Jim Besser

Years ago, at a dance, the fiddler in my band was nursing her baby while playing (might have been Opera Reel, now that I think of it.) A news photographer was there and took a picture --which appeared in the Washington Post a few days later. She still has it on her wall, 22 years later.

DOes anybody know if this is available from a U.S. source? The exchange rate is a little daunting (I know; I have a kid about to go to grad school in the UK).

Some insipid kid's song by Rafi, now blessedly forgotten, played for my daughter on a garage-sale concertina. She was unfailingly delighted to hear one of her favorites rendered on that awful sounding box. That repertoire unexpectedly served me in good stead. At a retreat a few years later, the planners asked us to do a contra dance (my wife was a caller). I had no other musicians with me, but in the group were several who could pick things out on various instruments. And the only tunes we had in common were kids tunes. So we did an evening's worth of dances using kid tunes ("and bingo was his name-O..." was a great hit with the dancers.).

Frustrating, yes, but not wasted time and energy. What you learn on your junky box will jump start your learning once your very nice Edgley comes. Spend the time learning scales, chords, the basics. Then, when the Edgley comes, you'll see a quantum leap in your playing. You don't need a responsive, fast instrument to learn the basics.

Mold! That's my guess. I play frequently in a friend's living room and I have to take a maximum dose of antihistime before going or i'm so teary eyed and sneezy I can't play.

That's very true. But another part of it is that many of the purists just aren't very good musicians, or at least adaptable ones. They learn one mode of music, and don't want anyone forcing them into other realms where they feel less secure. I sometimes play with several hardcore bluegrass musicians who are incredibly talented -- and enjoy playing anything that comes along at a jam. Seems to me it's the less competent ones who get in a snit about purity.

I play regularly in jams that often include a strong bluegrass contingent. I find them a curiously mixed lot. Many react with friendly curiousity to the concertina, and with pleasure when they hear I can play their kind of music and actively like it. The local bluegrass association has a twice-a-month open jam that regularly draws 50-100 players, and I've never had any problems squeezing away. On the other hand, I've encountered the rigid types of whom you speak. One weekly jam I sometimes attended recently blew apart because a couple of obsessive purists drove everybody else off (the concertina wasn't the issue, since I wasn't there when it happened; the issue was playing non-traditional tunes and non-standard chords). Several friends who had been attending for years just plain quit. Another I sometimes attended as a guitar player was so rigid, I'd never try with the concertina. An hour of just G tunes, then they'd switch to D, and heaven help you if you used a chord not in the fakebook. Not my cup of borscht. You always get this tension between a tradition's purists and those who just like to have fun making music. My idea of a great jam: lots of good players, considerate people and anything goes, in terms of music. Bill Monroe to ITM to Pachabel to Django.

We've been playing Galician for years (introduced to it by Grand Picnic), one of my alltime favorite waltzes. It's always fun popping that one on an unsuspecting piano player, who's lulled into complacency with the A part, then trips over the chords on the B. Puff Adder is great, too. Not hard to play, but hard to get the same sound as Jody without a G/D.

Considering that it was the first try, I thought it was well done. Extra jamming/socializing time is always nice, but this was billed as a learning workshop, not a general gathering, and that's what most of us came for. My only suggestion: have some classes aimed at specific skill levels. There was too much of a mix in my sessions. Jody's workshop on "playing the whole anglo" was really good, but would have been much better broken into two sessions, one for beginners in this style, one for people who already knew the basics. Ditto John Roberts on English style; he necessarily had to aim his teaching at rank beginners. The instructors also have to be a little more assertive. Ken was right on when he said the Roberts session was difficult because participants kept noodling when John was trying to demonstrate something. Jody was very assertive in telling people to stop playing and start listening. Parking wasn't a problem for me because we stayed at the gorgeous and very convenient Amherst Inn, just a few blocks away. Highly recommended. The meeting house was fine , despite the limited and poorly placed bathroom facilities.

A section of the downtown Charlottesville, Va. pedestrian mall where the configuration of the old buildings produces a rich, powerful sound. As a solo musician for a Morris side, sometimes it's hard to be heard over the clamor of the street, but not in that acoustically amazing place. I also played once in the old, art-deco main terminal of Washington National Airport, which is now used for special events. We did a sound check when the place was empty, and the sound was soaring. But when it filled up with people, I couldn't even hear myself play.

Thanks to the BB crew for a well-done workshop on Saturday. Great teachers, a great concert, a super venue in a wonderful town. What else could we ask for?

I'll be there. Sadly, without my primary concertina, which I managed to break in the middle of a dance (a sheared rivet). So I'll be there with my square Herrington, always an object of mirth. I plan to come to the reception. We'll be rolling in late THursday and plan to spend Friday seeing the sights.

When I first glanced at this thread, I thought the topic was "beware of Anglo grinders," and I thought, but of course! Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

>The reason I put the question to the list was because the G/D tuning was >recommended by someone who plays concertina with a group where the music i I play lots of oldtime music for dances, and C/G is great. The only real limitation, I think, is with some fast and complex A tunes, but that's mostly a matter of practice. And I love those OT tunes in F, which works great on a C/G.

