fearfeasog

Just finished the lesson. It *was* fun, and I learned a lot. We took "The Concertina Reel" which I had been working on previously and he taught me some ornaments to throw in there, and some alternate notes and voila! Also learned a bunch about how the reel should feel. I was tending to dot my notes. Now I'm going to try to straighten them out and use bellows pressure to give it the lift I was trying to get through swing. Good stuff. Thanks for the encouragement! edited to say- oh and thanks to Chris Stevens! I'll be back. M

I know that some makers will fine-tune the cheaper models they sell, but the Rochelle seems to have the reputation of being pretty decent to begin with. What are the chances that a Rochelle could be improved by adjusting and setup and the like? Would this be better posted in the repair section?

BTW, anyone who has the Niall Vallely CD-ROM will know that he teaches to press the button individually for each note, even when it's notes on the same button. So that was good confirmation there.

Well damn, now I'm nervous! I'll let you all know how it goes.

I went ahead and got the Vallely CD-ROM. It's pretty darn good. Opens up in your web browser, and you can copy the whole shebang onto your hard drive and it still runs fine, which speeds access times up a bit as a bonus. The sound quality of the interview sections is a bit muddy but the song demos are fine. Videos are small, though--I do wish they could be seen in full screen, but there again I think they'd be grainy anyway as the resolution seems to be low. As a side note, I tried out some of the nicer boxes there at The Button Box when I went to pick up the CD-ROM and I was blown away by the differences between them and the Rochelle. They handle sooo much better and feel like real instruments. The Rochelle is fine but it now seems very cumbersome and clunky to me, and the different reeds respond so differently from one another. I have trouble getting my cuts to articulate well, though that's probably user error! anyway, yup.

Well, tomorrow is my lesson with Chris Stevens via skype. Definitely looking forward to it. I also met a fellow here in my own area at a session yesterday who plays anglo 30b and can give lessons. If it goes well with Chris, I may just stick with that. Otherwise at least I have someone to fall back on. This guy had a nice Suttner too, Jeffries layout if I remember, while mine is Wheatstone. Not a huge disadvantage, I guess. wish me luck!

that was insanity.

I play drum kit best of all. But I also play equal smatterings of guitar, bass guitar, and maybe a smaller smattering of piano/synth. We do a Christmas album every year and generally I played everything up until 2 years ago when I realized how many musician friends I have! I also play a little whistle (not enough to play a session nearly), am pretty good at bodhrán, and now the anglo concertina (beginner). Oh yeah, I can't forget tambourine, triangle, kazoo and shaker! and I sing backup in my band. It's really cool to hear what everyone else does! I feel like the tendencies toward particular instruments varies a lot between people from different countries. I mean, are melodeons, concertinas, accordions and the like more common in England, for example? Or is it just that I haven't been on the inside of this till now?

I can't thank you enough, Jody. You have been most helpful. I'll keep plugging away. I'll try to put up a recording of my playing one of these days. That'll be telling! M

Thanks. Hadn't considered the Vallely cd-rom. I'll look into it.

OK, I just reserved a copy.

Oh c'mon David. You HAVE to watch it or you're not serious about the concertina.

