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Applying excellent idea of Morgana, let me humbly present some quesitons to the revered public.

Ladies and Gentlemen!

Children of all ages!

Presented are some questions in a virtual interview!

May I ask that you kindly answer any number of them or offer other questions of importance.

The purpose of this Thread is not to open any cans of worms, and it is not an invitation to the discussion. The purpose is simply to let you (and us) to express our relevant opinions without being shut down or publicly disagreed with.

With this in mind please read and, if so inclined, answer any of the following questions:

 

1. What makes a style? Can it be learned or one has to be born into tradition?

2. What's the coolest thing on all?

3. What's the sweetest thing of all?

4. What's the most beatiful thing of all?

5. What is harmony?

6. Where exactly lies a distinction between art and craft?

7. Have you ever wanted to quit music? Concertina?

8. Have you had formal training? Would you wish to have/not to have formal training?

9. In what way you'd like to improve a concertina?

10. Was it ever that you liked a tune, wanted to learn it and it didn't work?

11. Is there anything you don't like about concertinas?

12. What are the best three things you like about concertina?

14. What is the most influential book that you read?

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1. What makes a style? Can it be learned or one has to be born into tradition?

 

I'm still working on that one. I had a lesson with an Irish lass who could listen to a tune and just *know* if it was a jig or a hornpipe etc. But she couldn't explain to me how she knew. So I'm none the wiser. :)

 

7. Have you ever wanted to quit music? Concertina?

 

yes - I quit playing the harp. The concertina? Never.

 

10. Was it ever that you liked a tune, wanted to learn it and it didn't work?

 

Happens all the time.

 

12. What are the best three things you like about concertina?

 

The people I meet through playing. The portability. That I don't have to tune them. [Harps need very regularly tuning, and when you two of them, that's a lot of strings :)]

 

Cheers

Morgana

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1. What makes a style? Can it be learned or one has to be born into tradition?

 

Style comes from our inherent insecurity about standing alone. We're never confident in ourselves, so we mimic other people, thus a style is born.

 

4. What's the most beatiful thing of all?

 

Truth

 

6. Where exactly lies a distinction between art and craft?

 

Art is perfection of a craft. Craft is proficiency in, and dedication to, an activity, regardless of the activity.

 

7. Have you ever wanted to quit music? Concertina?

 

Of course

 

8. Have you had formal training? Would you wish to have/not to have formal training?

 

Yes, and no.

 

9. In what way you'd like to improve a concertina?

 

Make them cheaper.

 

10. Was it ever that you liked a tune, wanted to learn it and it didn't work?

 

Of course.

 

11. Is there anything you don't like about concertinas?

 

There aren't enough modern builders.

 

14. What is the most influential book that you read?

 

Thoreau's "Walden"

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What is harmony?

 

According to Fred Small, harmony is any note your neighbor isn't singing.

 

 

Have you ever wanted to quit music? Concertina?

 

I did quit concertina, for quite a while. I dabbled with it briefly in '93/'94, and didn't pick it up again until 2003. Now I will never quit.

 

Have you had formal training? Would you wish to have/not to have formal training?

 

I was raised by music teacher parents, who wisely didn't push me into it. I've had one basic theory class, and I wish I could have more formal training.

 

Was it ever that you liked a tune, wanted to learn it and it didn't work?

 

All the time.

 

Is there anything you don't like about concertinas?

 

Price, and availability of the "old classics."

 

What are the best three things you like about concertina?

 

Portability, novelty, sound.

 

What is the most influential book that you read?

 

The Spiral Dance.

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I had a lesson with an Irish lass who could listen to a tune and just *know* if it was a jig or a hornpipe etc. But she couldn't explain to me how she knew. So I'm none the wiser. :)

 

It's a question of rythm. Jigs are in 6/8 time, or sometimes 9/8 (slipjigs) or 12/8 (slides). Hornpipes are usually in 4/4. However the time signature isn't the whole story, and it is the "internal" rythm within this structure that makes the difference between say a hornpipe and a reel.

 

The term "hornpipe" actually covers a whole range of dances, and in different traditions can mean quite different rythms. Then there are the old English hornpipes in 3/2 ...

 

Howard Jones

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1. Style is a recognizable pattern which can be grouped according to the elements therein. It can be learned by paying equal attention to the source and your reproduction.

 

2. Love, sweet Love

 

4 It changes and that makes it beautiful

 

5 That which compliments and enhances the other.

 

6In the mind of the distinguisher.

 

7 Nope & Nope

 

8Never had it; wish I had. I'm Gonna start in March

 

9 Better quality in the mass production market, especially from Stagi and Hohner, who ought to know better.

 

10 Ai Yi Yi! Don't get me started.

 

11 My inability to learn faster (I know, I know)

 

12Their beauty, their sound, their accessability (like the harmonica, 'tina is simple to play, but allows for a vast range of complexity).

 

13 No 13? Superstitious or just a typo?

 

:)

 

14 Impossible to choose just one- off the top of my head, Knut Hamsun's "Growth of the Soil", David Aurora's "Mushrooms Demystified", Ken Kesey's "Sometimes a Great Notion" B.A. Botkin's "Treasury of American Folklore", Grimm's Fairy Tales, Fawn Brodie's Biography of Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton Ahhh... that's enough.

Edited by Robert Booth
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1. What makes a style? Can it be learned or one has to be born into tradition?

I think that anything can be learned when it comes to music

 

4. What's the most beatiful thing of all?

My wife, of course!

 

7. Have you ever wanted to quit music? No Concertina? Not yet

 

8. Have you had formal training? Yes but not in concertina

 

Would you wish to have/not to have formal training?

