Kathryn Wheeler

You can also slow down the speed of YouTube and Facebook videos without changing the pitch, which is a wonderful tool.

Leaning into discords can be wonderful. Also I love a good unconventional harmony. The placement of buttons on a concertina often suggest interesting things to try.

Not on concertina but I think they sound very similar: I’ve used microvox mics on a piano accordion for years and yes the Velcro could be very annoying (I had a long strip of three mics on the r hand side that fell off at least once… which is a heavy thing to have swinging around mid air! The single bass mic fell off even more!) The other problem is that if I was too close to speakers (including foldback speakers) there could be interference/feedback. I got used to having to tell sound people and some didn’t seem to believe me until they realised it was true.. They’d pick up a lot of noise from other things as they were external mics. This meant you couldn’t turn the mic up on the mixer lots - a problem in large venues. And yes it felt like it hampered my ability to move around because of that.

Go for it! Thankyou very much!

Thankyou!

Hi folks! Hope this is interesting/of use! I've used the well-loved tune Brighton Camp (The Girl I Left Behind Me) to show how I approach playing both melody and accompaniments in various ways on the 20b C/G anglo. The video starts with me playing and then it goes on to a discussion/demo. Brighton Camp is used for a dance we do with my local side Bow Brook Border in Worcestershire, so when I’m not dancing I’ve been jamming along with melodeons/accordion/fiddle and a lot of their tunes are in G major. Some seem to lie easily on the anglo and immediately can be accompanied whilst playing melody. Others require a bit more thought and experimentation. Interesting though!

Yes absolutely, when for example I’m improvising with friends

Wonderful anecdotes! I'd love to have a go and I am sure my mum would get all sorts of flashbacks to playing one!

Aha! Thank you for clarifying - I can see what you mean about the 16th century feel. I'd certainly like to hear it on a spinet or harpsichord.

Thankyou Which piece are you referring to as I’ve linked to lots in this thread?

My mum grew up with a harmonium in the front room in the 40s (she remembers he clunking sound of the pedals!) and also remembers evangelical folk (she thinks) pushing a harmonium through the streets, stopping and singing carols (she joined in - all under the street lamp), before moving on. This was in a valley in S Wales The reed organ I remember was in the 70s and was electric - I definitely remember the whirring sound! Thankyou for your recollections!

DaveM - Thanks for introducing me to Emilia’s channel (the Juuri and Juuri fiddler - she has more tunes with the two instruments - reminds me of playing fiddle with my piano accordionist friend and also if the reed organ I played as a kid

Imagine that approach on concertinas!

Only tangentially related, but I am just reminded of that amazing Hebridean church singing whereby everyone sings their own version of the tune at the same time as everyone else and produces the most amazing heterophony!! (Incidentally that is one tool available to players of medieval music too)

I have to listen to those pieces again! Thankyou for those thoughts- I know what you mean! Much appreciated