Marien

I am not sure whether bids form USA are accepted here, the item does not pop up on ebay.com. If you really want to place a bid, maybe you will have to find somebody in Germany who places the bid for you.

I have the Rosbif recordings not on a single cd but on a single tape... A french tune I have moved on youtube is scottiche a servant I have recordings of 2 events in 2002 and 2003 of a number of french, dutch and german musicians (including me, not on concertina but on bouzouki and fiddle) that played a lot of traditional french and also some jewish music in Chassignolles in an old jewish settlement called "la Rabine" in Auvergne. I am about releasing a CD of them, anyone who is interested, drop me a line.

Dirge A concertina sound is quite dry. Only one voice is squeeking. In a session it can't compete with a double voiced melodeon or accordion. Somehow (okay we already had that and we hate to admit) a double tongued accordeon has a fatter and better sound for the rocky bits of music. I was thinking about using a double notes, pressing as many C buttons on the thing when you want to play one C, at beats or syncopics. Your MacCann may have quite a range where you can press the same note on the right and the left hand, or even with octave notes, so you may have 4 notes swinging in stead of one and it may bring add at least fat to the music (especially when it is not perfectly in concert pitch). I think lower notes add more depth than higher ones. Maybe also playing fifths with the note (add G's to those C's) could help, but I wouldn't try to make full chords with a lot of additional notes in rock and roll music. Another thing I have been thinking of is to connect the concertina (element or mike) to a wow wow pedal, a booster or a sound effect studio and check what can come out... For rock and roll you could certainly use a midi concertina. Hmmm, just some ideas, checking out the part without the hardware now... Marien

I play some Schumann from "album fuer die Jugend" on a G/D anglo by the ear but I did not write the dots. is one on youtube. Marien Can I have a sheet music of this Schumann's pieces? There are piano sheets, no concertina sheets. In the english language it is referred to as `album for the young`. Check amazon US or Amazon UK, or your local music shop...

Just for curiosity, I have never seen this key layout on a big bandonium... Maybe something for piano players with supple wrists, flexible bones and long fingers, it is described as a piano bandonion made by Alfred Arnold, It is for sale on ebay germany. Check it out, I don't know anything about the seller, and I will not bid against you... Marien

I have been searching some time for a bigger crane, so, the Crane appears to be on its way to the Netherlands It is a beauty as far as I have seen in the pictures that Mark did send me. If a picture is too large for uploading, you may use `tinypic`, a german freeware graphical application to make images smaller in size. Another way is to load it in MS paint, stretch it to 50% (or 33 or 25%) and save as a jpg or png file. Here is a picture of the crabb /

I play some Schumann from "album fuer die Jugend" on a G/D anglo by the ear but I did not write the dots. is one on youtube. Marien

Grog is rum with a wide assortment of stuff in it, from weak beer to lemons to boiling water to cinnamon. According to Wikipedia, that is. Right, that is the medicin version, the old recepy to attaque the mexican influenza, the pirate grog seems to come in three colours, but I suspect that the main ingredient forany grog is alcohol, which will make you feel groggy.

I need some grog now, whatever that may be...

Paul, In addition to the useful remarks on `depends what you wanna play` there is also an ergonomical issue. There is an upper limit to the number of buttons that will make sense. If you like to play "all" chords like for jazz sessions, I always thought it would be good to have a giant Crane with as huge number of buttons - 80+ - but if the number of rows increases that much (8 on both sides) then the straps may prevent you from pressing the buttons of the most squeeky rows, depending on hand size. It may also witholds you to press the lowest bass notes, when the buttons are to close to the hand rest. I am used to 55 buttons and it gives much freedom for making chords. although sometimes I would like to have an additional low Bes, A and G, but I guess that I am already spoiled enough by having 4 octaves. Marien

I remember someody once asked for examples of concertinas in bands. For what it is worth, here is an old sound clip where I played on the crane concertina in a local band called les margineaux. The song is called 'johnny'. I found this track somewhere on my hard disk. Don't expect professional quality, it is just a rehearsel tape. johnny.mp3

I am not sure, but isn't it true that smaller reed chambers need less air to produce loud notes. That would mean that you could do with smaller bellows, and if the gaps between the reeds and the frames are small enough, and everything else is air tight, you could have enough air for chords, or is this too optimistic?

Nice tune, this musical priest, isn't it usually in B minor? Marien

After the usual not wanting to be involved disclaimer I´ld like to add that the real story doesn't need analogies. To me this didn't smell like a real bargain. Obviously it needs a lot more restoration work than just fixing one note. Happy squeezing

Hello Dan, I agree that 1400 usd + 1200 GBP is a lot of money , but if you consider that a 39b anglo jeffries at Hobgoblin in Manchester is offered for 6750 GBP, which is more then 5 times 1200, well, what to say more.... Compared to an anglo, any type of Duet may be cheap because there is not too much demand (there aren't that many duet players). But if you wanted to have the jeffries restored, don't forget that it has 116 reeds which is a lot more than the usual 60 to 78 of an anglo... Cheers, Marien

How about moonlight mile of the stones, isn't that spooky?

Hello Dan, Is this the same instrument?

Message received, Thanks a lot. Marien

Aaaaaaaaaaargh, why don't we all have the same rights....

I had a look and my main impression was bad about the screw below the Marie Lachenal plate, Surely it is of lower quality than Marie deserved. It may tell us more about younger owners. The bellows don't look too bad, although you only see one side of them. Indeed there is no hard evidence for Maries ownership, but still it could be specially made for Marie Lachenal, why not? If the concertina was for a special person (like your own daughter), it could be a reason to make it look special and to use another kind of veneer (for others it may even be a reason to use the cheapest ply wood there is)... If there is a Lachenal model named after Marie Lachenal, I suppose that at least one member of the forum must have heard of its existance before...

fyi, A wooden ended Wheatstone 30 button anglo (1953) on ebay. It is not mine and I don't know the seller, but it looks as if it is a decent wheatstone, with steel reeds in single aluminium frames. The seller mailed me that it is air tight and it has the wheatstone layout.

Overhere in Europe, chamois leather is available on local week markets. There is always a couple of stands selling cleaning products, some of them sell real chamois leather. Some of the available chammies are thinner then others, some are rather too dry. If I buy one for accordeon pads or concertina I check to find one of suitable thickness, one that's not touched by rain.

Wen taking an instruemnt with me on the plane, a trick that once helped me was to pack fragile things surrounded by lots of clothes in a huge case with total weight just beneith the 20 kilos allowed for a check-in item. Such a case is too lumpy and too heavy for the luggage gorillas to throw it around or to use it as a rugby ball. There is more risk to have it shipped by mail overseas. Different instruments I ordered far from home arrived in parts at my door after rough handling (I remember broken banjo necks, reed puzzles in stead of proper accordions), and I sometimes noticed that a package had been opened by custom desk terrorists, not putting it back as it had been shipped. I think double boxing like you did is the minimal requirement to avoid this.

Are you suggesting that the Vikings are not responsible at all for any part of the name Norwich? Skoll

Morris dance (or la morisce) is originally a spanish sword dance. The name Morris comes from Morisce and it refers to the people from morocco chased back to africa. The dance visualises this sword battle to celibrate the spanish victory, if I am correct this was around 1440. The dance became popular and travelled north, via France and it became popular also in Flanders, Holland and England in the 16th century. It is also the origin of the stick dances (stokkedans) we still have in the Netherlands. Of course, in every region where it has been introduced, there are many local elements and nowadays english morris music and dancing is a typical english folk phenomenon.