Kathryn Wheeler

Hi Richard, No plans to venture beyond 20 buttons at the moment..I keep finding more things to do with those 20! 😂 Just now I stumbled on the most beautiful 9th chord - luckily I had the phone on record so I can rediscover how on Earth that happened! And mashing the top four buttons together on the left makes a lovely Em7 Just considering the increased permutations just a few extra buttons might provide us enough to fry my head right now!

I also love those three note block chords on both left and right sides (some of them I call “triangle chords” as they’re played across the ties and the shapes make nice triangles!)

I use a 20button Anglo so there aren’t so many very low notes What I tend to do at the moment I’d to work out a nice countermelody on the left hand and then add in the occasional chord notes to add rhythm - that way some notes in the countermelody act as “bass” notes I don’t always use the root of each chord in the “bassline” - whatever makes a nice run of notes, so it could be a root, third or fifth of a chord I guess all my years of playing chords on electronic organ in various inversions have stood me in good stead! Aaa, it’d be so much eas

As someone who loves playing harmonically and who is relatively new to it - I made a note of whose playing (or which pieces) really stood out for me as something I love and (at first) literally played videos at a slower speed and noted down what was going on. That helped me but I’m experienced at that and it’s one way I’ve always learnt music - copy it, internalise it, learn the grammar of it, then play with it and modify/adapt to suit whatever I’m doing. Then play with new ideas There are many different options and ways of doing it. Lots and lots to play with. I

Agreed, it’s an attractive idea isn’t it!

Jim, Thankyou! Such a wonderfully detailed and informative response. Another vote for a Zoom device! I had been wondering about a pair of instrumental mics either side for nice quality stuff (when I’d done session work I’d had a piano accordion miced up in a similar way - it did make me think about exactly how much space I can take up and how use of bellows can really influence the result!) but the info about changing from stereo to mono for the final result is really new to me and fascinating!

Daniel, how far away do you tend to put this device?

I forgot to mention that I found your MacBook recordings really interesting from the point of view of being another Apple device - I’ve noticed certain similarities with what I did using iPhone video in terms of sound. Ive been doing some experiments at different distances with if - I never realised til now that it has more than one microphone and I was doing the video in selfie mode which uses a microphone on the back of the device! Quality seems better if I do it in normal mode rather than selfie (not sure at this stage if that’s common to all of just my phone ie whether I have a problemat

David, How have you found JamKazam as a way of playing live with others? Also have the new condenser mics been essential for doing that, and/or have they made a noticeable difference to the sound. Have you tested it by recording (for your own use if not YouTube/Soundcloud) If so in what way would you say it’s better? Thanks!

Thank you Paul - I actually have something virtually identical. I didn't use it on my initial video though, using only the phone (doh!) (And that's probably where the problem lies!) Useful that you have it about a metre away. Audacity is good isnt it! I just havent used it for concertina yet. Thank you for the tips. Very reassuring.

Fascinating! Is the increased flattening because we are more likely to detect a change in pitch at those lower frequencies or something to do with the size of the reed (I’d have thought a bigger reed might be more stiff/harder to move by an increased pressure of air?) The concertina definitely isn’t producing the watery burbling you can hear in the recording (luckily recordings not off video confirm that too...phew..)

Hi Geoff, Thanks for that - how far away do you place the device? I can hear a lot of subtlety in the sounds and it seems nice across the range, from low to high

Hi everyone, What methods do you use to record nice audio on your concertinas? I'm interested in seeing what solutions work for this instrument, what equipment you may use etc. Forgive me if this has already been discussed - if so, a link to any relevant threads would be great. I have wanted to do quick and easy recordings so far (as I'm so new to it, I didnt want to overwhelm myself with setting up loads of stuff..might not have got round to it at all if so!) - for that a phone and a nice quality small recording device are quite handy for when you're in a rush or out

RIght, I've had a listen back to the audio (by listening to it on my phone with earbuds in and also on my computer with headphones) and I've discovered a few interesting things. The issue is a garbled sound which sounds like it is underwater-like distortion. A burbling. I have checked the levels in a mixer and its not like there is any clipping - the sound is not now and never was too loud. So that's good. I exported the video file as an mp3 (not ideal but eh) and looked at it in Audacity and found a note with the warbling and zooming into the waveform nothing looks

Thank you for the recommendations of concertina players to listen to!