This meeting marks the tenth anniversary of the first meeting of SLEGS which took place on 1st October 2011, in the Laigh Room at St Cecilia’s Hall. There was a great turnout of eleven members, including three who attended the inaugural meeting; Rob Mackillop, Gordon Ferries and Bill Samson. Rob, Bill and Philip Lord have organised the meetings up until now, and decided that it was time for a ‘regime change’.  Chris Jupp and Eric Thomas are the new management and will take over running SLEGS after today’s meeting. Rob took his usual role as master of ceremonies today and as this was also his own 30th anniversary as a lute player, he started by recounting his life as a musician, including his time at Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, studying guitar in Italy and buying his first lute – an archlute – on which he learned how to play continuo from figured bass in three weeks...

October 2021 will mark ten years since our first meeting. We feel this is worth a celebration! As the website reports show, a lot has happened in that time, and although attendance numbers are often low, many of us always look forward to the meetings, and have missed them through the pandemic period.  We plan to resume meetings on Saturday 9th October 2021, at Chris Elmes’ place*, but this time with the addition of cake! Feel free to bring your own drink of choice!  There’s also another reason this meeting will be a special one: Rob, Philip and Bill will be handing over the organisation of future meetings to Chris Jupp and Eric Thomas during this meeting. So, there will be a look back to what we’ve done, but also a look forward from Chris and Eric about their vision for the society in the coming months and years.  We would like everyone to be as Covid-safe as possible, and...

SLEGS will go into hibernation until the coronavirus scare is over. We tried a Zoom meeting, but the consensus seems to be that it is not a good alternative. So, stay well, wear a mask in public, and keep playing! A further announcement will appear in due course.

Well, this was a change from our usual meetings! Thanks to Covid-19, we thought it might be interesting to hold a Zoom conference-style meeting. Did it work? Well, not quite as hoped, but probably as expected. Thirteen people tuned in, with five people offering to play. Before I get into who played what, there are a few comments I’d like to make to potentially improve matters should we do another Zoom meeting in the future. Sound: It’s a complex issue. Having a USB microphone helps considerably, as long as you make some audio choices in the Zoom platform. Even if you don’t use an external microphone, you can still improve the quality of sound for music, as outlined in this video:   Visuals: The next thing to consider is how you present yourself when performing, and The Lute Society has a very helpful video from someone who really knows what he is talking about, though he is really talking...

The 34th meeting of SLEGS will take place on Saturday 19th September, 2020. Visitors are most welcome. The venue is Chris Elmes’s place – 1F1, 25 Haddington Place, EH7 4AF (the left side of Leith Walk between Annandale St and MacDonald Rd). Parking is unrestricted off Leith Walk on weekends; MacDonald Road or Hopetoun Crescent is the best area. Time: 1pm for a 1.30pm start. Two or three hours, depending on contributions from members. There will be a charge of £1 a head for the use of the venue. If anyone wishes to make a presentation, please contact Rob MacKillop with some details: robmackillop@gmail.com. Otherwise, just turn up at the address stated above. Any questions, ask Rob.

In the absence of Rob MacKillop, Bill Samson was ‘master of ceremonies’. We had a turnout of eight, four of them new faces to SLEGS. After introducing ourselves we got down to some music making. First up was Stuart McLuckie, playing his Paulo Busato 11c baroque lute.  He played an anonymous French piece “Le Gris de Lin”, a charming Minuet by S.L. Weiss and an anonymous ‘Lesson’ arranged by Linda Sayce.  Stuart’s playing was assured and fluent and the pieces were well interpreted. Bill Samson took the floor next with his most recent self-made guitar, strung with gut trebles and Aquila Ambra 900 basses.  This year marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of the great Italian/French composer Ferdinando Carulli.  Bill played three pieces by Carulli; starting off with a Waltz, then  an Andantino.  Bill spoke about the use ‘notes inegales’ in the baroque era and evidence for their survival into the 20th century.  Miguel Llobet recorded Sor’s B-minor...

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If you would like to join just attend one of our quarterly meetings!

The 33rd meeting of SLEGS will take place on Saturday 7th March, 2020. Visitors are most welcome. The venue is Chris Elmes’s place – 1F1, 25 Haddington Place, EH7 4AF (the left side of Leith Walk between Annandale St and MacDonald Rd). Parking is unrestricted off Leith Walk on weekends; MacDonald Road or Hopetoun Crescent is the best area. Time: 1pm for a 1.30pm start. Two or three hours, depending on contributions from members. There will be a charge of £1 a head for the use of the venue. If anyone wishes to make a presentation, please contact Rob MacKillop with some details: robmackillop@gmail.com. Otherwise, just turn up at the address stated above. Any questions, ask Rob.

Due to the inclement weather, only a few diehards emerged from their hovels today, but as ever the bonhomie and that rare thing theses days – the opportunity to hear lutes and historical guitars – made the effort worthwhile. Philip Lord got us off to an interesting start with two Renaissance lute pieces played on his Paul Thomson vihuela. The first was given a fine performance, the second proved a bit more demanding on player and listener, but both were well received. Bill Samson introduced his new self-made guitar, which has some unusual sources for the main timbers. The soundboard is of “sinker” cedar – trees that were swept down a Canadian river by loggers, only to get stuck in undergrowth, and discovered decades later. One farmer used it for fence posts, with shavings from that eventually finding their way into Bill’s hands. Four panels from the fence posts were needed to form the soundboard of this relatively small...