larryjhs
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Posts posted by larryjhs
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Thanks, I thought of Cohen. He has some short scale exercises, that sound derived from Bach, but even a few pages would be good. I’ll email him.
There are some flute transcriptions in C . I might do markup of one by hand and see what happens. It’s such sublime music.
thanks
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Are there any score/fingered versions available? It’s just great finger exercise I think.
thanks
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This is probably to be answered by Gary Coover, - does this use 'your' notation as my music reading skills with the concertina are hopeless.
thanks, Larry
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Hello. Thanks Gary
Mr Bezos appears to have put the Phil Ham book and others on local Amazon. Ordered! No postage too !
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The postage from the UK is almost as much as the book!!
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Hi Gary, you are the best!
Thanks. And some advertising I recommend your books to all and everyone especially beginners. This is virtually all I have used and even my wife is enjoying my playing now. For fools like me who have trouble remembering the placement of keys and reading music at the same time, your books are a lifesafer (especially the Irish music one - more Irish tunes please). It is strange, I can read whistle music, but the left hand right hand stuff throws me. Age?
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Gary, any chance that that this can become available via bookdepository or another international book service for Australia? I could buy the kindle version of Watcham and print with screen shots which was a pain & not high quality . I’d much prefer the physical book. You books are all I use. Thanks. Larry
On 1/16/2023 at 10:47 PM, Jake Middleton-Metcalfe said:Is his son Bob ham, who lives in Moulton?
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Hello
i am sure there was something about this a while back, but I can’t find it. Has anyone produced transcriptions and notations of Noel Hills favourites or at least music on his early albums that is isn’t published elsewhere. I thought there was something for sale. I’d be really grateful for help on this. I’m totally hopeless at reading music for the concertina as distinct for the single note, whistle! So I really need the notation or markup. Thanks.
Larry
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That’s good to know! I’m to the east of you… footy capital. Say no more.
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13 hours ago, malcolm clapp said:
Down a tone, surely, D# to C#
Solder needs to be applied to the face of the reed at the tip.
If you should be uncomfortable with the process, may I recommend Peter Anderson at West Heidelberg http://capt.accordion@optusnet.com.au who will, I'm sure, be able to help.
Good luck.
12 hours ago, Rod Pearce said:Larry
Can I refer you to your post from April 16, 2019 on this very topic?
Rod
Oh, thanks ! I had forgotten to check!
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10 hours ago, Frank Edgley said:
This technique will flatten the reed in question. Put a razor blade under the tongue. attach a heat sink to the reed by clipping it just behind the area you will apply the sloder. The reed sink is made of aluminium and is a clip device which looks like a tiny pair of scissors. Apply a VERY small amount of flux to the tip with a toothpick. Then apply the solder. Make sure you don't get flux on the edges of the tongue or the solder will get on the edge and prevent the reed from sounding. If that happens, it's not the end of the world, but you will have to carefully file it off. You will probably have made the reed too flat. That's when you start to remove the solder carefully with a small narrow bladed file. Keep checking the pitch. It's easy to go too far. Then you will have to add solder and start again. Personally, I'm not in favour of removing the D# by flattening it. There are many beautiful melodies that need the D# as an accidental.....some O'Carolan tunes, Airs and Northumbrian tunes to start with.
thanks for this advice. I find the D# much too rare to keep on the 1A. As this is in Jeffries tuning I have D# on the 2A pull. -
11 hours ago, malcolm clapp said:
Down a tone, surely, D# to C#
Solder needs to be applied to the face of the reed at the tip.
If you should be uncomfortable with the process, may I recommend Peter Anderson at West Heidelberg http://capt.accordion@optusnet.com.au who will, I'm sure, be able to help.
Good luck.
yes, sorry down a tone. If it doesn’t work I will contact peter. I assume I can unscrew the ‘ block’ and just send it to him though I might have to seal it up again on the frame if it’s not a perfect fit (save on postage). Are you in Melb?
thanks
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Hello, I‘m a bit hopeless with knowing where to solder to bring the reed up a tone so it is easier for Irish stuff.
at the tip? Along the reed? Yes, I have a tuner.
