Theodore Kloba

A question for those who have seen many German made Anglos: Do these photos represent the typical construction? Having seen the insides of many Chemnitzers and Bandoneons (even a few early ones) there are some surprises with this little "Anglo": Reed blocks are removable, screwed to the action board. Even though it's double-reed, no reed plates are lying flat against the action board. The reed tips are oriented both ways (some up, some down); in Chemnitzers & Bandonions, this is typically only seen in the piccolo reeds, mounted parallel to the action board. The key levers are thick and do not rest in a slotted wooden block to maintain alignment. The pivot rod is very thick. The "fit and finish" of the reed blocks seems crude.

The seller is a C.net member. See here: <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There's already been discussion about it in the Concertina History forum here: <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I just learned of Pink Floyd founding member Syd Barrett's passing. He was definitely an important early influence on my musical development. Although the Pink Floyd song catalog isn't part of the typical concertina repertoire, I think of them as a quintessentially English band; I wonder: Has anybody here ever attempted any Pink Floyd tunes on their concertina?

(really a Chemnitzer layout)FWIW to put "Chemnitzer or Bandonion?" into Anglo terms, the differences are on the order of those between Jeffries and Wheatstone layouts.

At least according to my dictionary, the French gigue probably came from "jig" to begin with. If you're playing a two-chord song in G or A, with oom-pah accompaniment, it sure does. You barely have to move the left hand. Almost certainly not that particular instrument (really a Chemnitzer layout), if the recording is English, since that instrument was found in America.Maybe the original purchaser traveled to the Wheatstone factory to pick up the instrument and somebody recorded him (or her) before he (or she) returned home. Some of the selections are not uncommon in the Midwest lexicon. One ("Under Freedom's Flag") is even composed by a Pole (Feliks Nowowiejski)... Until Alan reveals the truth, the possibilities for speculation continue to grow! I would like to hear the two selections listed as "Unknown" to have a shot at identifying.

It could be a single-reed bandonion, or even the Wheatstone "bandoneon" you posted about earlier. It would be no more difficult to play that piece on a bandonion than a Chemnitzer. Probably easier, in fact, to do the countermelodies on the left hand. An idea occurred to me earlier today of something I could record and post here... I'm in the process of tuning an old german Chemnitzer I have. The tuning process involves blanking off some of the reedplates (I use freezer paper) to disable the unisons and octaves. I could keep the paper in place and record some tunes with it as a single-reed box.

In Soviet Union, web-site watches YOU! (July 4, 2006 was also the 20th anniversary of the day Yakov Smirnoff became a US citizen.)

Actually, no... Surveys have repeatedly shown that most people support freedom of speech only until they realize it also applies to those with whom they disagree.

I would call them bang-shaped (a.k.a. exclamation mark).

Actually, with the exception of "SKAIČIUOTI" (to count), all the Lithuanian words have cognates with English words of nearly the same meaning; most are obvious: YRA - "are" (The verb BUTI, "to be" is also irregular in a similar way; its conjugation includes "ESI" which is cognate to "is", although it goes with the first person). TRIJŲ - "three" TIPŲ - "types" ŽMONĖS - "humans" (Ž is pronounced as "zh"). TIE - "they" KURIE - "which" (Many English words starting in "Wh" that have a Latin equivalent in "Qu" will have the corresponding Lithuanian word in "K") MOKA - "may"

Seek, and ye shall find. Wow... Judging by the one side visible in that photo, that's actually the 51- or 52- button layout. Certainly it could play the notes as written. Who bought these? Did they ever record "Bluebell Polka"?

I have that saying on a tee shirt like this (received as a gift):

Reminds me of Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac's On the Road. Ever read it? Since the indigenous people use the term "Native American," I like to call myself an "American Native." I was born here and I don't belong anywhere else.

What's with the Dutch Flags? I know old New York was once New Amsterdam, but didn't you say this was Boston?

There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who believe all things can be placed into one of two categories, and those who do not.

Questions and comments from an "outside" reader: Of course I have no idea who the player might be, or really what instrument is being played. First of all, why was the possibility of a >30 button Anglo (G/D?) playing across-the-rows ruled out? (Assuming the tape speed was off by a semitone and it starts in G.) Is it the low bass notes? If it weren't for the tone of the melody being obviously an English-construction instrument, it sounds like a pretty ordinary Chemnitzer arrangement. In fact, here's one now that wouldn't strain a mediocre player to accomplish technically (taken from Ken Yagielski's concertinamusic.com): FWIW, and not really relating to the song at hand: The differences in tone and voicing between left and right as well as between the low bass notes (C, G, D, A, E) and the left-hand chord tones are included by design in most Chemnitzers. Not that it's a likely solution to the mystery, but: Is it known whether any of the English makers ever constructed a "special-order" instrument to the 38-button Chemnitzer layout? This whole piece as notated above would fit within that keyboard with only a few missing notes in the accompaniment, all of which could easily be worked around.

