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Project To Digitise 78S & Cylinders


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The Archive Organisation has a project ongoing to digitise old 78s & cylinders, here http://great78.archive.org

 

I have only made a brief search but came up with this example ....

a cylinder recording from 1904, a ragtime tune "Lumbering Luke", player unknown. here https://archive.org/details/ipc-2595

 

Happy hunting!!

 

Jake

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Oh goodness me, do I like this one: https://archive.org/details/78_honest-toil-march_alexander-prince_gbia0014261aat first I was convinced it must be two concertinas, but I guess it's just one amazingly clever player. The crispness of his articulation which even cuts through this 78rpm reproduction is inspiring...

 

Adrian

Edited by adrian brown
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Yes MacCann Duet was Prince's instrument.

 

His command of it is amazing. :o .. his détaché playing is a feature I have tried to emulate ..... and cannot get anywhere near. :wacko:

 

What do you think the answer is Geoff - lots of bellows pressure and nimble fingers the place to start? In the bit of the Honest Toil from around 48secs he seems to turn today's maxim of "RH long LH short" on its head. I think he gets away with it by using that double octave counter melody, rather than trying any close harmony. However he did it, it's a real tour de force.

 

Adrian

Adrian

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Yes MacCann Duet was Prince's instrument.

 

His command of it is amazing. :o .. his détaché playing is a feature I have tried to emulate ..... and cannot get anywhere near. :wacko:

 

What do you think the answer is Geoff - lots of bellows pressure and nimble fingers the place to start? In the bit of the Honest Toil from around 48secs he seems to turn today's maxim of "RH long LH short" on its head. I think he gets away with it by using that double octave counter melody, rather than trying any close harmony. However he did it, it's a real tour de force.

 

Adrian

Adrian

 

Yes lots of air pressure and perhaps a stiffly sprung keyboard ? Just touch the button with a very quick finger that has never done a day's manual work. The contrast between longer notes of a counter melody can also help to emphasize those piquant touches.

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To add one more thought to the above post; I imagine the instrument played by Alexander Prince on the recordings where he exhibits these very neat staccato passages would most likely have wooden ends, thus not even the slightest 'ringing -on' effect that can happen with a metal ended concertina.

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Malcolm's link is to my site, so I'll add a few more comments.

 

I now have many more release dates for these recordings, and Lumbering Luke was released by Edison-Bell (EB) on a wax cyinder (so pre gold moulded) in 1903 or 1904. There was no copyright until 1912, so this recording could have been 'taken' from the EB one, a practice that was widespread in those early days. Pirate audio arrived long before the internet :ph34r:

 

If you want to hear Prince more clearly, go to the 'Audio' section, and then the Alexander Prince section. The last few recordings were made electrically and are much better fidelity, as are the later acoustic recordings.

 

The project which is the subject of this thread is American based, so has few UK records. But it's worth reminding you that all the USA 'Victor' Prince recordings will have been made in the UK by the Gramophone Company (later HMV) and usually issued either on their 'Gramophone Concert' or 'Zonophone' labels. So the Honest Toil/Diadem record mentioned above will very likely be the recordings released on Zonophone 178 and 206 that were recorded in 1908, although Victor scrubbed out and replaced any of the English markings in the record run-outs. See here for another example.

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