ceemonster

Life Is All Checquered . . .

[[[Was looking at how you managed to swipe my signature]]] It was the old, Copy + Paste caper.

Whoa, thank you, roving eye. These are so nice. That carpet-bag full of concertinas that Cormac lugs around is the GREATEST. This shade of robin's-egg blue on the walls is perhaps my favorite color, and excellent way to take a convent to its next existential phase. Can't get over that fresco of a cherub with a CONCERTINA!

If it's the Beaumont, I advise going for the option of tipo a mano (AKA "TAM" or "hand-type" or "hand-finished") reeds. It's not that much more expensive, and the response is a tad quicker and suppler. Not saying the "super Durall" factory reeds they use as standard are horribly resistant, just saying, the TAM response is a little faster and more supple. The TAM reeds do sound a bit brighter, which some don't care for in the high notes, but I like the response as well as the clarity the added brightness gives you in the mid-range and low notes. I've got the TAM reeds in two Morse Geordies (a Tenor and a Bari) and wouldn't go any other way. Wakker's promo material used to say "hand-finished" in the Peacock, but I see when Morse has Peacocks in they describe the reeds as "Italian reeds." So I would email Wakker and ask if TAM is standard in the Peacock.

RE the OP's question. The bandoneon has all notes. Obviously the chromatic bandoneon has all notes in both directions, because it is unisonoric. With the main two types of bisonorics, nearly all notes occur on both the push and pull, though this differs. According to maker and player Klaus Gutjahr, the German layout gives you this, while the Argentine layout has a couple of notes on the left side that don't recur in both directions. Some makers now offer Argentine-layout bandos with some extra notes over the traditional 142, to close that gap. But that is a different question from, will a bandoneon play like an accordion: No. It has as many notes and chordal possibilities on both sides, and you can arrange any type or piece of music you like on it, and it is a really cool instrument, but it will not aspirate, phrase, or move like an accordion because it is not an accordion. It has its own parameters and its own ways, and it's worth jumping into it, but it does not play like an accordion. Be aware as well, that Argentine tangueros largely (not wholly, but largely) play tango on bandoneon ON THE PULL, but NOT on the push. They pull out playing a line or phrase. Then they push back in using the air button, and do so at beats and moments that complement and accentuate the lift and movement of tango. Then they come back out again while playing the next phrase, repeat, repeat, repeat. You can see this on Youtube, often 6 or 7 bando players sitting in the front row of a big tango orchestra in their tuxedos, doing this in unison with their bandos. One CAN play the bandoneon in both directions continuously; the notes are all there to enable this, if you do the work necessary to acquire that level of technique. And some advocate that this is the highest and most accomplished mastery of bandoneon (this school of thought would be, more or less the Germans). However, the tangueros maintain it is the alternation of playing on the pull and whomping back in on the push with the air button, that achieves that tango nyah. A master-level Argentine bando player with conservatory technique will KNOW HOW to play in both directions. But in practice playing tango, they're gonna do it largely on the pull. Due to this, the sound difference between playing tango dance music on a bisonoric bandoneon, versus playing it on a unisonoric ("chromatic") bando, is not as dramatic as some might think. The Argentines might not like to hear this, but playing-mostly-on the-pull thing effectively makes your bisonoric bando into a de facto unisonoric. And players of unisonoric ("chromatic") bando who know tango music and know what the hell they're doing, can get this same sense of tango swing or lift by playing their unisonoric . . . . only, or largely, on the pull. And whomping back in using the air button, all in the rhythm and in the phrases appropriate to the movement of tango music. Just like the players of bisonoric, who by doing this are converting their bisonorics into . . . de facto unisonorics.

Chromatic bandoneon is a bandoneon. Bisonoric bandoneon with Argentine layout is a bandoneon. Bisonoric bandoneon with German layout is a bandoneon. They are all bandoneons. It is the reeds, the size and shape, etc. No one in the real world of music understands them as anything but bandoneons. They are built, played, and sold as bandoneons, because that is what they are. The added descriptives will tell you what type. Chemnitzer, while viewable as a bandoneon, gets the chemnitzer appellation due to having different number/voicings of reed sets.

Yes, wondering from the badges if this concertina has post/lever rather than riveted action?

This is the idea behind the 37-key trebles some of the hybrid makers do. Morse, and I believe, Marcus. I think Wakker also does an EC with fewer super-high notes. Nobody plays those high notes for trad music, and losing them lightens and quickens response a bit. I like a 48--a TENOR 48, that is. Or a BARITONE 48. The high notes on a treble are a ridiculous waste of the ergonomic area where your fingers fall comfortably on an EC. If I'm going to have more than 37 ish EC notes, I prefer lower notes--on a Tenor, they are are delightful for adding some bass sounds as well as for playing an octave low in "baritone" mode when you feel like it.

[[[is that the recording aspect you're struggling with, or rather the recording process?]]]] I don't know how you mean "recording aspect" versus "recording process," but it is the tech aspect I'm allergic to. I don't even post photos when I've sold instruments on the internet, allergic to figuring out how. I sell in person, price fairly, and describe truthfully, and they've always found homes with delighted purchasers.

