Six more sleeps till next workshop

Just a further reminder that it is now six more sleeps until the next workshop.

This will be held on Sunday 2nd October 5-7pm in back room of The White Hart, High Road, Ashton Keynes with the intention to lurk around for Open Mic a little later on in the evening.

Unfortunately, despite considerable effort, it has not been possible to arrange a communal evening meal to bridge the gap so as a default, any out of towners wishing to stay on for Open Mic will need to bear in mind the need to have sufficient sustenance to keep them going or make arrangements with local based TMAK47ers.

Please come wearing your TMAK47 t-shirts as after the success of the previous photo session we have something else up our sleeves (despite there being no real sleeves on t-shirts, it's just a turn of speech!).

Also don't forget your cheque books for this term's subs of £30 or pro rata'd to £20 for newcomers.

All practice material can be found at http://soundcloud.com/the-magnificent-ak47/sets/currentpracticematerial - please contact themagnificentak47@gmail.com if you are having any issues with downloading any pieces, or ask someone under the age of 25 to help!

By the way, these natty little hats in the picture can be purchased from http://www.kaboodle.com/reviews/baby-viking-hat-kit should you feel the need.

Current Practice Material

The Current Practice Material has been updated and tidied up to include recently uploaded pieces such as "Haul Away, Joe", "Magazena" and a few others including the ones we started learning at the first session of the Autumn Term.

Have a listen, download the tracks and put them on your iPod / MP3 player and get learning / re-learning your parts for our next get together at the Workshop on Sunday 2nd October.

Visit our slot on Soundcloud at http://soundcloud.com/the-magnificent-ak47/sets/currentpracticematerial/

Georgian singing on the www # 1

We stumbled across this from a starting point brought to our attention by brother Alan. This is a little potted history of Georgian singing that helped pass the time whilst eating tea the other while.

It is quite educational with an English commentary and mildly interesting so have a look and learn something to impress your mates with next time you are out drinking and the topic of the origins of Georgian polyphonic choral traditions crops up in the conversation.

Click here for Georgian Polyphonic Singing and this lead to Georgian women singers in Kendal of all places, and thence to the Rustavi Choir who seem to have quite a lot of material.

Finally for now, you might be interested some music you can download from Amazon (other sources are available and we will blog about them later) at this link. We have the two albums by the Georgian Voices and mighty fine they are although one are two pieces are a more for the real devotee rather than the casual listener if you take our meaning.

Amazing thing the internet, how you can travel the world whiilst having your tea!

P.S. We will follow up Alan's original link as it has uncovered another cell of Spookyness but that will be another day.

The Quite Magnificent AK47 2010/2011 Season

A quite magnificent set of photos from after our Sunday night workshop to celebrate a great 2010 / 2011 season.

These photos look really great, like the 18 blokes in a boat in this one and also with everyone looking very imposing indeed in some of the others.

Thanks to Lars for the quality camera and thanks to Nigel for pressing the button just at the right moments..

The full set of photos can be found on our Flickr site.

Autumn Term 2011

A great turn out on Sunday evening for the first session of the new Autumn Term.

Lovely to see everyone again although there were a couple of the Old Guard missing, but it was very encouraging to see so many returning.

It was also great to see so many new faces, many of whom had come from quite a way (North Oxford and Stroud) to join us.

It was really good to get started straight away with some new material to get everyone on a level playing field right from the off. These three new pieces, the Spooky Men stalwart "And I love her", South African / Zimbabwean favourite "Shosholoza" and another genre we had not yet explored, that very Blokey of eras, olde Elizabethan Englande with "Ah Robin".

Chris Samuel has very kindly recorded all of these and they can now be found as Practice Pieces in The Magnificent AK47 Soundcloud.

Here's to a good new term.

Talk Like a Pirate Day 2011

It has been brought to our attention that we may have missed an opportunity to dress up like pirates and make strange noises.

Not being one to let these sort of opportunities pass lightly we have decided to bring this to your attention too!

For even more information see the reference on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day.

In honour of the fact we have changed the language used on our Facebook page from our native English to being English (Pirate)

See the picture on this page.

One can't let the opportunity pass to say "Ahaaaaaaaar"!

One more sleep till more Magnificence

Not long to go now till we meet again.

Hopefully there will be a good turn out from the old lags and one or two or more new Blokes turning up, wide eyed and innocent, to find out about just what it is we get up to when we get together.

Our fame and repuation (!) have now spread far and wide, well as far as Cricklade, Malmesbury and Oxford way, to tempt others of similar mind and voice to venture forth to join our merry troupe of Minstrels.

This time we meet in the School Hall, 5 - 7 pm.

Remember to come wearing your T-Shirt!