Michael Reid
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Posts posted by Michael Reid
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Noel's C/G Linota that he used in the workshops I attended had a custom layout of the right-hand accidentals row. I think it had three c sharps and no (none, zero) d sharps. I recall him saying that he was totally missing one note ... also, he seemed to have some minor regrets about the absence of that note.
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Geantraí is a series of television programs on traditional Irish music. There were a dozen or more programs broadcast last year, and now a new series is in progress. I think there were also programs prior to last year, but I haven't seen any of those. Each program presents several musicians, performing individually and in groups, in a pub setting.
Last year I, too, was curious what "Geantraí" meant, and the translation I found somewhere was "lively music." But of course I'm open to correction on that from a speaker of Irish.
TG4 is an Ireland-based, Irish-language television channel ... although, as you have probably observed, many of the commercials are in English. Something new this year is that the Geantraí programs have English subtitles. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TG4 for more information on TG4.
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It would be helpful to see some other boxes and actually speak with their owners while I raise the capital to make the investment.
Patrick, I live in Boulder and play both Anglo and English. Most weeks I play at the Sunday night Irish session in Boulder. Send me an e-mail via this site and we'll get in touch.
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....lovely stuff on there, also from a young player named ?lorraine? obrien?,
Yes, Lorraine O'Brien would be correct, she's a concertina player who was hosting a session in Grogan's in Ennis one night when I was there this summer.
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Do you know of any programs where the notes are added in ABC notation? Recognising the notes by ear is difficult for me.
I don't know of software that can do that, but Transcribe! can identify a note and show you its position on a piano keyboard, and the newest version tries to identify chords. It's free to try. See the link Michael Eskin posted above.
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Black Flies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIMameR5aqo
I believe this is also written by the same Wade Hemsworth.
Yes, Hemsworth wrote the Black Fly. There's a fine version of it on a 1994 album by Nightingale, and you can hear a 2-minute sample here: http://cdbaby.com/cd/nightingalevt1
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... phone number in listing (maybe a bad sign) ...
You can do a reverse number lookup on http://www.sullr.com/us/ and see that the phone number belongs to someone whose last name corresponds more or less to the eBay ID. I think that's a good sign.
The two listings, though, are obviously a big problem (and, I would think, an invitation to delisting by eBay).
I lean toward a "naive seller" theory.
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Extra shipping costs of 100 pounds to Europe or 110 pounds to the U.S. -- and that's without insurance, which is "not offered" -- seem rather excessive!
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Perhaps why they spell it Ceili, rather than the more "traditional" Ceilidh?
If you Google both spellings (in the same search), you'll find several web sites stating that Ceili is the Irish spelling while Ceilidh is the Scottish spelling.
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I remember a Marc (with a c) Blumberg from Halifax, NS who was at Noel Hill's Oregon summer school a few years ago. I remembered his profession and just found him through Google. I will send him a note about this thread.
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I've had mine for 3-3/4 years and I love it. It's my first (and so far only) Anglo. I have two high-quality English concertinas, and I have been playing English since the 1980s, but these days I mostly play Anglo and I'm having as much fun as ever.
In March, I loaned my Morse to a visiting musician from Ireland whose Lachenal developed serious problems just before his big St. Patrick's Day gig. Of course he was grateful simply to find a playable 30-button C/G -- not easy to do in Colorado -- but he was delighted with its action and tone.
What else would you like to know?
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Seconding ceemonster's recommendations of Edel Fox and Kate McNamara.
Another excellent player is Michelle Mulcahy, who is impressive on four(!) instruments: concertina, harp, fiddle, and piano. She was TG4's 2006 Young Musician of the Year -- an honor given to Edel Fox a few years back.
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I always notate reels in 2/2. Never noticed it was outside the mainstream. It's much easier to read when the fast notes only have one beam rather than the two you'd need in 2/4.A useful site for learning about the types of rhythms in Irish traditional music is here: http://www.irishtune.info/rhythm/. Be aware, though, that the author takes some stances which, while well-reasoned, fall outside the mainstream, such as notating reels in 2/2.If you Google "irish reels time signature" (not in quotation marks), most of the sites indicate that reels are notated in 4/4 or 2/4. Or run a search on JC's abc tune finder for a common reel, such as Silver Spear, and you'll see that most of the posted versions are in 4/4 or common time ("C").
I use 2/2 time ("cut time," C| in abc notation) myself. I agree that 2/4 is harder to read.
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A useful site for learning about the types of rhythms in Irish traditional music is here: http://www.irishtune.info/rhythm/. Be aware, though, that the author takes some stances which, while well-reasoned, fall outside the mainstream, such as notating reels in 2/2.
The thing that brought this question to mind is that at the top of a hornpipe tune was the helpful description that two quavers written together should be played as a dotted quaver and a semiquaver."Helpful description"?
I think it would be more helpful to just write them with the dotted notation. That's what I do.
The dotted notation, though, indicates that in each note-pair, the duration of the first note is three-quarters of the combined duration of the pair. When hornpipes are played in the "dotted" style, I think that 2/3 - 1/3 is more like it; a 3/4 - 1/4 distribution would be extreme. But notating a 2/3 - 1/3 split is messy.
I prefer writing the notes out evenly, describing the tune as a hornpipe, and letting the player decide how unevenly (or not) to weight the duration of the paired notes. Depending on my mood, I may play the same tune more or less "dotted." For example, I like Her Long Golden Hair (the Junior Crehan tune of many names) played both evenly and dotted. Bobby Casey's Hornpipe (aka Humours of Tullycrine) is another tune that can easily go either way.
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Richard,
It would be helpful if you posted additional information.
- What keys? (C/G)?
- How many buttons? (30?)
