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Gail_Smith

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  • Gender
    Female
  • Interests
    English. mainly traditional tunes - working on adding in more twiddles/chords/harmonies at the moment.
  • Location
    Wirral, UK

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  1. ??? maybe play along to youtube videos ?
  2. I recently tried to play the "organ" line for Telstar on the English Concertina. It starts with four major chords F# G G# A they are all easy enough to play individually, but moving between them is very tricky because there is (obviously) no note or backup position in common between successive chords, and i often get lost whilst moving up or down a semitone. I'm hoping to have 4 notes playing for each chord with the tonic at the top and bottom. Is there any hope at all for a smooth succession of chords? This got me started on trying to do what I probably should have done years ago, which is to practice chord scales. Most of the chords are not complicated but some are fiendish as part of a semitone scale including C# and G# (even though I have a choice of Ab or G#). Has anyone got any hints and tips on how not to get lost going up and down a semitone-scale ? Before I develop some very bad habits ? I havnt even started on minor chords yet.... Thank you Gail
  3. I avoid sitting next to other box players. If I sit next to my friend who also plays concertina, all we hear is each others mistakes.
  4. Inherited it from my grandmother . She didnt play... I have only theories about why she had it.
  5. Harvest Home is not an easy tune on the EC. Repeated notes...arpeggios with the hand in an awkward position.....
  6. thanks Clive. That makes sense. I was very close to the microphone so I can blame the "proximity effect", and sit further away next time.
  7. I can mike up my concertina with a setup I have involving microphone leads running down the sleeves of a jacket. This works Ok for heaing myself play in a noisy environment eg. having to sit betweek a melodeon and a piano-accordion in a session. It also works well if I am plugged directly into a sound system and I have time to work with someone to get the sound right. I also have a mike on my desk that I plug into my computer for zoom . These both sound OK on recordings. However, i have recently had problems dealing with a "naked" mike , set up for people to sing into (maybe playing a guitar). The sort of thing you get landed with suddenly at an open-mike evening, without the opportunity to fiddle with I put the microphone at slightly-lower than concertina height yesterday - and didnt like the sound. The lower notes were really loud compared to the higher ones and they also seemed to come in too strongly and a little bit late. I also had poor recordings (done by a friend witha phone) problems at an open-mike evening as well. Did the mike position/ type of mike / how far I was from it / ? / ? emphasis my poor playing ? Or was it something else ? Are most microphones optimised for voice ? Any ideas on the best way to set up under these circumstances ?
  8. Hi. In equal-tempered tuning ( which is what most of us have on our ECs ), the EC does have Dbs. They're C#s. Took me ages to get used to reading the dots for them though... I could see a Db geting closer and closer but didnt have the brain capacity to remember where to put my finger when I got there.
  9. I try not to be pedantic about which fingers go where, partly because it makes me more adaptable. Several really good players sometimes play two notes simultaneously with the same finger.
  10. I just use the "settings" (cogwheel icon) to slow down tunes I like on YouTube to 75% .
  11. I play EC standing for a Morris side, but sitting for more complicated tunes (where I sometimes use my little finger to play notes). I have put a sash through the thumb straps and round my neck for playing when i am standing. This takes a proportion of the weight off the little fingers. It also means that I can carry it around more easily, so it is less likely to get stolen or roll down a hill into a river (I had a near-miss on this before I adoped using the strap). If I want to wave the instrument around while playing, I just let the sash loose. Maybe this idea would help you ?
  12. Andy - if he wants some informal support and getting started stuff, he is welcome to come round and we can work on things together. I'm in Neston. Contact me here or via Richard in Mersey or anyone from Mockbeggar. , Gail
  13. an added advantage of the "chords" approach is that many tunes we all see are written out with a melody line along with a "guitar" chord. So a first approximation can be to play the chord tonic (i.e. E for Em) as an accompaniment. After that, if you are playing an EC in the most common keys that dont have many sharp or flats, and you want to accompany the tune with lower notes (including at the same time you play the tune) , one of the low A,G,B, Bb, C#, E or Eb notes are usually in the written chords somewhere (i.e. as a third or a fifth) and you can usually manage to find one of them that your fingers can drop onto relatively easily .
  14. its not as bad as playing a trumpet or tuba. I use fingerless gloves with a metal-ended instrument and its OK.
  15. This is embarassing. I found my book, after hours of searching . It was in the photocopier. Thank you everyone for your advice. Gail
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