Jim Besser

Really nice one, Al. Gonna figure this one out today.

Thanks, Al. It would be a pleasure to play with you again; that night at The George is a great memory.

Good idea!

It looks like I'll be touring the Cotswolds the last week in June and first week in July, playing for my Morris dance group. We expect to be dancing with English sides on the weekends; I'm looking for fun music events during the week in between, when we'll all be traveling on our own. Any ideas? Festivals, English sessions, workshops, etc? And are there any English sides that might want to connect with a rowdy bunch of boys from Washington DC?

Really impressive, Bob. Playing that in F on a CG Anglo is not for the faint hearted.

Pursuing my oddball interest in the music of Tin Pan Alley composer Kerry Mills, here is "At a Georgia Camp Meeting," played on a 30 button C/G Anglo. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/68325595/JB_GaCampMeeting1.MP3 Mills is best known for the song "Meet Me in St. Louis" and the tune "Redwing," popular among contra dance musicians but composed as a novelty song about an "Indian maid." So far I've learned Whistling Rufus, The Kerry Mills Barn Dance and Old Heidelburg in addition to Georgia Camp Meeting. And in a stroke of weird coincidence, I was asked to play Meet Me in St. Louis at a recent funeral. A strange musical detour for a Morris and English ceilidh musician, but I find this music incredibly appealing and fun to play. Constructive feedback always appreciated.

Love the cellist. The baritone is nice, but the sound sort of gets lost. Oh my, in this video it looks like he's playing one of those spectacular Jeffries with metal end frames. Be still my heart.

Congrats, Bob. Nice playing, great box. About 8 years ago, when I was looking for a better G/D, I was on the list for an instrument by a modern maker and my number was almost up - but in the end, I thought, I'm over 60, I don't need a sports car, my kid's graduated college, and there's nothing like a Jeffries. Haven't regretted it for a moment.

Thanks. Yeah, I could tell you weren't limited by a mere 30 buttons. I am, which will require some comprises when playing this kind of music.

Adrian - This is inspiring. So I"m wondering: can you suggest other Renaissance pieces that might work well on a C/G baritone Anglo - that are not as challenging as the one you played? Playing classical music is pretty foreign to me, but I'd like to explore - in a neophyte's way, of course - the path you are blazing.

Just gorgeous - the instrument and the playing. Is this a C/G?

This is just a superb recording. Yes, the organ-like sound is part of it. I have been playing a Morse hybrid baritone, and I get some of that rich sound, but my heavens, this Dipper is just sublime, sublimely played.

Here's Daria's very nice recording: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/68325595/C.net%20Tune%20of%20the%20Month/Daria.m4a Very nice cut. I like the singing and the banjo. Your playing while she was singing was perfect. For the instrumental break, you could have done more - maybe stronger, louder harmony with the banjo - but IMHO it's always better to underplay than to overplay. Nice sound to your band!

It was saved as an HTM file, but appears to contain an audio file. I don't know how to extract that!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4WDne6ayVk.

Hi Daria - I can't open the attachment. What kind of content is this?

An excerpt from Saturday's 'New Acoustic Traditions' afternoon at the Grounded Coffeehouse in Alexandria, Va. Randy Stein on Wheatstone English concertina Jim Besser on Lachenal/Dipper C/G Anglo concertina Gus Voorhees on D/G Castagnari melodeon Tune: Xotes Romanes. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/68325595/Xotes%20Romanes_The%20Squeezers.MP3

Having decided to give up the unreliable Microvox concertina mic system, I tried an experiment last night. We played a huge dance in a very noisy hall. And my band is very loud - drums, horn section, etc. I had the sound guy set me up with two very good AKG directional condenser mics, one on each side of the instrument, about 8 inches away from the sides with the bellows extended, pointed slightly down. The sound was probably the best I've experienced. Friends reported that the concertina had a rich, warm sound in the hall, in contrast to the somewhat harsh sound of the Microvox. For a change, I could actually hear myself in the monitors. And I didn't get the popping and ripping sounds in the PA that I used to get when I switched instruments in the middle of a set and had to move the Microvox mics from one box to the other (if I didn't turn the volume to zero, you could hear the velcro ripping sound over the pa; if I did, I got pot noise from the volume control). It also felt a lot freer, not being tied to a bunch of cables. The next phase in this research project: see if I can find high quality dynamic mics that will approach this level in sound. The condensers are too fragile for our chaotic stage environment, and they require phantom power, which my own sound system does not have. I'm still not certain this is the direction I'll take, but I was pretty impressed by good this sounded and how much more comfortable I felt, not being trussed up by cables.

I'm wondering if it's practical to devise a system for attaching something like this mic to plastic bracelets on the wrists, perhaps with velcro. Switching instruments with the Microvox is far from perfect - if I forget to turn down the gain first, I can watch my bandmates wince when I rip off the velcoed pickup and attach it to a different instrument. Moving the pickups always seems to produce pops and tearing sounds, amplified by hundreds of watts of PA power. I imagine a similar, although perhaps less severe, problem with mics that attach with clips. I still wonder if it's possible to find a single mic that can be placed on a stand over the bellows midpoint and produce a strong enough signal. What I have found in some experimentation: a single, very basic mic (SM57) at midpoint produces much less gain, but better quality sound, than the Microvox (when it works). But the signal is weak, sometimes so weak that I disappear from the floor mix. So naturally, I'm wondering if a more specialized, higher quality mic might produce sufficient gain to make this a good solution for me. Or something like the Audio Technica affixed somehow to my wrists.