- What layout for the accidentals row? (Wheatstone, Jeffries, custom?)
- Where are you located?
I'm sure interested buyers will have further questions, but providing the above information will help narrow down the field.
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I suspect wall-to-wall reels is caused in part, by Comhaltas producing tune books for the kids, who then only play tunes in the book and tunes from the latest cds. Hornpipes, polkas and to a lesser extent jigs, have nearly become extinct in some Irish seshs.
Geoff, take a look at the recent Foinn Seisiún books and recordings from Comhaltas. There's a nice variety of tunes, with excellent representation of jigs (few hornpipes and polkas, however).
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At our session in Boulder, I'd guess that jigs are 50% of what we play, reels 35%. We usually have several songs during the evening.
There can be some lively reels strung together in the early to middle part of an evening before ale and strong cider have had their way with the more ebullient amongst our members. Then slower and at times less steady comes into it's own.Ha! It's quite the opposite here. When our session begins 7-ish, it's usually only us, ah, "mature" players in attendance, and our pace is relaxed. At 9 pm or later we often have an influx of 20-somethings who can rip through the reels, leaving the rest of us in the dust ... and I haven't noticed the alcohol slowing anyone down.
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Doesn't free Audacity slow down to any tempo?
My wife does wonders with Audacity, it seems to have most that amateur ever wants.
No?
Sometimes it's worth paying for software to gain features or usability. See this thread: http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2532. The maker of Transcribe! is confident enough in his product to provide links to 43(!) other software packages with slow-down/practicing/transcription features; see http://www.seventhstring.com/resources/transcription.html.
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I'm not familiar with the Tascam device but I found a description here: http://www.worldmusicsupply.com/cart/defau...Prod=CD-VT1MKII
It looks interesting, but you can achieve slow-down effects in two other ways. One is cheaper, and the other is more versatile.
- You can use software, which ranges in cost from nothing to about $40. I use Transcribe!, which is excellent and is available for either Windows or Mac from http://www.seventhstring.com/.
- You can use a digital voice recorder, which has the advantage of being able to record tunes in the field -- say, at a session -- for learning later. I recently got an Olympus DS-30 ($115) to replace my stolen Sony ICD-ST25, and I'm very happy with the Olympus. This is a very versatile device, and you might find uses for it beyond learning music, such as recording meetings or dictating ideas, whereas the Tascam seems specialized to learning music from CDs.
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Hmmm. So Geoff writes (in his attached handout)
Failure to keep the instrument in the case provided when not in use will allow the bellows to ‘creep’ open and ‘set’ in a partly open position reducing the volume of the bellows by as much as one fold. This condition is usually irreversible.... and Henk writes:
I learned from Wim Wakker to keep it "out of the box" as much as possible, so I only use the case for transporting my concertina.I don't think it would be possible to have two more opposing opinions ... each from a respected maker.
I wonder what the other makers say?
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Just out of curiosity, what's the basis for the "Aeola" label on this eBay listing?
I vaguely recall hearing that not all Aeolas were octagonal. But if the ledger doesn't identify it as an Aeola, what does?
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For someone who doesn't speak Irish (and I don't!) the closest would be Gar-owed (emphasis on 2nd syllable) O'Halloran.
Indeed, on his "Tracin'" CD (with Patrick Ourceau), Gearóid thanks his parents, "Máire and Frank O'Halloran."
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But alas, no G/D, it appears from his Web site.
True, but his web site says "Special orders will be considered on an individual basis."
Beautiful looking instrument. Alas, no picture of Jeff's concertina tattoo.
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Thanks to Alistair Anderson for his 1984 concert in Leesburg, Virginia. That's where it all began for me. Before that event, I had only the vaguest idea of what a concertina is. By its end, I knew I needed to get one.
Thanks to Concertina & Squeezebox Magazine, which helped me learn about concertinas in the pre-Internet days.
Thanks to The Button Box for the Northeast Squeeze-In, where I first got to meet other players and try their instruments.
Thanks to Micheál Ó Raghallaigh, whose playing inspired me to take up Anglo.
Wakker Concertinas
in General Concertina Discussion
Posted · Edited by Michael Reid
I've had the Traveler for a few days.
First impression: Light! As I lifted it out of the box I remembered Ken Coles's note that he, too, was surprised by its light weight.
The raised wooden ends are beautiful -- very open and airy. Overall fit and finish is first rate. The engraved W on the thumb rests is an elegant touch. But someone with long fingernails has been wailing on the buttons on the C row -- there are noticeable dings and wear in the finish above the two innermost buttons on each side. [Late edit: Sorry, I meant the G row--see further down in this thread.]
The action is tight and fast. The buttons have the perfect amount of resistance and travel.
The reeds start and stop on a dime. Immediately I found that it's easy to play with speed and precision on this box. I love the tone--more "rounded" and less harsh than my hybrid's.
My wife commented that she likes the Traveler's sound, and that it seemed not as loud as my hybrid. It doesn't seem any less loud to me. It does have a bigger dynamic range--it's easy to play soft or loud. It's very well balanced.
I can only think of two things that would make me like this box even more. One would be larger-diameter buttons. The buttons are much narrower than those on the Anglo I'm used to, and as I result I sometimes find my fingers slipping off the edges, mostly when using my clumsiest fingers, the fourth and fifth on the left hand. I think this problem has been diminishing over the time I've had it, so it's probable that I could learn to love these buttons.
The second thing, which would be easily remedied if I owned this box, is that I would prefer smaller spaces between the holes of the hand straps. One setting is slightly too loose for me, the next is too tight.
To sum up: I like it a lot, and I'm really grateful to have had the opportunity to try it. Thanks, Wim and Karen!