allan atlas

THEO: you're quite right. . . . . .in the end, everyone has to find his or her own comfort zone. . . . . . .Allan

THEO: re: the memory problem. . . . . . . .if the best string quartets in the world can have music and music stands on stage. . . . . . . .if the truly spectacular second quartet directed by Astor Piazzolla never went out on stage without music. . . . . . .if the metropolitan opera (and most other first-class opera houses) can have a prompter beneath a canopy at the front of the stage. . . . . . . . . WHY SHOULD'NOT YOU HAVE MUSIC IN FRONT OF YOU................WHY SHOULDN'T ANYONE HAVE MUSIC IN FRONT OF THEM. . . . . . .is it a matter of what you or the group LOOKS LIKE. . . . . . .as i've said in other contexts: you're making music, not posing for a sculptor................... remember: Fritz Kreisler's wife had to shove him out on stage. . . . . . .otherwise he would continue to cower in the wings..................allan

you might take a look at the rather UNscientific poll that the Center for the Study of Free-Reed Instruments (at the Graduate Center of the City U. of New York) conducted last Fall. . . . . .results are on the website: http://web.gc.cuny.edu/freereed and then scroll around...............allan

NANETTE: many thanks for the kind words. . . . .obviously, the goal of that chapter was neither to PREscribe nor PROscribe any one method of holding the instrument. . . . rather it was to present a concise "historical survey" -- by means of tutors and photos -- of the various ways in which various concertinists have held the instrument. . . . . .and yes, i would reiterate my "moral": DO WHAT'S COMFORTABLE. . . . .we're making music, not posing for a sculptor . . . . . . and to Jim L's two INcorrect ways of holding the instrument, let me add a third (at least i've found it rather inconvenient): playing with one hand in the shower while washing one's hair with the other.......... yes, i suppose there are some INcorrect ways of doing anything. . . . .for instance, trying to eat rice with ONE chopstick (at least trying to eat more than one grain at a time)..............on the other hand, i guess that one can always SPEAR that piece of sushi after running the single chopstick through a pencil sharpener. . . . . .remember that utensils (knives and forks) did not become part and parcel of most households until the sixteenth century. . . . . . .until then it was considered quite correct to eat with one's fingers and even to pass the goblet of wine around. . . . .indeed II: it was only at the end of the sixteenth century that the FORK, appearently first used in Venice, began to spread throughout europe. . . .indeed III: writing in the early seventeenth century, the English traveller Thomas Coryat noted the following while meandering through Italy: I observed a custome in all those Italian Cities and twons through which I passed, that is not used in any other country that I saw in my travels. . . .The Italian and also most strangers that are commorant in Italy, doe alwaies at their meales use a little forke when they cut their meat. For while with their knife which they hold in one hand they cut the meate out of the dish, they fasten their forke which they hold in their other hand upon the same dish, so that whatsoever he be that sitting in the company of any others at meale, shoulde unadvisedly touch the dishe of meate with his fingers from which all at table doe cut, he will give occasion of offence unto the company. . . .This forme of feeding I understand is generally used in all places of Italy, their forkes being for the most part made of yron or steele, and some of silver. . . .The reason of this their curiosity is, because the Italian cannot by any means indure to have his dish touched with fingers, seeing all men's fingers are not alike cleane (after Richard Barber, Cooking and Recipes from Rome to the Renaissance [London: Allen Lane, 1973], 119).

FOLKS: As John Nixon said: here we go again. Indeed, it was an exchange on this very website that served as a jumping-off point for my discussion of how to hold the instrument -- there is NO correct way/there is NO incorrect way -- in Contemplating the Concertina, where I try to show that there have always been those who played standing and that there have always been those who have played sitting and that there might have been those who heeded the remarks of William Cawdell, who, in 1865, penned the following: The concertina may be played in any position, standing, sitting, walking, kneeling, or even lying down. If confined to the house by a sprained ankle, you may play whilst reclining on a sofa. . .and when you are convalescent, you may take your instrument into the fields where the Piano can never be. Allan

FOLKS: in the interest of enabling things to stand on their own: PICA = Papers of the International Concertina Association though by all means go the PICA pages that Jim mentions............. we will accompany the launching of the journal in the Fall with the appropriate hoopla and noise..........Allan

FOLKS: in the spirit of a progress report. . . . . . .PICA, VOL. 1, has reached the stage of first proofs. . . . .with just a little luck, it will be out at some point this coming Fall...........ICA members will get a hardcopy in the mail................it will be posted almost simultaneously (as soon as ICA members have received their copy -- so approximately a week later) on the websites of both the ICA and the Center for the Study of Free-Reed Instruments.............allan