No disagreement there. And therein is the source of my concern: the transformation of everything, including the things we care about most, like concertinas, into commodities. I said there's no solution; if your point is that there's no solution because it's just one manifestation of a global concern, we're on the same page. As I said, I don't think what's happened to vintage guitars has happened to concertinas, but it COULD. I hope it doesn't.

It's a legitimate issue. What irks me, although I realize there's no solution, are those who buy vintage concertinas PURELY as an investment. I have no problem with players who acquire, keep and play a number of instruments; in fact, i wish I was rich enough to be among them. What I dislike are those who buy instruments purely as a financial commodity. I don't know if this is happening on a large scale with concertinas; I do know it has happened with guitars. Vintage guitars have gone through the roof in the past 10 years in a kind of speculative boom that has pushed the prices of some "highly collectible" guitars, as the ads say, over the $100,000 mark. There are people buying these things and storing them in climate controlled warehouses until they decide to reap their profits. That has NOT happened yet with concertinas; the fact a new Dipper and a vintage Wheatstone are in the same ballpark reflects that. But I worry that it could as rapidly growing demand, the limited supply of new instruments, attrition of the old ones and the impact of collectors take their toll. That said, there's absolutely nothing that can be done about it.

>I have recently bought a CD of "Grand Picnic" which is the Contra Dance > band in which Jody Kruskal is the Anglo Player. I had the tape but wore Jody's always been my favorite anglo player for contra music. He's great when he's playing lead -- but even more amazing to me, he plays fantastic backup with his concertina. It really drives the band. I've been trying to emulate his style for years. And dancing to Grand Picnic is an experience. Talk about high energy; I thought it was coronary time for a few of us dancing at the Half Moon Sword Ale, when the band got good and revved up.

Even more interesting. We wrote a border morris dance around "Drops of Brandy." I have always found "the Butterfly" awkward, rhythmically, because the smoothness of the tune undermines the beat. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> THese dancers apparently LIKED the smoothness, which went well with a very fluid Irish dance. I can see where it wouldn't work for border Morris. I'd rather play something else; the Butterfly is ok, but there are so many great slip jigs out there. OUr dancers get into a rut; they learn a dance to a particular tune, then howl when it's changed.

As I learned slip jigs for Irish step dancing, they are relatively slow and flowing. The dance is a "soft shoe" dance -- where intricate movements of the body, legs, and feet are what matters -- as opposed to "hard shoe" -- where the percussive <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Exactly. Our dancers do this beautifully. It's very nice to watch and rewarding to play. Interestingly, we tried numerous slip jigs before we found one they were happy with. they disliked Drops of Brandy; said they couldn't hear the beat clearly enough. That could have been us, of course, but the Butterfly works perfectly for them.

Funny you should ask; tonight we played at a performance for a dance group we've been working with for about 8 years. We do one slip jig for them, and traditionally it's been very slow. Tonight, in a quick run-through, they kept telling us to speed up. At the performance, it was significantly faster than we usually play it, and it looked great. So I guess Ken's answer is right: it's up to the dancers! (We played The Butterfly; for some reason, the dancers find that easier to dance to than any of the others we tried)

Well stated. In Irish music, the trend seems to be to regard music as a competitive sport; speed is often valued more than musicality. The other thing I've noticed: nobody wants to be a rhythm player any more. More and more, I play in settings where nobody is concentrating on laying down the rhythmic base. The guitar and piano players are doing wild and creative things, but driving the session/band with rock-solid rhythm isn't one of them, and the music suffers as a result. Everybody wants to be a star, I guess. Or maybe I'm just getting old and crotchety

Absolutely correct, in my view. Learning to play only in the native rows establishes patterns that are extremely hard to change and which greatly limit your capabilities as a player. Playing scales is important, as Ken said. Playing them repetitively, following different routes, can also be helpful. After I've learned a tune, I find it helpful to practice it using different fingering patterns, which I think makes it easier for me to pick up music on the fly at sessions. I also like to take a tune I know well and play it in different keys. Rhomylly, you have my symapthy, but believe me, this isn't that hard to fix. Scales! Different patterns!

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Absolutely true. Try playing Calliope House at 160 beats; that's really hard on a concertina, but not that big a deal for a good fiddler, who uses numerous tricks to smooth out the playing. That said, I believe there is a real obsession with playing unnecessarily fast, to the point where the music is no longer musical, as a previous poster said. It's not a race, it's music, but people forget that, and ignore the fact that some tunes sound amazing when played at a deliberate pace (Golden Eagle is one I'm working on now; heard it at a session played at b reakneck speed and didn't like it; heard it on a CD played very slowly and it was wonderful).

Right on right, purely out of habit, not just because Noel Hill insists on it. Standing, of course, for Morris playing -- but i usually have a foot stool nearby so I can periodically put up my leg and brace the concertina to avoid aggravating my tendonitis. I also find I need more support when playing a tricky passage. In Morris, I play just fine standing/marching, but when there's a harder section coming up or a change in tunes, I try to be close to my stool so I can prop up the instrument. SOrt of a security blanket.