On 21st March 2015 Jenine added a great wodge of Festivals and a club in Australia and New Zealand, including some of these:.
So of course she is added to the list of legendary Heroes of the Map
As Jenine says, “We get so many visitors from the UK, I’m sure lots of them would appreciate knowing where the good music is!” Wherever you are, you never know when a new friend might be coming your way so put your event on the map and make sure they know how to find you.
By a brilliant coincidence, Mike Richards, a musician from Sheffield in England, received The Map’s Facebook post about the Great Southern Old Time Fiddlers Convention, while on his way to Chattanooga, just in time for Mike and his wife Jill to go along and enjoy the event. They had a ball and Mike was blown away by the enthusiasm and quality of the musicians as you can see in his comments.
The Map cannot guarantee that level of personal service for every event but if you wanted a reason to check The Map before you go anywhere, Mike’s experience should be in your mind. And if you want more people to enjoy an event that you know about, make sure it’s on The Map.
Local folk music events like the Old Time Fiddlers Convention make travelling a real experience, no tour guide can give you that kind of opportunity to make friends and enjoy real culture at first hand.
Mike is a member of the Dogwood Rose group who specialise in American music so this was a priceless experience for him. Well actually it cost $10 but you know what I mean.
Just a sample of what’s been added to the Folk Music Map recently
I bet the acoustics are brilliant
The Great Old Time Fiddlers Convention in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Have a look at their website and scroll down for fabulous photos of this classic performance competition in an auditorium to die for (The map does not use hyperbole lightly)
(Thanks David Bennett for adding this and a lot more events to the map)
Everything Dulcimer might be the most comprehensive and well-maintained folk music web resource that the Folk Music Map has encountered.
So of course I’ve plundered it for contacts and I hope some of the amazing range of festivals and workshops there will be putting themselves the map soon.
But if Everything Dulcimer was Everything Folk Music the map would be redundant. It has a very full, current and well presented calendar of events and a huge array of resources for people who play or want to play the dulcimer and traditional music. And it has several maps too :o)
Jamie Katz and Twickfolk are the first Heroes of the map.
I’ll be looking out for opportunities to make more of these prestigious awards, so do feel free to nominate a potential hero on the feedback form. You’ll have to provide a description of what the person has done to justify the award, the two examples we have should give you an idea what the Map Hero Judging panel* is looking for.
Joan of Arc (1882) by Dante Gabriel Rosetti, his last painting discovered on his easel after his death. Joan here looks very like Lizzie Siddal, Rosetti’s wife and model who died from a drug overdose after a stillbirth in 1862, 2 years before the first version of this painting. After her death Rosetti became depressed and his death was connected to drug abuse. So this is a painting of a great romantic hero, by a great romantic artist obsessed with a great artistic muse. The painting can be seen in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England.
*It’s just Chris
Now we are proper with an easy to remember and obvious web address
The Folk Music Map is International!
I’ve worked out how to do this cleanly (I hope). The data forms for clubs and festivals now include country and the map location can be entered as [UK Postcode], [Town, Country], or [GPS Coordinates], and there’s a link on the form to a FAQ page that explains each of those things including how to get your GPS coordinates from Google Maps.
Next step is whether the way the map describes events is relevant to the kinds of events you’ll find in different countries, but it’s always a work in progress and I look forward to feedback.
So if you know of events anywhere in the world put them on the map or ask the organisers to do it.
(Thanks to Maria McAlister of the Arts Council, Northern Ireland, for prompting me to see how I could make this change)
The map seems to be settling down now with an impressive number of events and only a few new ones coming in each day. It certainly presents a picture of a rich array of folk music across the country and, if anybody is feeling part of a beleaguered minority where they live, the national picture should give you some confidence.
Image stolen from the Swaledale Festival Website. In this photo they were celebrating winning the Prime Minister’s Big Society Award
67 Festivals (not the full total of course) is particularly impressive. Any time of year you can take off and enjoy new musical experiences in new surroundings. I’m especially pleased with the number of small festivals on the map, a real chance to make new friends and feel part of a national/local community.
What’s next? It won’t be another layer on the map just yet as I think I have to learn more about the technology before I add more layers while keeping it easy to use. But meanwhile I do have a new plan to extend the map and it might be of particular interest to musicians and their supporters. Watch this space.
The map started life on the Break a Leg! website but it’s growing fast and needs a proper home. The content from the original pages on Break a Leg! is moving here and the old pages will have links so you can still find everything.
The Blog on this site will keep you up to date on developments on the Folk Music Map, any posts here will also appear on the Map’s Facebook page.
One of the main aims of moving is to give the map a web address that will be easier to find on searches and to have a memorable main address which is folkmusicmap.com
Folk Music Map 