FOLKS: i noticed that different contributors have different "badges" beneath their names. . . . .and that these seem to be tied to the number of contributions that one has posted. . . . . . . thus Jim L. is a "heavyweight boxer" (biff bam). . . . . and closing in on 2000 postings. . . . .Stephen C. and Ken C. are "chatty concertinists" (ssssshhhhhh already). . . . . with fewer postings than any of them, I am an "advanced member". . . . . .and the person who started this whole thread had still another designation (with only one little blue box). . . . . . does anyone know what all the categories are. . . . .and the number of postings that one has to accumulate to move from one rank to another. . . . . . . why don't those little boxes come in different colors. . . ..as do the belts that martial arts guys get.......................just wondering...............allan

POSTSCRIPT: and the last thing i'm suggesting is that we try to play morris dances and hornpipes on a brass reed instrument from c. 1850. . . . . indeed, when i give a lecture/recital, i too switch to an early 20th-century instrument for "Dancing with Ma Baby" and the "Liverpool Hornpipe". . . . . . it would be ludicrous to do anything else. . . . . . . .allan

STEPHEN and FOLKS: as i mentioned, i have no idea about the playing- or non-playing condition of the instrument in question. . . . . .in fact, i've never played on a Nickolds. . . . .so i really can't say that they are or are not uniformly bad. . . . . my point was really a general one. . . .and that is to express my wish that concertinists who have "old" instruments (1) play on them, even if in the privacy of one's living room, and (2) should at least take a peek at the victorian repertory. . . .(we all have our agendas, whether overt or covert) i really had nothing more than that in mind. . . . . .obviously, an 1850s concertina of any type is not going to cut the mustard in repertories such as traditional music, music hall songs, etc..............and yet one wonders what someone like Alfred B. Sedgwick played when he began to appear in the music halls in the early 1850s. . . . .was his repertory drawn entirely from the "classics". . . .arrangements of and variations on popular opera arias of the day. . . . . .i don't know................ allan

GOOD FOLKS: i'm afraid i must take issue with Stephen's last comment. . . . . . .why should a mid-19th-century instrument necessarily be of greater value/interest to a collector than to a player???. . . . .and what's "beginner's" about it (or am i missing something about this particular instrument?). . . . .there's a ton of good music out there -- the original victorian repertory for the instrument -- that's waiting to be played. . . . . .AND THAT'S PRECISLY THE KIND OF INSTRUMENT ON WHICH IT SHOULD BE PLAYED. . . . . . . so dig into some Trollope, Mrs. Gaskell, and the delightful book by Anthony Pool, What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist--the Facts of Daily Life in 19th-Century England (New York: Touchstone, 1993), for inspiration. . . . . .and play away............doesn't matter what kind of music you prefer. . . . . .. . . . . .Allan

FOLKS: many orchestras tune to a frequency higher than a' = 440. . . . .it makes them sound more "brilliant". . . . .i forget which soprano it was who always insisted that the orchestra tune a little higher in order to make her voice sound more "BANGO!!!"............. AGAIN: one can tune the a' to any frequency one desires. . . . . .the issue cuts across questions of temperament..........allan

FOLKS: for what it's worth -- perhaps nothing: my Wheatstone no. 5899, a brass-reeded, meantone-tuned, English, which seems to have been purchased for the first time by William Peel, third son of the Prime Minister, on 5 March 1856, was rescued from a Christchurch antique shop about six or seven years ago...........William Peel, we might note, had close ties to NZ.............Allan