For me too. I couldn't live without my augmented chords!

Free wandering bullocks occur anywhere in Britain where the skills/finance for good fences are inadequate!It's the proliferation part that has me puzzled!

Maybe this group was doing is as a favor to the family? One reason the bland DJ weddings are so prevalent is the cost of paying a full band (sometimes at union scale) can be prohibitive. There are so many musicians in my family, there's no way I could have let a DJ happen at my wedding. This was back in the BC years (Before Concertina); We had a quartet (bass, piano, drum & clarinet) playing swing standards. The rural Pennsylvanian relatives got the group to do a couple polkas too. I've known "Виртуальный Миша" (virtual Misha) for a few years, but from my return to C.net in January until last week, I didn't realize that m3838 was him! I also had to look up bullock in the dictionary to make sure it meant what I thought it did. It's very rarely used in US English, even in agrarian circles (county fairs, etc., not UFO activity) where the more-specific terms ox and steer are used.

A while back, I used to maintain a website called Squeezebox 101: A Field Guide to Hand-Held Bellows-Driven Free-Reed Instruments. It had photos and descriptions of many accordions, concertinas and things in between. I've since taken the site down and moved the content to squeezebox.wikia.com where anybody can make contributions or edit. In order to meet the requirements of Wikia's copyright policy, I had to remove some photos whose contributors I had lost track of. Photos of concertinas are especially needed as well as knowledge. You might start at the Squeezebox field guide.

Right now, There are two makers that focus on the high-end ($8,000) quadruple-reed instruments only. I think the waiting list is about 2-3 years. Nobody in the US is making instruments for beginners or for players who want a reliable single-, double- or triple-reed instrument. There are a lot of old German instruments out there, but they almost always need some kind of restoration, and never end up as playable as a modern American instrument.

I play both concertina and accordion (neither is of the type you and your friend play) and I think the question is akin to "What's an easy language to learn, and why?" For example: If your first language is Dutch, you probably won't have too hard a time learning English, since the languages are related; the prevalence of English makes it easy to encounter speakers, teachers and printed matter; you're likely to find some cultural commonalties so that you'll actually have something to discuss with the natives. On the other hand, you'll probably have a harder time learning Gilyak, since it's not related to any other languages in existence, has less than a thousand speakers in a remote corner of Asian Russia, and has little teaching materials except in Russian or Japanese. So yes, there's some aspect of talent that might be at stake, but it's also prior background, the repertoire that's available and suitable for each instrument, and the availability of a community in which to learn. Then there's the question of how you measured your progress to make the determination that it's been slower than your friends. It can't be done directly.

This could be taken to extremes: For any plywood part (is the action board in modern English-construction concertinas plywood?), we should count (at least) one part for each layer. Each hair in a piece of wool felt counts as one part. (Maybe more, if you count each blade of grass the sheep ate to produce that hair.) Any paper part could be millions, if you take every wood particle that was macerated and pressed to make that paper. If we are to count items assembled by others, I think a reasonable breakpoint is with "standard" items: If I buy a hand strap as a stock item from a supplier, it counts as one. If I cut six parts from one piece of wood, it counts as six, even if it was plywood. If I have a job shop assemble a a component to my drawings/specifications, it counts for as many parts as they use. The keys, hammers, and hammer shanks are all unique within a single piano. Most of other action parts are essentially uniform across the range, or occur in just a few variations. My personal logic was financial: If it requires a machine that I don't own and know how to operate, I job it out to someone (local) whose career is operating that kind of machine efficiently. I also use CNC/CAM to reduce the need to accurately measure and lay out. And then in fifty years, some hapless technician will be refitting it with threaded inserts because the wood no longer grips the screws. Of course, I do see your point: There are things that can be done to simplify. Yes, but then you end up with a plastic concertina that you can't vary without making another expensive mold. Whether its a mold or some other form of automation, this could be a good place to reduce labor, but I think there will still be some hand work. I don't know about you, but if I saw two otherwise-identical instruments for sale, and one of them had molded plastic ends while the other had wood or metal, I'd expect the plastic one to be dramatically less expensive!

I've had this MP3 downloaded since the original post in February. I just went back to the site for more information about the song, and discovered that there's an associated track with Alan Jabbour (Fiddle) speaking about the history of the song. He mentions that it started out as an Irish lament. Anybody know the original title? Any transcriptions or other recordings? A search for "Daddy Rock the Babies to Sleep" only turns up that one site (and probably now this one!). "Daddy Rock the Babies to Sleep": Song Story Addendum: After listening closely to the story, I realize he calls it "Rocking the Babies to Sleep." which turns up a lot more search hits, not least of which includes a recording from the April 23, 2005 broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion. (Play Segment 6).