Haver Quartet Strings Workshop

Steeple Church 15th January 2025

                                                                                    

Twenty five young people from seven Academies across Dundee came together with the Haver Quartet to work on arrangements of Neil Gow’s Lament and The Wellermen and then joined them in performance in the evening. The players had been learning their parts with their teachers but had never played the pieces together before.

Learning points for the workshop were:
1. Nonverval communication
2. Ornamentation in traditional music
3. Collaborative rehearsal techniques

They started with arrangements in four parts by Georgia Nettleton but worked with the quartet to add their own original content to the music.

“We got to learn about arranging stuff”.     

    “We’ve played with musicians before but having to arrange the music was very interesting”.

At the end of the workshop the participants nominated their "Best Mistake"::The top three were:
1. Realising you are bowing in the wrong direction
2. Getting lost
3. Finding a tricky bit but carrying on anyway.
Of these the clear winner was “getting lost”