Jump to content

geoffwright

Members
  • Posts

    576
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by geoffwright

  1. My learning curve went something like -

    Go to concertina workshop - Learn to play it on either row.

    Go to another concertina workshop - Learn scales in a single direction, then learn to play it on the push or the pull.

    Go to another concertina workshop - Go back to playing it on the C row.

     

    By the time you can do all these, you may find your favorite method was how you started.

  2. We were discussing exactly the same subject at Royal Concertinas last night. Someones wife had said he didn't need a Jeffries AND a Dipper.

    Mine said I didnt need a loud concertina (Wheatstone M/E) and a bloody loud one (Jeffries).

    I am practising every opportunity I get when the rest are out of the room. As soon as the adverts come on or the program ends, everyone else dashes out to do something and out comes my box, and for that reason, my boxes live next to my chair, within easy reach, catches undone for a quick release.

    As usual there are complaints about the noise as soon as they get back. They just don't understand and I don't care.

  3. All this football is wonderful. We havn't watched any and BBC2 have treated us to a season of opera - Britten Turn of the screw, Mozart Don Giovanni and at the weekend, Verdi Faust.

    Much more relaxing than football and DGio provides some super tunes to play on concertina!!

     

    If England don't make it into the quarter final, how many days before we see dead flags everywhere - or are the remedials going to heed the DVLA directive and keep flying the warning?

  4. Another compromise would be for melodion players to stop using the bass so much in Morris and for them to get cross-fingering to get out of G and D.

    Shock... Horror ... I have heard a vicious, but unfounded rumour that they are even making new-fangled melodions with ACCIDENTALS of all things!!. Whatever next?

     

    I have never had problems keeping up with the best morris bands on my C/G, and if you play in octaves using both sides, a C/G comes into its own then, as the loudest instrument in the band (especially if metal ended and/or a Jeffries).

  5. Just looking at the poll, and from personal experience, it looks like English players seem to be the most flexible in swapping or adding other concertinas, whilst anglo players seem to be the most set-in their-ways and not trying other instruments.

    It is probably also true that the 12 or 14% of players who did add/change were already competent musicians, playing in a number of keys and the 42 % of anglo players who did not, were up the row or chord players.

     

    Personally, I was a set-in-the-way luddite anglo player who thought "why should I bother playing english when anglo can do the same"?. After some 25 years, I added English and have never looked back. I have to force myself to devote some time to anglo as well nowadays.

  6. My Wheatstone english treble has an air button and I suspect that was what swung me into buying that particular one. Being an angloid, I expect to have one (although never use it when playing), and also, being a sort that is forever picking the box up to play along to a favorite tune with someone, then putting the box down, the air button jusr makes closing things a lot easier.

    At a push (pun), you could take one of the highest reeds out in the push direction only to use as a closer, taking care to remember which direction you need if you want to play the note.

  7. Mary Macnamara admitted that the foot-tap was part of her music and could not start playing without both feet going. She added that they put a carpet under her feet when she plays on the tv.

    Feet-tapping is ok in solo playing, but not when playing along with others as it is easy to get three beats going.

    I know a fiddler who stamps hard with both feet when playing to the extent that you have no chance of reading any music as the whole stage vibrates.

    (I won't mention your name, Gerry)

  8. Around 9 players (including some new faces) of a number of interesting varieties of anglo and english gathered together for a pint of Full Steam Ahead (Cottage Brewery, West Lydford, Somerset, I think) and the obligatory sarnies.

     

    We tried to make the session a broad spectrum of concertina-friendly tunes most people knew and they are listed below

     

    Jimmy Allan

    Brighton Camp

    Winster Gallop

    Salmon Tails

    'Till The Tide Comes In

    Mrs O'Dwyers Favorite

    Dingle Regatta

    Merrily Kiss The Quaker

    Horses' Branle

    Steamboat Hornpipe

    Navvie On The Line

    Buttered Peas

    Princess Royal

    Jenny Lind Polka

    Because He Was A Bonny Lad

    Herd On The Hill

    Wild Colonial Boy

    Bonny Breastknots

    Double Lead Through

    Stoney Steps

    Barrington Hornpipe

    The Pikemans'

    Childgrove

    The Sloe

    Herbert Snmith's Fourhand Reel

    Dorset Fourhand Reel

    City of Savannah

    Saddle The Pony

    Blackthorn Stick

    Rakes of Kildare

    Ashoken Farewell

    Da Slockit Light

    Off to California

    Proudlocks Hornpipe

    Fiery Clockfeace

  9. Not a criticism, just a moan.

    Does anyone else look at the Tunatron once in a while and just want to look at the newest tunes? After the first few listed under "newly posted tunes", you have to go into the Tunatron and next throught all 400 odd.

    Would either a "reverse order" or a "go to last" function be helpful to enable us to see the newest first? We seem to be able to do this on every other bit of the forum.

  10. Most tales of Morris-fests are unrepeatable.

    I went on a morris weekend to Faithfull City (Worcester, UK), which that year, was sponsored by Scrumpy Jack which went down well. Someone in a nearby bed unpacked his case and got out a little cabinet with half a dozen drawers in it. Yes, they were full of different snuff.

    These were dipped into during the night as well as daytime.

  11. Looking at the map, we really are lucky to have so many players in the home of concertinas, England, with, apart from London, two big provincial groupings around Bristol and around South/West Yorkshire. Well done to all those involved in bringing (and keeping) everyone together in those two groups.

  12. No harm at all in playing some of the A on the C row and some of the B on the G row.

    Just working it out on "air concertina" (postings passim), I might cheat and instead of BGB dBd in the B, I might play BAB dBd, wihich you may find easier on the C row.

    Noel Hill summed up this row-swapping lark by teaching scales on 4 buttons i.e

    C row top GA BC G row top de fg . Also adding that the BC and ef are handy ornaments as they are in the same direction.

×
×
  • Create New...