A Portland Play Along Selection: 97 Contra Dance Tunes for Listening and Learning

Betsy Branch - fiddle
Clyde Curley - mandolin, 4-string banjo, fiddle, guitar
Susan Songer - piano

2008, 2 discs / 37 medleys / 97 tunes / 148:15 total time

CD 1 = tracks 1 - 20 (20 tracks, 52 tunes)
CD 2 = tracks 21 - 37 (17 tracks, 45 tunes)

The Portland Collection
http://www.theportlandcollection.com/
http://www.theportlandcollection.com/cds/
http://www.theportlandcollection.com/a-portland-playalong-selection/

“On A Portland Play Along Selection, Betsy Branch, Clyde Curley, and Susan Songer invite musicians to pick up their instruments and play along with this representative cross section of the music in the two tune books published by Songer and Curley, The Portland Collection: Contra Dance Music in the Pacific Northwest (1) and 2. The tunes are individually tracked, even though they are played in medleys. Most of the tunes are played at a moderate tempo with only one lead and one back up instrument at a time. The recording is engineered so that the listener can pan right to hear the melody, pan left to hear the back up, or pan center to hear both together. The first and last sets on each disc are played faster with variations and harmonies to give a feel for how the music would be played at a contra dance. No tunes are duplicated from either of the two previous Portland Collection companion recordings.”

http://www.theportlandcollection.com/portland-collection-1-revised-edition/ (revised!)

http://www.theportlandcollection.com/portland-collection-2-2/

( & working on 3! )

Apologies if there are any mistakes here, or that I’ve not added a personal note of appreciation, but as yet we haven’t the pleasure of the Portland Collection recordings. We had plans to chase them up during recent visits to North America, they are more affordable there, but more serious distractions kept us busy and in the end we didn’t purchase anything ~ but time with friends, which was priceless… Next time… However, we are both fully behind the heart and effort that went into all this, to share the music and to involve others and to create resources to help towards that community end. So, without question, the people behind them and the results have our blessings. We do have the first two music collections however, “The Portland Collection: Contra Dance Music in the Pacific Northwest, 1 & 2”, which are valued by us in many ways, which have a lot of old friends in them ~ melodies ~ and people mentioned, associated with, and contributing to these two excellent books.

Thanks for the memories, for which music and dance is an integral part, woven throughout our lives.

https://thesession.org/recordings/4452
https://thesession.org/recordings/3795