STEPHEN AND FOLKS: though he may well have had both kinds of instruments, i would ask one thing and note another: (1) when did he have both kinds of instruments, in other words, how far back can we push the conversion -- even on a limited basis -- to equal temperament. . . . .Berlioz, describing what he saw and heard in 1851, talks only about meantone instruments. . . . . . one of the signals that the conversion is taking place appears in THE MUSIC ITSELF. . . .(AND WE MUST START PAYING GREATER ATTENTION TO THE MUSIC). . . . .in other words, starting in the mid- and late '50s, music for the english concertina begins to break out of its C-, G-, D-, and A-major rut (which it had, to a large extent, been stuck in). . . . .pieces begin to explore more "distant" tonal regions. . . .modulations go further afield. . . .none of which would happen, i think, if the composers were writing with a meantone instrument in mind. . . . . . .there are sections of the Molique sonata in B flat, for example, particularly in the second movement, that would sound absolutely awful in meantone. . . . .even Regondi's own MORCEAU DE SALON: ANDANTINO ET CAPRICCIO-MAZURKA (Wessel, 1855) has passages in which a meantone concertina would sound awfully rough. . . .i know. . . . .i've played them on the meantone instrument. . . . .and i've played them against an equal-tempered piano. . . . . . . .my own best guess is that they started converting in the mid- to late '50s. . . .perhaps not all at once. . . .and perhaps equal temperament didn't become the customary temperament until circa 1860 or so. . . .in any event, we know that at least some manufacturers continued to produce instruments with meantone temperament. . . . .there's plenty of evidence for that. . . .Cawdell says so. . . . .the Wheatstone publicity material says so. . . . . . .Ellis says so. . . . .Ward says so. . . . .in fact, Wheatstone brags about their instruments being in equal temperament while other lesser manufacturers continue to produce meantones..................... (2) the recital in Dresden in 1846, with L. Dulcken at the piano, was definitely on a meantone instrument. . . . .the german reviewer even makes a special point of noting that there is a difference between D sharp and E flat, on the one hand, and between G sharp and A flat, on the other. . . .this is what leads him to write that the instrument is "truly chromatic" ("wirklich Chromatik". . . or something to that effect). . . . . as i said, it's a knotty problem. . . ..but it might only be a problem from the point of view of our ears being so accustomed to equal temperament that everything else sounds "out of tune", as it were. . . . . .flip the coin over: to audiences that were brought up with non-equal temperament, that's what would have sounded out of tune. . . .indeed, there was a famous English organist (i just don't remember his name), who, after hearing organs that had been retuned in equal temperament, vowed never to go into a church again!!!!!. . . ..he couldn't stand the way they sounded..................K N O T T Y...................allan

WES AND DAVE AND FOLKS: didn't realize that Young and Mrs Wheatstone were "paesani". . . . . . i certainly did not mean to imply that Hz and cents were the same. . . .obviously they are two quite different -- and even unrelated -- things. . . . . . . .the former measures the absolute frequency to which things are tuned (if i may put it so crassly), while the latter measures the distance between the half steps. . . . . . thus in equal temperament, from c natural to c sharp is 100 cents. . . . ..in quarter comma meantone it's only 76 cents. . . .so that if one plays a D-major scale that "leading tone" is going to sound rather flat. . . . . . . Wheatstone, of course, got around some of the meantone "problems" (they are problems only to our equal-tempered ears) by giving alternate buttons and pitches for the D sharp/E flat and G sharp/A flat. . . . .which is why a number of the tutors from the period can offer the opinion that the concertina is more in tune than any other wind instrument. . . .. but this is another story entirely..........one having to do with the juxtaposition of a keyboard instrument against a violin, wind instrument, or voice.............. clearly, one could have meantone temperament or equal temperament or any other temperament regardless of whether the a' is tuned to 440, 452.5, or anything else. . . . . . . what is also interesting is the tolerance that audiences must have had back then. . . . . .for instance: in 1846, Regondi gave a recital in Dresden, accompanied by Madame Louis Dulcken (piano teacher to the royal family). . . . .one must presume that she played an equal-tempered piano (that temperament having been in use for quite some time on the Continent). . . . . .on the other hand, there is no evidence that Regondi used anything other than a meantone concertina (no one seems to think that Wheatstone and the other manufacturers converted from meantone to equal that early). . . . . .yet never did any of the reviews even hint that the concertina and piano were out of tune. . . . .one reviewer mentions that the concertina is truly chromatic (that is, differentiates between D sharp and E flat and between G sharp and A flat). . . . . .but that's all he has to say. . . . . . . i often demonstrate my meantone concertina using a piece by George Alexander Macfarren titled BARCAROLE. . . . .here Macfarren has the concertina sounding an "a flat" (moving towards the a natural) against a C-augmented triad (C - E - G sharp) in the piano. . . .now even if the English piano against which the concertina was playing was in meantone (still another separate problem), the piano's single note for the G sharp/A flat pair would almost certainly have been G sharp. . . . . . .thus when the concertina player hits the A flat, there's a forty-one-cent twang between the two notes. . . . .the twang, however, is over in an instant. . . .and the ear takes it in stride. . . . .i know this because i've sometimes used the same instrument to play the "Prayer" from Molique's Six Characteristic Pieces. . . . .the Prayer is in E major. . . . . . . .and, after telling the audience what they're in for, i will play the piece sometimes using the G sharp, sometimes using the A flat. . . . . .no one ever winces more than once................... Berlioz, on the other hand, railed against the instrument's meantone temperament. . . . saying that it was the work of scientists, not musicians. . . . . .remember that he would have come to know the concertina when he served as a judge at the exhibition of musical instruments in 1851. . . . . . as for Young's well temperament. . . . . i've recently had wim wakker tune a late 1860s instrument to Young's well temperament No. 2. . . . . . .i use it when i take obbligato parts in performance with the New York Victorian Consort. . . . . . the audience reaction has been altogether positive. . . . .they have said that it provides the concertina with a little "distance". . . . .keeps it from being swallowed up by the piano and the voice when we're all in unison. . . . . .on the other hand, i do not use the instrument in a piece that has two long passages in G-flat major, at which point Young's temperament is furthest removed from equal temperament. . . . .when we play in unison here, it begins to sound a bit "edgy". . . . . . . . . . the entire problem is a very knotty one. . . . . . .especially in terms of what temperaments were in use when. . . . . . .specialists still argue vehemently about what temperament Bach had in mind when he wrote the Well-Tempered Clavier. . . . . . there is more than a little evidence that it was NOT equal temperament. . . . .nor does "well-tempered" imply equal temperament. . . . .it implies that he used one of the various "well" temperaments. . . . . . .nothing more than that...............allan POSTSCRIPT: one of the things that i've found most enlightening is moving away from theoretical discussion and actually using the meantone and Young-tuned instruments in action, both unaccompanied and against equal-tempered pianos. . . . .as i said. . . ..the ear adjusts very quickly. . . .AND NONE OF THIS, OBVIOUSLY, HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH HZ 440 or 452 or anything else.......allan

