A couple of years ago, with an unusual level of focus and action for me, I bought a mandolin, and picked up my fiddle, which had long lain dormant despite a career in music and no let up in my musical curiosity, listening, gig and concert attendance and spamming of anyone who would listen with my latest musical discoveries.

I had a specific aim – having been around the fringes of the folk music scene for many years, through listening, going to gigs, reading, as well as through planning and delivering education projects – often having the privilege to work closely with some of the artists who have most inspired me, I wanted to be part of it.

I had a vague notion that it is quite easy to learn a few traditional folk tunes, and that once you knew some of those there were ‘sessions’ which happened in pubs and you could go along and play them with other people. I was right about that…broadly speaking, and to cut this first post in a long while short, I do indeed now know lots of traditional folk tunes, and, much as I envisaged, have discovered a world where I can indeed pop along to a specific pub at a specific time, meet some people I know, and always some that I don’t, and spend a couple of hours making music with them. It is a joyous, fulfilling thing to do, a great way into new connections and friendships, informal and relaxed yet as challenging as a musician wants it to be. I would encourage any musician, or aspiring musician to explore this world which I am pleased to have discovered.

That’s the simple version, but of course, like most subjects, once you scratch the surface new layers of nuance, context, history and depth reveal themselves, and, for better or worse, I’m going to make an effort to write here regularly this year, focusing particularly on this world and my journey into it. Certainly at the start these posts will remain on the long dormant fromtheedge.org, though bubbling away is the idea of a new home for this content and other related folky things. But one step at a time…..