Always better to have help but not readily available where I live

 

9. In what way you'd like to improve a concertina?

Make bending notes possible :lol: Perhaps a design that could allow a constant drone as with a harmonium?

 

10. Was it ever that you liked a tune, wanted to learn it and it didn't work?

Not yet

 

11. Is there anything you don't like about concertinas?

Inflated prices of most 'traditional' reeded instrument

 

12. What are the best three things you like about concertina?

Here's one thing anyway, it makes me smile every time I pick it up

 

14. What is the most influential book that you read?

Meditations of Marcus Aurelius

 

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7. Have you ever wanted to quit music? Concertina?

 

Yes. After many years of playing classical guitar and progressing slavishly through the "grades", i suddenly woke up one morning and found I'd had enough of scales and exercises and I found myself unable to pick up the guitar anymore.

 

It was a complete psychological block. The problem with the classical guitar is that in order to play at all at the higher levels, you have to devote at least an hour a day to mechanical practice, just to stay where you are. When I eventually found that I could pick up the guitar again, I couldn't bear to hear myself play, I had deteriorated so rapidly. The tyranny of playing "classically"! A less obsessive player may have been able to content himself with playing "Spanish Study" day after day, but for me, I had to drive myself on all the time.

 

I reverted back to playing folk guitar, my first love, and then eventually found my way to the 'tina - an instrument I love, and find totally relaxing. I've never wanted to quit concertina and don't think I ever will

 

11. Is there anything you don't like about concertinas?

 

No.

 

12. What are the best three things you like about concertina?

 

I like the buttons - they just sit under the fingers and respond instantly to the lightest touch!

I like the way the instrument breathes, you feel you are holding a small animal sometimes.

I like its compact size - so convenient!

 

14. What is the most influential book that you read?

 

I think Jack kerouac's Desolation Angels had a huge influence on me when I was young and showed me that there are lots of ways of living a life and that you can plough your own furrow if you want.

 

One more - T S Eliot Four Quartets also seems to say it all as far as I'm concerned.

Edited by brightfield
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I like the buttons - they just sit under the fingers and respond instantly to the lightest touch!

I like the way the instrument breathes, you feel you are holding a small animal sometimes.

I like its compact size - so convenient!

 

 

You've encapsulated what attracts me to the instrument to a tee. Occationally when my fingers have given out, I just sit there and hold the instrument. It feels good in my hands.

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1. What makes a style? Can it be learned or one has to be born into tradition?

 

I've always felt that a musician has their own style when they have learned their instrument to the point where they can choose to play "their" music the way they want to, i.e. where personal taste transcends the limitations of technique.

 

5. What is harmony?

 

Any two or more notes which sound "right" together are in harmony. You can argue forever over the "right" bit - there are those who would not permit sevenths in traditional folksong harmony, those for whom any non-classical harmony approaches sound wrong, even when they are tuneful .....

 

6. Where exactly lies a distinction between art and craft?

 

Craft is manual skill and dexterity in making something. Art is creativity. There are artists who can create beautiful music with very limited craft and craftsmen with great skill and technique who cannot create art at all.

 

7. Have you ever wanted to quit music? Concertina?

 

I play a number of instruments and at present the 'tina is getting pushed out. In sessions and solo/duo gigs I sing to guitar and play tunes on mandolin and guitar. Using the 'tina requires resetting mike levels. Playing for dancing, often outdoors, or with a band the concertina struggles for volume and presence so I am increasingly exploring the versatility of the piano accordion for that - fancier chords, easier key changes and the multiple reeds make french, cajun or european music sound much more authentic. The two problems with concertina make this more significant - the lack of instruments around, so what I have is a very valuable idle asset, and the fact that a 90-year-old instrument cannot be depended upon to be 100% reliable, especially if it is being used outside. I've looked at cheaper instruments, but the speed of the action and tone of the reeds have been problems to me.

 

8. Have you had formal training? Would you wish to have/not to have formal training?

 

I had piano lessons for a number of years. I was in constant conflict with my teacher - he saw Richard Clayderman as a route to Rachmaninoff, I saw Scott Joplin as a route to stride piano and Jerry Lee Lewis. By the parting of the ways I had learned enough structure, theory and practice regimen to pick up the rest, and other instruments, for myself.

 

9. In what way you'd like to improve a concertina?

 

The concertina is an absolute swine to amplify and get decent sound quality without looking like you're in Intensive Care.

 

10. Was it ever that you liked a tune, wanted to learn it and it didn't work?

 

Of course, some tunes are made for particular instruments or styles and although you can learn them on you instrument, it will never feel right.

 

11. Is there anything you don't like about concertinas?

 

There are too few affordable modern instruments of sufficiently good quality and so a good 'tina is an expensive purchase and a valuable asset. It's dying out as a result - would you want to take up an instrument where "starter" models are so expensive and their limitations are so apparent after relatively little experience?

 

12. What are the best three things you like about concertina?

 

The feel of the buttons, the volume/size relationship and the individuality. Turn up with a tiny little case, produe a massive noise and hardly anyone has heard or seen one these days outside the folk world.

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I like the buttons - they just sit under the fingers and respond instantly to the lightest touch!

I like the way the instrument breathes, you feel you are holding a small animal sometimes.

I like its compact size - so convenient!

 

 

You've encapsulated what attracts me to the instrument to a tee. Occationally when my fingers have given out, I just sit there and hold the instrument. It feels good in my hands.

 

Oh wow, I thought I was the only one who did that. And I thought I was the only one who thought it felt like holding a small animal sometimes.

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