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RoyJanik

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    Recording Tunes

    in Teaching and Learning

    Posted

    There's a new generation of high-density (HI-MD) minidiscs out there. I have a Sony MZ-NH1, which I used at the NHICS Midwest school last year. 1 gig removable media. I recorded at the 25kbps rate, and still managed to fit all the lessons, both concerts, and a few sessions onto one disc.

     

    Best of all, you can now upload your recordings onto your computer and convert them to WAV (and hence to mp3) in faster than realtime. Sony originally had placed some asinine restrictions on this, but they've relented.

     

    You can also record in completely uncompressed PCM WAV format if you're so inclined.

     

    http://www.minidisco.com/mz-nh1.html

     

    For a mic, I used the ubiquitous Sony

    ECM-MS907:

     

    http://www.minidisco.com/ecm-ms907.html

    Singing

    in General Concertina Discussion

    Posted

    I'm pluggin' along with the anglo, slowly (ever so slowly) improving, but I'm increasingly wanting to sing along with my instrument. Now, if what I'm singing is an exact match with the melody, I can usually swing that, but even so, it's not very easy for me.

     

    Does anyone have any suggestions for learning to sing while playing the anglo, or failing that, have any suggestions for a good instrument to sing along with? I've got my eyes on a ukulele, so it's obvious I need external guidance.

     

    As to the type of stuff I'd like to sing, anything goes really: novelty music, sea chanties, original stuff, heartfelt renditions of heavy metal songs... so I'm looking for something versatile, and hopefully easy enough to learn the basics of without cutting too much into my concertina time.

    Can Anyone Tell Me About This Concertina?

    in General Concertina Discussion

    Posted

    That was my first concertina. I think I paid about 100 for it. Now it's really quite terrible compared to anything else slightly more expensive, but:

     

    1) It was good enough for me to figure out several tunes and songs

    2) It was good enough to let me figure that I liked playing the concertina

     

    So yeah, go for it. But also bear in mind that it won't last long. I still have mine for nostalgia purposes, but many of the buttons stick, and if it gets hot at all, some of the wax holding the reeds in may melt.

    Who Are These Fish?

    in General Concertina Discussion

    Posted

    Alright, with one of the helpful hints above, I've got them all. So here are the answers, with documentation.

     

    Through the course of research, the original images 'acquired' for this collage were discovered.

     

    a) flutefish ( http://home.iae.nl/users/rhulsen/sa/flutefish.jpg )

    B) drumfish ( http://home.att.net/~rshofstall/fishes.html )

    c) pipefish ( http://www.seahorses.de/pipefish.htm )

    d) concertina fish ( http://faweb.fa.gov.tw/tfb10/e/f612/f170a.htm )

    e) shovelnose guitarfish ( http://www.bajadestinations.com/fishid/gui...hovelguitar.htm )

    f) fiddle fish (more commonly called an angelfish) ( http://www.fische-seite.de/Bluntnose-fiddlefish-.html )

    original

    g) discus (talking to a friend of mine, I said "But how can you play a discus?", to which he replied "Maybe it's a compact discus.")

    g2) banjo catfish ( http://animal-world.com/encyclo/fresh/catfish/banjocat.php )

    h) boxfish ( http://www.divegallery.com/boxfish.htm )

     

    9 out of 8. Not bad, I'd say.

    Which Is More Wide-spread?

    in General Concertina Discussion

    Posted

    You might be interested to know that there is a hammered dulcimer player there who teaches Anglo at a music week in Northern California.  His name is Cliff Moses; you can find his webpage by googling.  I doubt he can help you with English, however.  He is not a c.net member.

    Agh! Agh! I say.

     

    The is an anglo player somewhat near Austin, and he teaches workshops in the concertina on occasion? Where was this information 2 years ago?

     

    Now to see if I can pressure him into giving private lessons.

    Recorded Tune Link Page.

    in Concertina Videos & Music

    Posted

    This is all quite bizarre.  I, too, am getting different behavior from the two different links, but the difference is different from what either Rich or Henk is experiencing.  Both open new browser windows; both start to play without assistance; but my link is played by RealPlayer, while Henk's link is played by QuickTime (I have both on my computer).  I wasn't aware that the ISP could control something like that.  Can it?

    It can, actually. In addition to shoving files down to a browser, a server will also send a "mime type" which tells the browser what sort of file they're dealing with, and it's up to the browser to interpret things.

     

    On Jim's server, the mime type for .mp3 files is returned as "text/plain", which is wrong, and causes some browsers to try and display things as plain text.

     

    On the other server, the mime type for .mp3 files is returned as "audio/mpeg", which is correct.

     

    Jim, I don't know what sort of access you have on your server, but if you can edit a file called .htaccess in your root web directory, adding the following line to it may solve your issue:

     

    AddType audio/mpeg .mp3

     

    By the way, figuring out what mime types were being returned was quite fun, but I'll save that tale for another time.

    Starting A Slow-jam From Scratch

    in General Concertina Discussion

    Posted

    Cool!  I wish there were more!

    How many were there, altogether?

     

    Hey, I didn't know Mark was in Austin.

    Please tell him "hi" from me, next time you see him.

    5 of us, altogether. I just added two very brief videos to the page, including one of Mark singing a song he hadn't played for 20 years.

     

    From what I could gather, Mark is pretty newly arrived to Austin.

    Starting A Slow-jam From Scratch

    in General Concertina Discussion

    Posted

    ...the session in Austin (BD Riley's on Sundays)...

    Tell me more. What time? Maybe I can talk my nephew (not a concertina player) into checking it out. :)

    As far as I know, it's at 8 pm every Sunday at B.D. Riley's Irish Pub. This is on 6th street, at the NE corner of where it intersects with Brazos.

     

    The few times I've gone there were around 3 fiddle players, a whistle/flute player or two, one banjo, one guitar, and perhaps a mandolin or bazouki. There's usually a couple of bodhrans floating around, too, but they all appear to be secondary instruments.

     

    As for concertina, not so much. There is one guy, John, who occasionally plays at the session, and he plays english. Actually, I may be the only anglo player in Austin. I recently went to a gathering of Austin concertina players, and they all played either english or duet. (not terribly interesting pictures of this momentous occasion here: http://www.crusheddreams.com/roy/gallery/concertinaGathering )

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