John Spiers Melodeon Workshop, Lewes Saturday Folk Club

Name: John Spiers Melodeon Workshop, Lewes Saturday Folk Club
Start: 2025-12-13T10:45:00+00:00
End: 2025-12-13T16:45:00+00:00
Location: Elephant & Castle

Schedule

Sat Dec 13 2025 at 10:45 am to 04:45 pm

UTC+00:00

Location

Elephant & Castle | Lewes, EN

Lewes Saturday Folk Club Workshop No 325
JOHN SPIERS MELODEON WORKSHOP
https://johnspiers.co.uk/
Saturday 13th. December 2025
10:45 – 16:45 Places £45
(£22 for two under 25-year olds)
Email valmaigoodyear[at]aol[dot]com to reserve tickets, bring the right money in cash on the day
John Harvey Tavern, Foundry Lane, Lewes BN7 2AN
Known for his playing with Bellowhead, Spiers & Boden and more recently his work with Peter Knight, Jackie Oates, & the Gigspanner Big Band, John is now one of the busiest & most in-demand melodeon players on the folk circuit. Having cut his teeth playing around his native Oxfordshire for Morris-dance, ceilidhs & barn dances in the late 1990s, he then transitioned to professional musician via stints as melodeon salesman/repair-man & busker in the early 2000s. John’s love of English traditional dance music is at the centre of his playing with a distinctive stompy rhythm at the heart of it. Melodeon-geekery has never left him & came to the fore during lockdown when he led the online Isolation Pub Sessions from his shed followed by the Advent Calendar of Squeezeboxes on YouTube.
The workshop will be about using the melodeon as a harmonic instrument, covering chords on both the left & right hand sides of the instrument and developing that by letting it govern the approach to playing several hopefully well-known tunes on the instrument. The workshop will be taught based on a 2-row melodeon in D/G & music will be available in advance.
IN THE EVENING JOHN SPIERS & JACKIE OATES PERFORM AT
THE ELEPHANT & CASTLE
(£15: email valmaigoodyear[at]aol[dot]com to reserve tickets, bring the right money in cash on the night)
Provisional Timetable
10:45 Registration & coffee; please order lunch at the bar (refreshments not included)
11.00 Learning some chord shapes on left & right hand
12.30 Lunch
13.30 Learning/going over the tunes and considering alternative fingerings
15.00 Tea/coffee break
15.15 Fitting the tunes to the chord shapes we want
16.45 Finish
N.B. Booking is recommended as numbers are limited. Maps & accommodation lists will be sent on request.