DAN: As Stephen pointed out, things were not as simple back in the nineteenth century. Note the following, however: (1) a Wheatstone price list from the 1910s says that unless otherwise ordered, the concertina will be tuned to c'' = 540Hz, which puts the a' (the note that the oboe player sounds when the orchestra tunes up) at 452.5Hz; (2) a' = 452.5 was the tuning that the piano manufacturer Broadwood used from at least 1852 to at least 1874; it was also the frequency to which the Philharmonic Society Orchestra tuned most often (both Broadwood and the Phil Soc Orch were in London); (3) a study that's still very useful is Alexander John Ellis, "The History of Musical Pitch," Journal of the Society of the Arts, vol. 28 (1880); this has been reprinted in Studies in the History of Musical Pitch: Monographs by Alexander J. Ellis and Arthur Mendel (Buren [NL], 1968); note that Ellis himself played the concertina (he is listed in the Wheatstone ledgers), and actually had an instrument specially tuned to "just" temperament for him by Lachenal. Allan P.S.: Not only were there a number of different tunings in use at the same time (in terms of the frequency to which this or that note was tuned), but there were also different TEMPERAMENTS in use. Note that equal temperament (to which we are accustomed and in which all half-steps are equidistant from one another [100 cents], so that all keys sound the same), was slow to become the norm in England. The Broadwood piano company adopted it as their customary temperament only in 1846, and many an English church organ was re-tuned to it only later. Until that time, the situation is rather precarious. Some instruments were no doubt tuned in MEANTONE (the concertina was so tuned until [probably] the mid- to late 1850s, when the nature of the music that was being written for it would not longer have been playable in meantone, especially against an equal-tempered piano); other keyboard instruments, though, were probably tuned in one or another of the various WELL TEMPERAMENTS, with Thomas Young's well temperament No. 2 perhaps having been particularly popular. All in all, it is a hornet's nest, about which a gentleman in Bristol named Alexander Mackenzie of Ord has done important research. I write about the entire problem (though somewhat briefly) in a forthcoming article titled: "The Victorian Concertina: Some Questions about Performance," which, if everything goes right, will appear in a new journal called Nineteenth-Century Review, vol. 2 (2005).

SAMANTHA & FOLKS: don't think it's for me to say how it went. . . . .obviously, i'm a bit biased. . . . . .perhaps someone who was there would like to chime in about the event. . . . . . i can say that each of the saturday workshops had about 10-12 people. . . . . .the concert was a bit on the long side. . . . . .it certainly had variety. . . . . . .everything from morris dances to victorian parlor songs to a concerto for concertina and string orchestra written in the 1960s. . . . . . . . but i will leave any comments about quality, aesthetic worth, etc etc etc to others........... AGAIN: thanks to those who came. . . . . . .

