm not allowed out until I've done some serious work on 'The Book' we will be at a few festivals and have a couple of trips planned to Ireland in the Autumn. And we have a raft of new songs to learn! Watch this space! (7th June 2010)

 

Shan's 'Education' hand-outs and song sheets

Shan is, at present, working with the Sing Up organisation in the Southwest, to deliver a number of training sessions in using song with children who have special educational needs. These sessions are being carried out in association with our friends at Wren Music. The hand-outs for these sessions, as well as the song-sheets, can be found in the 'Education' section. (Jan 2010)

 

Re-working the website

 I am reviewing and re-building my websites at the moment, making them more consistent and easy to use (I hope). I am trying to finish this one first and will then complete www.sbgsongs.org. The main changes I am making here are:

  • I have added a section of the songs that Shan has taught in the Baring-Gould Song School in 2008 and 2009
  • I have changed all the sheet music to the Sibelius 'Scorch' format. We have found that this works well and makes it possible for us to provide a high quality song sheet for printing and a good system for playing back tunes while the score is displayed.
  • The 'Parallel Strands' page is now a single page from which all the song sheets can be accessed, rather than having a separate page for each song. 
  • We have removed the midi files that were available for the songs from 'Parallel Strands' - the Scorch files play back in the same way and are more controllable.
  • I have repaired a number of links and corrected a number of spulling mistookes

I hope that you will find these changes work for you - let us know if you have any suggestions.

 

Shan's handouts

We have had great feedback about Shan's handouts from her voice workshops. We are keeping these up to date. We will be adding a new section shortly for the hand-outs for her training in song for teachers of children with special educational needs and, particularly, her approach to the use of communication aids in singing classes.  (Nov 09)

 

A Busy Year

We have got about a fair bit over the last year, with trips to Australia, New Zealand and the East Coast of the USA, as well as getting out to a number of clubs and festivals in the British Isles. We have met some wonderful people and had some great times - thank you all for making us feel so welcome. Shan has now threatened to lock Martin in his study until he has finished putting together his book on Baring-Gould - but will let him out for more travel and gigs - and to mow the lawn.

(Jul 09)

 

Lists

The 'lists' section now has our confirmed gigs and the list of publications by Martin is now more complete, though there are a few more to be found and added.

(Oct 08)

 

Martin's Songbook

I have now added the sheet music for all the songs from my songbook 'Jack in the Green and Other Heroes' to the site. You can download, play and print the songs from there - and then sing them!

(September 2008)

 

Dusty Diamonds

 Our new CD 'Dusty Diamonds' was successfully launched at the Whitby Folk Week. Our sincere thanks to the musicians who played and sang on the CD: Becki Driscoll, Nick Wyke and Keith Kendrick and Sylvia Needham.  Thanks also to Doug and Sue Bailey for their support and encouragement. For details of the CD go here (or click the link to the right of the screen).

(August 2008)

 

Cherington Bells

Tim Eldridge, who runs the website for the village of Cherington in Gloucestershire, recently challenged folkies to supply a tune for the song texts he had recently unearthed that tell of dark deeds of bell-napping in the early 19th Century. Martin rose to the challenge and gave one of the songs a new tune. Read the story and listen to the song on the Cherington Village website. You can also download, play and print the sheet music here.  (August 2008)