Keith Murphy Workshop Summary

 March 15, 2026

Keith Murphy delivered an exciting workshop to an enthusiastic group. He tackled three jigs, Cavers of Kirkcudbright, The Coming Dawn and Snug in a Blanket. He gave attention to both melody and rhythm.

We sang the melody,  with less focus on the notes, and more on the rhythmic direction of the melody. Then he had melody players play just the notes of the chords when he was addressing rhythm players. Rhythm players were given strong direction to help drive the tunes, with some innovative emphasis. 

Finally, he introduced a harmony for Snug in a Blanket is a tune we’ve had in our repertoire, but he provided a new harmony part. We played the tune three times: The first time with just melody and chords, the second time, melody players played just the harmony with rhythm players, and the last time, melody players split into two groups, playing melody and harmony with the rhythm section. A very unusual and exciting rendition of Snug in a Blanket.

He stressed listening to what is going on with the other musicians, as well as following your own part.  He reminded us that every note is not as important as finding the lift in the phrase and then as a group deciding on accenting only the important notes.

He addressed the issue of playing by ear indicating that if you are stuck on reading the printed page it’s difficult to break away from what you have been trained to play perfectly in time to finding the groove.