Thanks
Larry
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Quite by accident, I came across the attached cartoon, from Mr Punch's History of Modern England, vol 2 ( 1857-1874) p. 146. Punch was a now defunct UK humour magazine, a staple of the middle class - 1841-2002 . See also https://archive.org/details/mrpunchshistoryo02gravuoft/page/146/mode/2up. Perhaps it has been picked up in one of the histories.
A quick search on google also located another, as below. I am sure there are more. BTW, Warren Fahey-some of you probably know of him as cartoons and photos, mostly from Australia, http://www.warrenfahey.com.au/enter-the-collection/the-collection-m-z/musical-instruments-in-the-australian-tradition/concertina-photography-cartoon-gallery/
1856-1944FreeDownloadBor....png.6a9db67958228783f09f2aee1198abc4.png)
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Noel Hill and Tony McMahon played 'the Old Concertina Reel on I gCnoc Na Graí . It's a great tune. But I've only been able to find music online for it in the key of D. Does anyone have it in G? or C -- I'm not great at music theory or transposition. I assume Noel Hill was playing a D/G concertina on the recording. Or am I making some error that I can't get my head around musically ie how to play it in G.
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See, only one hand, but angels ca do this. Now I have to carefully ‘squeeze’ it into my luggage.
Terrible joke, sorry.
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10 hours ago, saguaro_squeezer said:
Do they say how much they want to be bought for?
I bought a larger one for 8 eu. I sup t shipping would be very expensive if you ordered it from outside Italy - packing is an issue. And here are some small Stan and Ollies. I will take a photo of my angel in daylight.
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I will try, but they don’t like it. They want you to buy!!
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I am in Naples for language school. I think this has appeared before, but they are very cute, though the quality varies, and are mostly sold in one area of the historical area. There are also great statuettes of Stan and Ollie who are beloved.
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O dear. Go see your local doctor. My ears currently buzz with high pitch tinnitus after a very bad flu. I find that playing the sound of rain or waterfalls with earphones helps a lot. There are many bits of music on YouTube, and discussion. I am also seeking further help.
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3 hours ago, kenneads said:
I don't know where you are in Melbourne but there is a great accordion repairer in West Heidelberg. He goes under the name "Captain Accordion" http://members.optusnet.com.au/~capt.accordion/
He is a really easy bloke to deal with and very helpful.
Cheers,
David
Thanks, I had seen his name, but there is nothing like a personal recommendation!!
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Things to do with bluetak. I will consider this.
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Hi, one is in Perth, others are in NSW in the hills, there is an accordian guy somewhere. It is a bit country as you know.
12 hours ago, Tradewinds Ted said:If I understand correctly, the button 1A previously had C#/C# (before removing the solder but now is D/C#) and button 2A is D#/D# ?
Rather than doing any filing of any reeds what about adding the solder back on the reed you removed it from, and then simply swapping the reeds between the two positions to get the more standard Jeffries arrangement of 1A with D#/C# and 2A with C#/D# - if that is what you want. At least this would be reversible, while filing reeds is not. I would guess that the C#/C# and D#/D# arrangement as found was likely the result of someone previously swapping reeds.
Hey, that's a good thought! But I'd have to play with solder...
Bio of Turlough Carolan, the Irish harpist
in General Concertina Discussion
Posted
Hello,
This came through on my daily email from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography - it is free to get a daily 'life'.
