JimLucas

Several: various makers, various keys, various qualities.

But not all those which are unrestored are "best quality"... not even if they were originally. And you really can't tell from the pictures on eBay, or even further details provided by the seller, which are which. Seems to me that's what Chris means. And I know from experience that he's right.

No surprise. Mixolydian is also very comon in Irish tunes. That's the G scale with an F natural or D scale with C natural. Banish Misfortune, Red Haired Boy, etc. Real Aeolian is rare. Then there are all those tunes which are neither, or both, or depend on who plays them. When I first learned Banish Misfortune (30 or so years ago), the high F's in the beginning of the 3rd part (and only there) were always played as F-natural, most C's as natural but those in ascending runs as C#. These days almost nobody knows about the F-naturals, and many play all the C's the same. I learned King of the Fairies with 1 sharp -- C's natural, not sharp, -- but these days nearly everybody seems to play it with C#. Another like that is Hardiman the Fiddler. Actually, I think there are a number of tunes where C-natural has been "replaced" with C# over those decades, and I wonder if it isn't due to the great increase in the number of whistle players, who find it easier to play C# in fast passages. In general, these tunes sound good with either C# or C-natural, but they don't sound the same.

Oh yeah, the listing of "most recent" posts on the right.... Mine are all showing dates back in August. Is there some setting I have to change to get it to show the real "most recent" dates and times? Does anybody else have this problem? On the other hand, my "unread" marks *don't* update when I post a message. But the "new posts" highlighting of Forums often doesn't update even when I leave concertina.net and return, unless I close my browser in between. I still haven't figured out all the factors influencing things like that, and so far they just seem inconsistent.

Tracking may be good for new posts, but how does it help find old ones? As for finding things in the old Forum, I could do quite well with scrolling. Since the relative positions of subjects didn't keep jumping around, I could often remember the relative positions and even the shapes of various discussions. But ctl-F searching of the page for specific dates or names, as well as subject words, was even more useful. Missing some of the features that are here, but on balance I found it better. When the total number of posts here gets huge, the search facility is going to be *really* helpful. It will tip the balance if I want to look for something from months back. IF IT WORKS. Note my other post here, about that annoyance. But in the end, a Topic is neither a tree nor a thread, and that connectedness is what I miss most.

I said: Brian Peters is another one you should give a listen to.

Sandy and Dave W., I don't understand why you're arguing about dorian vs. "real" Em. You have to leave the G row to play that low E, anyway. That's even true of lots of tunes in G.

I use two different fingers. It's not as comfortable as some other button combinations, but it can be done. Sorry for that being so terse. Was in a hurry. Two fingers. On tunes like those you mention it would be middle finger on the E, ring finger on the B. With your hand in that position, I think the notes of the pull D chord fall naturally under your ring (C-row D), little (G-row F#), and index (C-row A) fingers. In other tunes -- or parts of tunes -- I might use the index finger on the E and the middle finger on the B. All depends on the notes surrounding them in the tune and on the keys.

I use two different fingers. It's not as comfortable as some other button combinations, but it can be done.

When there get to be more than a few pages in a particular topic -- or the member list, or I presume wherever -- it becomes possible to select pages 1, 2, 3, or LAST by clicking on the appropriate number (or LAST). But to reach one of the middle ones it seems to be necessary to select another page -- or perhaps several, incrementally -- until the range of displayed page numbers includes the one you want. Sure would be nice if there were a field where one could enter a page number to get there directly.

Unfortunately, searching just doesn't seem to work right. Selecting Discussion Forums as the area to search: If I search for Morris I seem to get the same posts as when I search for "Morris", though displayed differently. But searching for "Morris dance" turned up no matches, though I had seen at least one in the first search. Searching on +Morris +dance also gave no matches, as did searching on +English +Irish. We know better. Furthermore, when I ran the same search through My Assistant it turned up 3 matches for +Morris +dance. That can't be right, either. A search for Morris from the My Assistant starting point gave Topic list, rather than posts, yet the first Topic I selected (Jim's duet) was short enough to do a ctl-F search on all the included posts, and the word Morris wasn't found! These how-to-get-there-from-here hints are helpful, and I didn't know all of them, but they're only helpful if I can get to "here". Frustration continues apace.

