The Petteridge Light Orchestra - Music Samples

For more details on barn dances and ceilidhs, Click the photo above, or the link here for www.barndance.co.uk

These seven tracks were recorded live at a wedding on April 18th 2009 - no studio tricks or enhancements, we just set up a small, portable recorder on the table behind us to record some of the tunes and dances. If the tracks are two large for you to play, or you don't have broadband, I can 'burn' and send a CD to you.

The aim was to provide an accurate, 'warts and all' recording for you. Me on squeeze box, Rob on fiddle or guitar, the caller was Malcolm. Line-up as per picture above, apart from me on melodeon in the recordings, rather than the bagpipes.

1: "Marie's Wedding

The first tune, played before the dancing begins so we can check the volume and tone levels of the different instruments.

2: "Captain Lanoe's Quick March

The guests were not quite ready to start dancing, so we played another tune.

3: "Redwing"

Played for the first dance, a fairly easy circle dance to ease everyone into the evening. As you can hear, with a bit of audience participation to break the ice.

4: "Buffalo Girls"

The second dance, straight after the first to keep up the momentum. But this one has the opportunity for guests to dance with different partners - again, helping to integrate the audience.

5: "Orange in Bloom"

Played for a waltz. Its good to have a bit of variety in an evening, and waltzes are often popular with the older guests.

6: "Dingle's Regatta

As the evening develops, we can start bringing in some more complicated dances, with more challenging figures. Half the fun seems to be getting it wrong!

7: "Sweets of May"

Keeping up the variety, this tune was played for a 'longways' dance - with couples facing each other in two long lines. We also have circle, square and couple dances, as well as a few speciality ones.

If you would like to watch some video clips of our musicians playing for dancing at a medieval banquet, see the 'Some Dancing' and The End of the Evening' Clips here

Or, if you would like to hear some more recordings, please click here.