Some of us know a few of his tunes (I know them basically via Gary Coover's great books.Carolan, Turlough [Toirdhealbhach Ó Cearbhalláin]
Turlough Carolan (1670–1738)
by Francis Bindon
Carolan, Turlough [Toirdhealbhach Ó Cearbhalláin] (1670–1738), harper and composer, was born near Nobber, co. Meath, where his father (identified variously as John and Brian) was probably a small farmer and perhaps also an ironworker. When the young Carolan was in his early teens the family moved to Carrick-on-Shannon, co. Leitrim, and then to nearby Ballyfarnon, co. Roscommon, where his father's employers were the MacDermott Roe family who were to play a crucial role in the life and career of the young Carolan. Struck by the boy's intelligence Mrs MacDermott Roe arranged for his education. When an attack of smallpox left him blind, she had him trained as a harper by a namesake of hers, MacDermott Roe. After three years' training she launched him—now twenty-one years old—on his career as an itinerant harper, providing him with the necessities of his profession, including a horse and a guide. The MacDermott Roes remained his special patrons all his life—for half a century. Their substantial house still stands at Alderford, beside Ballyfarnon.
In Gaelic Ireland the professional harper had enjoyed a high social status, accorded an honour price by the Brehon (native) law—legal acknowledgement (although below that of the bardic poet) of his position as the doyen of musicians in a society that took its music very seriously (with echoes of ancient belief in its supernatural dimensions). Not only was instrumental performance (solo or group) of the greatest importance in its own right, but the harp was also closely associated with the court performance of the learned bardic poetry, sung by the reacaire accompanied by the harper. Carolan arrived on the scene about the time of the watershed treaty of Limerick (1691), which symbolized the final completion of the English conquest, with the elimination or dispossession of the native Irish-speaking Catholic aristocracy—together with the institutions that flourished under their patronage—and their replacement by protestant English and Scottish planters. Music-making native style was among the cultural features that survived for a time, including the playing of the harp, which continued to be 'an aristocratic pastime or accomplishment rather than a popular one' (MacLysaght, 35). Carolan moved about the country from one ‘big house’ to another, welcomed as an honoured guest. In a rural society where music was an integral part of life—literally from the cradle to the grave—with a passion for song and for dancing, where even the educated read little in the evenings because of poor lighting, and where the live musician was the only source of the art, his visit would have been a major cultural contribution.
Carolan's forte was as a composer both of instrumental harp pieces (frequently dance music) and of songs in which he added simple verses to his own new tune. Although he enjoyed a fellowship and camaraderie with some of the Irish poets of the time, Carolan would not have been considered a poet by the cognoscenti. Nevertheless his songs—complete with amateurish verses—were greatly relished not only by his flattered hosts but also by a wider public for whom song (often extempore) was a normal means of giving heightened expression to emotions of all kinds. Hence many of his songs passed into the oral folk repertoire where they were still alive more than a century later. Carolan was an exuberant personality of cheerful temperament with a ready wit—satirical when called for—and a puckish sense of humour which delighted in tales of the ludicrous. Storytelling may well have been part of his professional repertory, following what seems to have been the medieval tradition of the harpers (Murphy, 191). Charles O'Conor of Belanagare—one of his greatest patrons, a protégé of his on the harp, as well as being a noted scholar and man of affairs—had a high regard for his innate intelligence: 'Very few I have ever known who had a more vigorous mind, but a mind undisciplined through the defect or rather absence of cultivation' (O'Sullivan, Carolan, 160). These characteristics, and the ethos of the time, are well presented in the musical drama (in Irish) Carolan, by Eoghan Ó Tuairisc, premièred in Dublin in 1979.
Professionally Carolan would have been in great demand at special occasions such as weddings and christenings, and some of the personalized epithalamia he composed have survived. At the other end of the emotional spectrum, the medieval Gaelic harper was a central figure in the obsequies following the death of the chieftain, both playing his specially composed instrumental lament (Irish cumha) and accompanying the singing (by the reacaire) of the learned elegy (marbhna or tuireamh) composed by the bardic poet for the commemorative ceremony. In the few surviving laments that can confidently be ascribed to him (O'Sullivan, Carolan, nos. 206 ff.), Carolan combined these various functions, apparently singing his own elegy to his instrumental lament.