Sandy Winters said: An interesting point, which should be elaborated. I feel the same way, BUT there are other users who feel that the new Forum serves them better. One problem is that "the" user is not homogeneous in needs, desires, or habits. There are at least several different kinds of users, and maybe Paul actually prefers the sort of interaction that the new Forum favors. Whether or not, he gets to make the choices. And I certainly prefer the current setup to no Forum at all.

True enough. What I find difficult is locating the old posts... or more significantly, threads. Those things I wanted to postpone responding to until I had time to give them more serious thought. Even if I do remember enough key words to locate a particular post, then if I want the context I need to search the Forum it was posted in. And if I'm lucky there aren't too many unrelated posts in between the ones forming the thread that interests me, because threads as such don't exist in the new design. Of course, if I've overlooked some nifty feature that *will* give me what I want, I'd love to hear about it.

You thought they were being affectionate, did you?

Thumbnail? What thumbnail? You should be able to view and print the same full-resolution image as your browser displays. And you should be able to print from the full-size view. (I have to admit that I don't know Photo Printing Wizard, but if it prints all photos that way, it can't be very popular. I suspect you've overlooked something.)

Not at all. Personally, I'd feel better if I didn't have the position... and I think all those "statistics" -- not to mention the titles, "badges", etc. -- to be ridiculous, or even a scourge. But as in the old Forum, I may make multiple replies to a single post if I'm replying to what I consider to be independent points.

By the way, while I think the Meredith chord charts are excellent, they are incomplete, leaving out chords where 2 of the 3 notes are in one of the outer rows. While some of those aren't simple major or minor (Bb+, and others more "complex"), others are (Ab, Eb, F#m, C#m, G#m).

I've tried to print it out and it only seems to print about 2/3 rds of it.Is it my printer or does it do this to your PC too ? It prints more than that for me, but still cuts off some. That's a common problem with printing from browsers. But since it's a JPEG image, you can download it, then load it into a photo editor (MS Photo Editor will do), and print it from there. 1) To download in MS Internet Explorer (might be the same in other browsers, but I'm not sure), right click on the picture, then select Save Picture As, then select the directory where you want to save it, and click Save. 2) To print the diagram once you've loaded it into MS Photo Editor (I hope this is the same for all versions; mine isn't the latest), open the File menu (ALT-F, or use the mouse), select Print (P), then make sure the Fit to Page box is checked and the Allow Distortion box is not, and make sure the image reflects this. To be sure of the latter, you may have to click twice on one of the check boxes: at least when I try it, it starts with Fit to Page checked but not shown (and not actually enabled), but if I uncheck it and check it again it all works right. 3) If you need help with other software, I'm sure somebody else can help.

Alex C. Jones wrote: And he got quite a few responses relating to the playing William Kimber and John Kirkpatrick. Good places to start if that's really what he wants to do, but he also says: And I ask, is the Kimber/Kirkpatrick style of playing Morris tunes really the best idea for song accompaniment? How many singers' guitarists (which may or may not be the singers themselves) play chords and melody together on the guitar? For that matter, how many singers normally have their vocal part doubled on *any* accompanying instrument? Now a second point, before I elaborate on the above. Rich Morse said: And this dichotomy seems to have been echoed by others. But there is not just one single, homogeneous "English style", not even for playing dance tunes. E.g., Chris Timson mentioned Scan Tester, whose style in my opinion is no closer to Kimber's and Kirkpatrick's than it is to Noel Hill's. And Dave Barnert recommended Jody Kruskal, an American who started as a Morris musician but who now also plays contra dance and other sorts of music, and who has described his own style as "as many buttons as possible at all times". (Back to the first point) There are many anglo-playing singers whose song accompaniment is quite different from the playing of Kimber, Kirpatrick, or Scan Tester. I would recommend that Alex listen so some of these for alternative concepts in accompaniment. John Roberts and Peter Bellamy have already been mentioned, and Chris Timson is himself a good example. Others include John Townley, Andy Turner, and Harry Scurfield, and I know I'm missing out many others. I think it would be a good thing to compare and contrast the details of the various styles of as many players as possible, rather than carelessly lumping them all under "English style" and glossing over the differences.