Peter, I don't think I've seen that photo of her. It is luminous and numinous, and thank you.

I've bought a few of the releases by Raelach, and always buy the CD version. But I must admit it's very convenient with that label that if you buy the CD the price includes digital download and unlimited streaming of the recording. I do tend to listen to tangible formats---LP, cassette, CD. But the realization that so much stuff I consider vital portions of the Trad Alexandria is disappearing, has me thinking about putting the stuff on the hard drive and then making my own homemade 2nd-copy CDs to play while keeping the original in the pantry. Much for thought in all this. I was reading Raelach site material during my last purchases, and came across an interview in which founder Jack Talty (who has his own lovely concertina CD in his label roster, along with concertina CDs by Liam O'Brien and Cormac McCarthy), stated that last year there were one-hundred-and-sixty trad recordings released. The context was the crowded field, and the competition for ears. Fiddler Aidan Connolly, who has a wonderful recent solo release on that label, also cited this figure in one the mini-interviews Custys now does during those little player clips they post. He filmed one just before going out to Pepper's Feakle for a release wing-ding. And when John O'Connor asked something like, Do you think you'll record again, or, Now that you've done it would you still choose to make this record, Connolly hesitated a while, said he wasn't so sure, and then brought up the crowded field and that "160" figure. So Peter, when you say you "the book is closed," or, you let TBGY "slip away," does that mean the master is destroyed or disappears? I don't know anything about record engineering.

There is gentleman playing tango on an Aeola, on YouTube. And it sounds lovely. Different from a bandoneon, bien sur. But lovely all the same. The search words are: Tango on Alto-Aeola. Then there is a minor-key, "melancholic" Polish tango on Crane duet. The search words for that one are: Polish tango ostatnia niedziele

He appears to be fingering the tune on his EC on camera, at least, more or less. But the track on the sound doesn't seem to be what he is playing on camera, does it. There's also something un-concertina-sounding about what's on the track. But it doesn't sound particularly accordionish, either.

I remember Dympna O'Sullivan telling me she would not reissue her original solo CD, "Bean Cairdin," once the original run was gone. And lo, I see this beautiful recording is not available anywhere. Custys only has the second one. I've really been in the dark and out of touch RE, the status of all this. Your point is well-taken, Peter, but it's sad. Perhaps those in a position to decide, will make some of these recordings available again as mp3s. I always like a tangible object, but it's wonderful to have the mp3 option as an alternative to, nothing. The Lucy Farr solo fiddle record "Heart and Home," is a good example. This was just about the only out-of-print classic I badly wanted but have not been able to nab lying in wait on the internet, due to its only issuing in cassette form--vintage cassettes are very scarce with dealers and private sellers. I do have a copy of the Lucy Farr tape through the kindness of the trad samizdat, but just on principle, it was a lovely thing to see a couple years ago when this recording entered the world again, in mp3 form. I had also despaired a few years ago of finding the Joe Ryan/Eddie Clarke cassette, when to my surprise an LP version popped up during a word search crawl--I had thought this one was cassette only. I see the Joe Ryan/Eddie Clarke gem is now seeing the light of day again in digital form as well. Again, better than nothing.

I've never posted audio or video to the internet. I don't know how, and have always felt enervated/appalled at the process of trying to figure out how. I guess sooner or later I've gotta break down, and will probly start with audio at that point. RE what the tangueros call the arreglo for rendering "La Boheme" on EC, I probly won't attempt 100% continuous bass oom-pah throughout the entire thing. WIll probly attempt touches here and there under the melody, plus bass oompah in the gaps or spaces where the melody pauses between phrases. This is not a hard tune. It will be easy to get on any concertina system, and will sound lovely on the concertina. One could also eschew bass arrangement, and work duo with another instrument, but I will attempt a little bass color. (It WOULD be fun to do this with a co-conspirator adding chords on ukulele or a little parlor guitar, though.) There are two classic tango instrumental duet recordings where bandoneon plays with acoustic guitar. They are full of gorgeous (and often "melancholic") stuff that would be lovely arranged for concertina. "Conversando con el Fueye" by Ciriaco Ortiz, bandoneon, with two acoustic guitars, one doing the rhythm and the other trading solos with the bandoneon. Anibal Troilo y Roberto Grela (Technically there is a "cuarteto" here, but it's essentially a duo record between Troilo's bando and Grela's guitar) Ciriaco Ortiz was a bando virtuoso with more of an old-school, single-melody-line style. Troilo was a master of the multi-voiced, chord-and-counterpoint-laden, classical-level technique that came in after tango became essentially classicalized in arrangements and technique, the golden age of the fancy drawing-room orchestras, with the violin vibrato, etc. Troilo also composed and arranged many, many tango classics. I personally like a more single-melody-line sound on free-reed instruments, but both these recordings are wonderful, and full of stuff that could easily be adapted to concertina.