Carolan acquired patrons all over Ireland. Remarkably these were drawn equally from both sides of the political and religious divide, including many of the new protestant planter families—Crofton, Drew and Jones—as well as the remnants of the old native Catholic aristocracy, for example the MacDermott Roe, O'Conor, and Maguire families. Carolan took the political situation as he found it and eschewed politics in his songs (in contrast with the Irish poets of his time). Nevertheless, as a devout Catholic, from a Gaelic background, it is clear that he was not without some partiality. Irish was still the vernacular language of most of rural Ireland, and Carolan did not learn English until he was 'advanced in years', and 'delivered himself but indifferently in that language' (O'Sullivan, Carolan, 1.157). With only one known exception all his songs were in Irish, even those for his English-speaking patrons who evidently understood them.
Among Carolan's important patrons there was at least one protestant clergyman, Charles Massey, afterwards dean of Limerick from 1740 to 1766, whose grandfather, typically, 'came into this kingdom with a principal command in the army sent to suppress the rebellion in the year 1641' (J. Lodge, Peerage of Ireland, 1754). It is to Massey that we are indebted for the commissioning, in the 1720s, of the portrait of Carolan now in the National Gallery of Ireland (reproduced in O'Sullivan, Carolan, 1, frontispiece, artist's name unknown).
In 1720 Dean Swift translated the words of a song by Carolan, 'Pléaráca na Ruarcach' ('O'Rourke's feast', published in 1735; the words were, exceptionally, not Carolan's), most likely assisted by his close friend, fellow clergyman, and remarkable Irish scholar Anthony Raymond, vicar of Trim. Swift may well have known Carolan—as claimed by folklore—but this cannot be proven.
Carolan married Mary Maguire (d. 1733) of co. Fermanagh. They had a loving marriage, living at Mohill, co. Leitrim, where a public sculpture in bronze by Oisín Kelly was erected in memory of the harper. They had six daughters and a son. The latter became a harper (of little distinction), and later went to London bringing his father's harp with him. An Irish harp on exhibition at the O'Conor-Nash house at Clonalis, co. Roscommon (formerly home of the O'Conor Don) is claimed to be that of Carolan. His wife predeceased him by five years in 1733, and poignant verses of his, lamenting her, have survived. The relevant harp music (which no doubt he composed) is not known.
Carolan died on 25 March 1738 at Alderford House, Ballyfarnon, the home of his lifelong patron Mrs MacDermott Roe. The vast and distinguished attendance at his funeral indicated the extent to which he had become a national figure. A modern monument, inscribed in Irish and in English, was erected to mark his grave in the medieval churchyard of Kilronan, co. Roscommon.
Some 200 of Carolan's tunes were edited by Donal O'Sullivan (1958)—the total that he succeeded in recovering from printed and manuscript sources. The Irish harping tradition had been handed on orally and aurally, unwritten. It was a new departure when in 1724 (during Carolan's lifetime) music publishers from outside that tradition John and William Neal printed A Collection of the most Celebrated Irish Tunes Proper for the Violin German Flute or Hautboy, including some of Carolan's tunes, their first printing. Other printings followed. Manuscript notation of his music was also commenced by collectors from outside the tradition, the earliest being Bunting, as late as 1792. Only the melody line of the tunes was recorded (O'Sullivan plausibly suggesting that 'it is probable that he would largely have recreated the accompaniment on every occasion that he played a particular tune' (Carolan, 1.150)). Carolan's own Irish verses for many of these tunes have survived separately in manuscript (never underlaid to the notation) and been edited (Ó Máille, O'Sullivan, Bunting collection), but the relationship of these to the tunes is often problematical.
In Carolan's compositions the native style was frequently influenced by the continental music (including that of Vivaldi, Corelli, and Geminiani) popular in Ireland at the time and admired by Carolan himself. His music enjoyed a popular revival in Ireland in the late twentieth century (thanks especially to O'Sullivan's edition), but the most significant assessment of it must remain that of his own contemporaries who were in a position to evaluate it fully in context.
Larry