Not really, but it hasn't entirely stopped me from participating.

There's resonance and resonance. One needed postulate a resonant cavity or sympathetic resonance of the wood in the instrument to consider resonance in a concertina. The vibrating reed is a *resonant* system; that's why it vibrates at a given frequency and produces sound at a given pitch. What I believe Dave has suggested is that certain external factors can *directly* affect this *primary* resonance. In particular, if the reed frame is not held rigidly but can move slightly (ever so slightly is enough), this additional motion will bleed energy away from the primary resonance of the reed.

And yet another one with local references: My friend has just bought a Maccann, sir, And to learn it he'd like a good plan, sir. But he needn't fret; Concertina.net Has a Forum for finding the answer.

Rhomylly said: Three syllables; still, I feel silly. Is it "RHO-myl-ly", or is it "Rho-MIL-ly"? Or might it just be She says, "Rho-my LEE", Or even takes them by lots, willy nilly? And I hope she takes the following joint effort as the flattery it's meant to be, rather than as plagiarism. Concertina playing is an awesome pursu-it And the nicest people in the world do it! With good cheer and decorum They meet in the Forum, And post posts when they get around to it.

Rich Morse: That sounds right. As for whether it's wrong to refer to it as a "skiving machine" or "skiver"...? It may be that -- as with "what's a concertina" -- there are differences in terminology, since it was professionals in the leather business who first described the machine to me and described what it did as "skiving". ---BRIEF PAUSE--- "So," I thought, "why not check my old Shorter Oxford English Dictionary?" And I did. to skive (vt): "To split or cut (leather, rubber, etc.) into slices or strips; to pare or shave (hides) skive (n): "The surface part of a sheet of leather cut off by a skiving machine; a skiver skiver (n): "1. A thin kind of dressed leaether split from the grain side of a sheep-skin and tanned in sumach, used for bookbinding, lining hats, etc. 2. One who pares or splits leather." skiving (n): "The parings of hides; the piece or sheet of split leather from the inner, or flesh, side. skiving(gerund): "The action of splitting leather, etc." All about splitting; nothing about tapering. And so it goes.

Well, a quick Google search reminded me of "Cosmic and Freaky" (by Grit Laskin of Toronto?), and also of William and Washingtion, DC's Metropolitan Art Museum (by Roger Sherman?): "...he ate the nickelodeon in the lobby of the Met." There's also a Seattle parody, which hadn't heard, but at least I understand the local references, since I used to live there. And there were a few fragments and suggestions that other full parodies *might* have existed. Nevertheless, prompted by Rhomylly -- who may prefer to disavow any connection whatever, -- I have now "penned" (actually typed, but that doesn't sound as artistic) the following: 'Twas depressing and quite frightful on a hot summer's morn As the bums on the sidewalks lay alone and forlorn. And the lawyers and their cronies smiled in every doorway, Waiting for the crunch of metal, and the ambulance's bray. When they'd wrapped up their cases, they said one to the other, "We have made a pretty penny from both sister and brother. Now let's take a nice sea cruise; we'll return in the spring, To listen to the cars' percussion, while the ambulances sing." So they boarded a cruise liner bound down for Bermuda, To visit their colleagues, the shark and barracuda. There with their assistance, some tourists fell into the bay, And the sharks they played melodeons, as they snapped at their prey. To the pulse of sword dance tunes these fish slashed and flayed, Then as they gulped the last bits, fast rants and reels played. And when their hunger it was sated, they played songs in four parts, Then dropped the melodeons to the bottom; I say that's a good start.