wes williams

Welcome Flip! This is a question about Crabb instruments, so you could contact Geoff Crabb, who is a member here, and has lots of records of his family firm. Do you know that a lot of original information on the Wheatstone 50,000 anglos is now available on the web? See the Dickinson Archive at the Horniman Museum site and also Bob Gaskins article here. There is a recent article and short discography on this 'squashbox' music by Harry Scurfield in one of the 'Free Reed Journals' that are published by CSFRI.

I don't know about this particular one, but some of the LPs in this series of recordings have been re-issued by Green Linnet in the USA as CDs, and Ossian in Ireland as tapes. Its probably worth checking their current catalogues.

Sandy, please go back and read the original first post again. It isn't just the one question you insist it is, but many, including quite a few on why certain concertina recordings aren't the same as the printed sources or the sessions. Jim, Bill, I, and others have tried to discuss this and also how certain instruments favour certain keys, and how this affects the session. You tried to censure this as irrelevant, and so I disagreed with you - without malice or any intended sarcasm - but you now continue to respond to anything I say with what appears to be a very sarcastic tone and slurs about 'erudition', so its pointless for me to make any further response, but let the reader decide.

Sandy, you are sadly misquoting me. What I said was that you need to be prepared for tunes to be dished up in a different key - not necessarily the one that the dots tell you. Mostly it will be D/G/A or relative minors, but then again, you could hit a session where they play a lot in 'C' - perhaps because there is (or was) a one row box player - or Bb and F, because the local fiddlers like the sound of those keys. Did I ever say *every* key?? No, of course not! 'Authorities' are the last thing we need! Its a personal observation based on my experiences over the last 35 years of playing, absorbing and researching this instrument, its music and its players - and what I've learned about how other "authorities" in the past have caused problems and misconceptions today. Other opinions differ - Jim's does - but so much the better! And to be constructive - I'd think that more recent collections (eg Breathnach, Bulmer & Sharpley, Sullys or similar) would be more representative of 'the most common session keys' than O'Neills.

Hey! I bought a bombarde only last weekend. Wiltshire, here I come....

You don't - they can vary according to the context and location of the session, and who starts the tune. Example: The Golden Castle, a tune by Junior Crehan, is normally played in G modal-minor in sessions, so a concertina player needs a Bb outside of the normal two rows. But then Kitty Hayes, who played with Junior Crehan, plays it in A modal-minor, which only needs the basic two rows. Which is correct? I've been to sessions where C was the dominant key, and others where F and Bb were heavily used. But if you can't play the tune in the key that's been chosen, you just stop and enjoy someone else's playing - or learn to play more by ear than dots! The keys of the music notation only have a little bearing on what you'll find them dished up in. They are often written just to fit neatly on the stave. I could argue against all that quite easily, but here is not the place. Suffice to say that O'Neill's work only represents the repertoire of emigrant musicians in the Chicago area long ago - the question is about keys today. Yes, it may seem like we are off in a different direction, but it does have bearing - the keys used depend on the capability of the instrument playing them. So what we are trying to discuss is why certain instruments - if leading the session - will pick certain keys.

That doesn't match my own experience, unless there was a significant decline in D/G's over 20 years. D/G Melodeons were a new idea after the revival started, and quite rare - see the interview with Brian Hayden on this site. I don't remember seeing an old German type two row with anything but a semitone between rows, so that probably explains why Ireland went that way - like the German made "anglo" concertinas, you could pick them up cheaply, and they were the only ones freely available.

So that's it! Try to blame the English for everything - and then even someone who wrote to say that he'd only discovered real Irish music a few days ago ...

Er? Sorry Bill, but its WEST Clare - the number of concertina players got less as you moved East. Mary Mc is East Clare, but think of the older players and you'll find that most were from the west -Tommy McCarthy, Gerdy Commane, Paddy Murphy, Bernard O'Sullivan, Tommy McMahon, Stack Ryan, Packie Russell, Lizzy Crotty, Kitty Hayes, etc, etc...

All JEDcertinas seem to have "anglo" run numbers - they were a late addition to the Lachenal range. They've been reported with numbers around 99xxx, but its suspected that this is a misread and the initial 1 is hidden behind fretwork. Mostly they are around 199xxx up, like this one.

As much as I hate to admit it, there are some mighty fine PA players coming out of the North of Ireland in recent years! But they seem to be exceptions .....

But especially Clare for the concertina ... Bill, with the exception of the Wren Boys, The Wexford Carollers, and perhaps a few more I've never heard of, Ireland doesn't have that many ritual traditions. England has many. The equivalent English "dancers" don't wear bells either. Vive la difference! England can show something of what pagan Ireland almost lost, and Ireland can show something of what the Victorians almost destroyed in England. The USA presents "cabaret" versions of both See, now there is a even cheaper shot Where's Jim?

