Rhythmic Concepts for Modern Folk Tunes

Name: Rhythmic Concepts for Modern Folk Tunes
Start: 2025-04-11T16:00:00+01:00
End: 2025-04-13T16:00:00+01:00
Location: Halsway Manor

Friday 11 Apr 4pm — Sunday 13 Apr 4pm, 2025

To make a booking enquiry please complete the form below. We will contact you to confirm availability and complete your booking.

Course Enquiry

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Pricing

Full board per person (tuition, activities, all meals & accommodation):

£330 – single occupancy ensuite room/cabin
£285 – sharing an ensuite room/cabin
£285 – single occupancy non-ensuite room (limited availability)
£225 – sharing non-ensuite room

Camping per person (tuition, activities, all meals):

£215

Non Resident (tuition, activities, all meals except breakfast):

£200

Get a closer look at the accommodation options here.

Evan Carson and Ford Collier are excited to present this exciting and innovative course designed for fretted, wind and string instruments, and percussionists. Expect an exploration of rhythm for modern folk tunes and accompaniment. Rhythm is a natural force of nature and it’s inside all of us. Come find out how to use it…

Are you a melody/tune player who needs to accompany yourself?
Fancy learning tunes in 15/8 or 25/16?
Interested in playing multiple polyrhythms with your body?
Want to brush up on your guitar chops or bodhran playing?

This course is suitable for any musician who want to further their rhythmic abilities including reading, counting, technical development, stickings, and strokes.

Taught through the mediums of bodhran, guitar and whistle, Evan and Ford will guide you through different rhythmic languages and systems and show you how to apply them to your individual instruments.

You’ll be aiming for technical development of different stickings, strokes and limb independence for percussion, fretted accompaniment, wind and strings. You’ll also develop your reading, counting and ability to communicate rhythm in a common language with other instruments and players.

Who is it for?

This course is aimed at instrumentalists who consider themselves to be playing at any level between beginner (excluding complete beginners) and intermediate. You should play either percussion or a wind, string or fretted instrument.

You do not need to be able to read music or learn by ear – part of the course will include some basic theory foundation for reading rhythms.

You’ll spend the majority of the workshops working in a large group with the tutors, with some opportunity for small group work, both directed and self-led, and one-to-one teaching.

We’ll send you a timetable in advance along with some pre-course material, and more resources will be shared during the course.

The Team

Evan Carson is a professional percussionist who has recorded and toured across the UK, EU, US and Russia. He is well-known as a bodhran and kit player in the UK Folk and European Progressive scenes. He has performed with award winning acts: Kate Rusby, Flook, Seth Lakeman and the West End production of Come From Away. He currently tours with Sam Kelly, The Drystones, Iamthemorning and Nobodies Wolf Child. Photo credit: Kate Griffin.

Ford Collier is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and performer of folk music who specialises in weaving influences from diverse traditions into his music. Ford is an experienced educator, having tutored on Halsway Manor Young Folk courses since 2014. He currently tours with his band Mishra and appears with Auka and Matchume Zango.

Together Evan and Ford draw upon a combined education that spans the rhythms and languages of India, Brazil, Scotland, Mozambique, Bulgaria, Israel and beyond.

Unless otherwise specified, our midweek courses check-in from 4pm on a Monday and check out by 10am on Friday, and our weekend courses check in from 4pm on a Friday and depart on Sunday by 4pm. Dinner on the first night is usually at 6.30pm, and in general, no formal teaching or introductory sessions take place until after this.

Enjoy the area, bring a friend, share a room, & save money

You can book on a course at Halsway and bring a friend who can explore the area while using Halsway as a base for meals and accommodation. Halsway Manor is in the Quantock Hills (England’s first designated National Landscape (formally AONB). We’re just minutes away from the West Somerset Railway (Britain's longest steam railway), a short drive or bus ride from Somerset’s Jurassic coast (ideal for fossil hunting), and surrounded by dramatic scenery and changing landscapes, from the wild hills of Exmoor to the flat expanse of the Somerset Levels.