Here we go again... I'm looking for a new microphone solution. I've burned through 3 Microvoxes in the last few years ; they work for a while, then the wiring gets wonky and unreliable, usually failing in the middle of a gig. A gooseneck solution probably isn't practical for me; mostly, I play in dance bands and I switch concertinas (CG to Gd to baritone) frequently, sometimes in the middle of a set. Two regular mics , one on each side, makes some sense, but I get the pulsing effect from the varying distance to the mic as the bellows move in and out. So what I'm left with: a single mic in the middle. As we've discussed many times, this is a less than optimum solution. What I'm wondering: is there a particular model of microphone that might do better in this configuration than the very mundane Shure sm57 and similar units? Something with a pickup pattern that would be suitable for an instrument that pushes sound out the sides? Obviously I don't want something omnidirectional - don't want to pick up all the ambient stage noise. But also don't want something highly directional. Has anybody found a microphone that works reasonably well this way? Yes, I know two goosenecks and a belt mixer will produce better sound, but for what I do, I just don't that's practical. I should add that for most dances, I'm at the mercy of the sponsoring group's (often antiquated) equipment and their sound people. Generally, they use very standard, low end mics. Bringing my own mic is one of few things I can control. Hoping for some help here! jb

Everybody learns differently; there's no one size fits all answer. Since you seem to be learning by hear, using recordings as your guide, try this. - Record the tune you want to learn (from Youtube,Spotify, whatever), using Audacity, or a similar program, and store it as an MP3 - Get a slow down program such as the Amazing Slow Downer, or learn to use Audacity, which I think can also slow down music without changing pitch (I've used ASD for years and love it) - play along at 60 percent speed and try to get it right. - when you do, start gradually increasing the speed. It's a slow process, but keep working at it and you'll get better.

As Jody said, a Morse G/D might be a good option for you. I own 3 Morse instruments - a C/G, C/G baritone and G/D. To my ear, the regular C/G sounds the most like a traditional concertina (but I can tell the difference, as can my bandmates. The G/D sounds the most accordion-like. It's not a bad sound, but it's the least concertina-like. The contrast to my Jeffries G/D is striking. After a few months of squeezing away on it, I find the C/G baritone sound more pleasing than the Morse G/D - that could be the result of all the experimentation Wayman and co. did in producing the ESB. And I find the C/G baritone more responsive in the lower registers than the G/D. Just one player's opinions.

Re: speed of response - even the lowest notes on the C/G ESB respond faster than the low notes on my older G/D Morse. It's truly remarkable what Wayman and the BB crew accomplished. I played the prototype ESB, and decided right then and there that I had to have one. And I haven't been disappointed.

I have a Morse ESB C/G Anglo baritone, built by the Button Box in Amherst, Mass., and I love it. This is a hybrid instrument, with accordion reeds but traditional mechanism. They've figured out a way to speed up the response of the low reeds; essentially, it plays as fast as my non-baritone boxes. The sound is rich and deep; the low notes are organ like. For me, this is a specialized instrument - for use in band situations when I want to emulate a string bass. But I can play leads on it. It's super fun to play, and like all the Morse instruments, built with extreme durability and fast action. They do a C/G and D/A version. Wish I had both. Here's a somewhat rough rehearsal recording that should give you an idea of the sound. I'm playing bass lines, but do lead 3rd time thru. BTW, Randy Stein, of this forum, is playing English concertina. Regarding cost, these are not cheap, but I can pretty much guarantee you won't find a playable baritone for less.

The instrument was made for me in 1997, I believe it was. Harold had stopped building the square concertinas, but I sort of begged - I liked the looks of them. I had a lot of back and forth with Harold during the ordering process; he was incredibly responsive and fun to talk to. At the time, it was the only readily available hybrid - this was before the Morse and Edgley boxes. Being in the US, I didn't want to order a Norman or a Guens -Wakker, which I think were the only others available. It was my primary instrument for playing Morris and contra dance music for a few years. I took Noel Hill's Irish concertina class in 1999, I think it was, and Noel was highly amused by its unusual appearance in a world of Wheatstones, Lachenals and Suttners (the Irish tutoring didn't take, apparently, since I haven't played that style since). I brought it to several Northeast Squeeze Ins in the late 90s; at one, someone did a workshop on hybrids, with a table full of them to try and compare (I think the Morse boxes were available then, or at least a prototype). The Herrington more than held its own It was relegated to backup status when I got my Jeffries, and was lent in succession to several new players while they were trying to figure out if Anglos were right for them. But I did play it for periodic gigs at civil war reenactment balls; somehow, it just looked right in that context. Ultimately, I replaced it with a Morse CG hybrid, which I use for Morris dance playing when the weather is just too bad to risk the vintage boxes. The only downside of the Herrington was its weight; for a Morris box, I wanted something lighter, and the Morse has served me well (too many Morses/morrises in a sentence, I know it's confusing).