I have to agree with Chris, and say that it can be really difficult to hear Irish music with a genuine pace and feel over here in England. My experience was similar. I'd heard many 'Irish' groups in the UK, and went over there thinking I'd hear nothing really new. But what I found was entirely different. Perhaps, now that you've experienced the 'roots', you will be able to go back to such stuff with a better understanding, and find some of it still contains the essential ingredients, if a little blurred. I hope it gives you as much pleasure as it has me.

Jim, There are lots of extra commands in MIDI beyond the basic patterns of notes to be played, although most aren't used in PC files. Perhaps one of these extras is causing REAL to fail. You'd need MIDI analyser software to find out what extras have been added.

Nice bit of web research, Jim! But I'd still point out that Asturias and Galicia are closely tied together, and although we only tend to hear about Galicia on the music scene, there is a lot of music in Asturias, and they do intermingle. Unlike Cantabria - when I asked a local what their regional music was, I was told "disco"

Wendy - Dave beat me with the lyrics, and I think with more versus than my sheet music has. If you'd like a copy (voice+piano+harmonium), drop me an email (its pre 1923 so beyond copyright).

..but given that Millodoiro are Galician, but don't play exclusively Galician music (O Berro Secco has a few Irish/English named tracks) and that the track's composer is given so we should assume its his title and may not be Galician, it could even be plausible that its from next door and Asturian or Cantabrian dialect, and we are on the wrong track? The name "A.Seoane" is not that far from the well known Asturian piper Susana Seivane.

... and neither would 'Nuit blanche' be plausible using the same logic? I use the word 'Insonification' almost daily, so maybe its a 'borrowed' word?

I've recently received a variation on the 'XXX Bank, Re-register your details' scam, claiming to be from Paypal. The subject is: PayPal Pre-Suspension Notice but the sender is actually paradox.adias.co.kr [211.44.213.59] BEWARE!! DO NOT RESPOND IN ANYWAY!! best wishes ..wes

For something that was a "concertina great" of its day for Percy Honri, try Sullivan's 'The Lost Chord'. Good Luck!

I've recently had a query about Samuel Fawcett, a concertina player from Boldersdale (spelling?) in NW Yorkshire. It seems he was recorded in the late 1930s, and the family have a record (78?)which is pretty much beyond restoration. There is a vague suggestion that Peter (Douglas?) Kennedy may have somehow been involved, so I told the enquirer to contact EFDSS. But does this ring any bells with anybody here? Thanks .. wes

Stephen, It had to slip out sometime, so why not here first? Current plans are that PICA will first appear as "paper" at the ICA AGM (next month? I haven't checked the date yet!!), then mailed out to members, and on the ICA website shortly after. I believe the final artwork is on a CD-ROM somewhere between Bishops Stortford and the printers in Yorkshire. I can thoroughly recommend your article, and all the others I've seen. Thanks! .. wes

Google produces this Milladoiro track: "O insonio dunha noite de verán" composed by A. Seoane so perhaps something like sounds/music on a summer night?

This is a subject that has gone round and round for years, so I'll quote Pat Robson from a 1985 ICA letter: Heartfelt or Hearty? At the Festival, our President (Kenneth Loveless) criticised our Folk Dance players for using music and averred that doing so prevented them from playing from the heart. I seem to remember that in the 1930s the famous dance bands of the time, from Ambrose and Lew Stone, Hylton and Payne, to Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman are all shown in their photos with music stands in front of the players. Maybe they were just decorative? The local provincial bands, to whom I danced a lot, certainly used them and played from music, even for numbers they must have known by heart. The buskers used no music - they couldn't read it - and neither did some jazz-bands but these improvised, on a fixed chord sequence. As a keen ballroom dancer I preferred the musicians to the buskers every day ( or evening). Perhaps today's Folk bands are better than the music of that 'Golden Era'. I cannot quite see how it is impossible to play from the heart if one uses music. One can read poetry from the heart, and what is music but poetry expressed through one's instrument instead of the voice? Like the printed word, one reads music well in advance of uttering it. I once met someone who had turned the pages for the celebrated concert organist, Susi Jeans, who warned him that she was used to reading about twenty bars ahead of what she was playing. Concert soloists with limited repertoires can play from memory but over-rehearsal gives stale performances, just as familiarity breeds contempt. Choirs, string quartets, orchestras and conductors play from music and I have heard some very moving performances that have come from the heart. Our president's remarks may well hold good for the limited world of the Morris but this is but an infinitesimal part of the international Folk dance scene that is getting known known in the Folk world today. I only wish that I could read music faster. But then, the only musical training that I ever had was as a choirboy until my voice broke. I was therefore delighted by the constructive criticism from Mr Ivor Beynon, the Festival Adjudicator. Pat Robson

ICA newsletters show that there were around twenty or so of these concertina bands in Liverpool in the late 1960s. The 'big parade' for Northern concertina bands seems to have been held in Southport. Its a fertile area for research, with much within living memory. good luck ..wes