So it's bellows control now. You are greedy. I thought we were talking about articulation. Related I know, but really quite different. Back to articulation. On the concertina this is really not much more than a matter of button duration... that is, how long are you pushing the button, how quickly are you picking your finger up, how long is the gap of silence between notes, ie how staccato or laggato each note is being played. As you gain control of that, you gain control of one of only a few means of expression on the concertina. This one of the few tools you have to take a bunch of notes and turn them into music. So as an exercise, play through a tune you know well, to the point where you have no hesitations. Slow is fine. Then play the tune... 1. as staccato as possible. Every note of the tune equally short and very short, tapped buttons. 2. with every note as laggato as you can, as connected as you can with no gaps. 3. Now play your tune again and make a choice for each note... either articulation 1 or 2... nothing in between. Write down your choices if you have to. 4. the next time through change those choices, but still either articulation 1 or 2 for each note. Decide which sounds better... articulation pattern #3 or #4. Start with # 1 and see how far you can take it. Don’t move on to #2 until #1 is sounding nice and crisp and even. See how far you can take #2 Don’t move on to #3 until #2 is sounding nice and connected and even... etc Spend an hour doing this and you will find that you have stretched and deepened your articulation possibilities on all the tunes you know. BTW, do you only play ITM or other musics as well? Yep, I'm greedy! I want it ALL! NOW! No, not really. Jody, and everyone really, I have to thank you for the free lessons here, this is great material!!! I had started messing around with the staccato technique already, and yeah it ain't easy. It actually trips me up quite a bit. I forget which notes are next! I'll stick with it now that you've given me a system of sorts to follow. I doubt I would have thought to take it to the legato level, though. I will now without a doubt. I am such a beginner, Jody. I rented this box about 2 1/2 weeks ago, maybe 3. I'm happy with the progress I have made. I picked it up for the ITM, and outside of that I have only played some of the example songs in the tutor I have--the one that came with the Rochelle--you may have seen that tutor. I may end up playing in my band in the future (pop/rock) as I think it would fit nicely with some of the sorts of songs we write. AND I am not averse to playing other styles, though it may take someone else to push me in that direction because I'll probably be happy with ITM for a good while. maybe I'll start another topic on bellows skills... maybe not right away.

Aha! I wondered about this! I'm learning an IT tune now that has a similar run of notes, albeit shorter, and I'll give this a try. This sounds really intriguing. Is that because you're percussively shoving the bellows, I wonder? also intriguing! worth a try. Are you using an octave, usually? I'm trying to get used to where the octaves are and to use them here and there. I'll figure this out when I get fast. So how does one develop crisp bellows skills? I can imagine us all holding physio-balls between our hands, squeezing away in some yoga classroom somewhere. Thanks alot, Jody!

I'm debating getting either Frank's printed tutor with the CD or the DVD tutor. Has anyone used the DVD tutor? What did you think, and is it suitable for a beginner like me? How are the lessons laid out? Thanks.

There are a few clips on the Turner Movie Classics site-- HERE silly!

Makes perfect sense. thank you!

Thanks for that, Brian.

Yes I think we have admitted this trainer will be very basic at first, and certainly not a substitute for a good instructor or lesson book. Basically it will be to help you learn tunes. And will aid in that regard by allowing you to slow the tune down, learn phrase by phrase, loop sections, decide whether to display alternate note positions and how, etc. The code monkey (my friend ) is really putting alot into it and I think it'll be great in the end.

Thanks, Brian. Really I'm just advising and my friend is doing all the work. Oh and I'm the test subject. It's fun.

so, as a beginner, I can't help noticing that my playing doesn't sound quite like the playing of more experienced players. It will, but it doesn't yet. One of the reasons I think is that my articulations is not so great. probably you want a little slop--not every note should have a hard line between it and the next, but still. so my questions-- when playing 2 (different or of the same) notes in sequence on the same button, say, two 16th or 8th notes, would you normally lift your finger off the button between them? or do you generally just let the bellows direction change do it for you? how much does bellows technique affect articulation? pressure and quickness on the direction changes must be huge in this regard, I would think. I guess that's it. mostly I was curious about the first question's answer. thanks, m

hi all, I have an online friend (who is a musician but not a concertina player)who I am helping to create a computer based trainer for concertina, specifically learning tunes. It shows a representation of the buttons of a 30 button Anglo (Wheatstone layout) and by importing a midi file of the song you want to learn, you can get it to show you which buttons to press and which direction to move the bellows. It also shows alternate button locations. as you can well imagine, many questions have arisen about how the program should act and look. oh so so many questions. so here's one, of possibly a few more to come: fingering: I assume (as a beginner mind) than when choosing the next note you would choose a note that avoids using the same finger twice in a row on different buttons. is this true? thanks all! Mark

so, you're saying that drones are best unmanned? hahaha! hoh boy.

Funny, I think I was searching for a hornpipe when I searched for that. Silly me, I knew it was a reel! I wonder if the teacher on OIAM simplified it a bit for the benefit of the students. Thanks! M

Yep that's it. I found that yesterday myself. It's slightly different from how the oiam teacher plays it. That's all I could find the whole wide web. It isn't really that important. I was just curious to see how others approach it, maybe see some different ornamentation etc.