FOLKS: just to say thanks to those of you who attended the INCREDIBLE CONCERTINA 2 concert and the workshops on saturday. . . . . .hope you found them both enjoyable and enlightening...........Allan

JIM AND FOLKS: i don't THINK i ever call the scales in question "more difficult". . . .i say merely that they force one to break the strict alternation between the hands.............allan

BELLOWBELLE hit it on the head. In and of itself, there is no great virtue in being able to play this or that scale merely for its own sake. Rather, the ability to do so generally translates into being able to play other things, tunes included (since so many of them have scale passages in them). And the reason for mastering those scales that "untie the knots" is that it gets one away from the mechanical alternation of left, right, left, right, etc. And yes, it forces one to make decisions in connection with the enharmonic notes. The object is to be able to play as fluently in F-sharp major as it is in F major, in A-flat major as it is in A major, and then on to music that is highly chromatic or not tonal at all................Allan

PERRY AND FOLKS: i'm afraid that it wasn't Gissing's frustration at not being able to play the concertina that led him to employ it in his works as he did. . . . . .rather, there are certain instruments that have simply rubbed the "aesthetes" the wrong way. . . . . . . . .moreover, one has to consider the quality of concertina playing to which Gissing was probably accustomed. . . . . . .it was probably not of the highest quality. . . . . . . . .the instrument is treated with more respect in Collins's WOMAN IN WHITE, where, as i've argued in the article that bob gaskins was kind enough to cite, Collins must surely have had the playing of giulio regondi in mind. . . . . . . . . again, i don't think it has much at all to do with an author's frustration about not being able to play the instrument. . . . . . .rather it's a reflection of the "social status" that is accorded to various instruments. . . . . . . . Allan

JIM AND FOLKS: i agree: the poll is anything BUT scientific. . . . .it's a beginning. . . .nothing more, nothing less. . . . . . .worth following up on?. . . .that's for others to decide. . . . . .and to follow up on if they deem it worthwhile. . . . .what happened to what seems to be missing responses. . . . .i have no idea, other than that the Grad Center server was up and down in december. . . . .perhaps responses are floating around somewhere out there. . . . . . . . .as for the small number of responses (even allowing for those that got lost): that was beyond our control. . . . . . . . and indeed, concertina.net was really the only place the survey was publicized. . . . . .i'm not sure that the ICA or CSFRI sites served to publicize it. . . . . . .i don't even have an idea of how many hits the CSFRI website gets. . . . . . . .as for the better questions that COULD have been asked. . . .as i said in my response to Morgana. . . . .i'm a RANK AMATEUR at this..................allan

DEAR MORGANA: you are quite right about the wrong-headed assumption having to do with educational levels attained. . . . . .that was in fact a real oversight. . . . .a rather obvious result of my never having put together a survey-questionnaire of this type. . . . .perhaps we should have had eight or ten people read through it instead of the three that we did have. . . . . . as for the ability to read tenor clef. . . . . . .i'm not quite sure that that's all that important. . . . . . . yes, the cello sometimes does go up there. . . . . .as does the bassoon on occasion. . . . . . .but i think the fundamental thing that i was after was could the respondent read music, read the bass clef (necessary for so much music), read a piano score, and read an orchestral score. . . . . .in the end, think that those categories are far more meaningful than that having to do with the tenor clef. . . . . . . (unless, of course, one is going to read through editions of Bach cantatas and stuff that retain the original clefs). . . . . . at any rate, i do appreciate your kind words. . . . . . .note, though, that any further surveys will have to come from someone else...............Allan

DAVE: i don't know what he calls it once past the cover and title page. . . . . .i must admit that i've not seen the book myself. . . . . . .it did get a very nice review in the last issue of a journal called NOTES, which is put out by the Music Library Association. . . . . . . .allan

RICHARD AND FOLKS: Richard is the second person to notify me that his/her response was not included. . . . . .the person knew that because his/her geographical location was not included. . . . . . . .i have no idea what might have happened. . . . . . .i have no idea how many responses might have gotten lost. . . . .until this afternoon i had no reason to believe that anything had gotten lost. . . . . . . .let's hope that it wasn't too many. . . . . . . .(i know that the Graduate Center server was on the fritz for a while in late december. . . .perhaps some responses transmitted electronically got lost. . . . . .i just don't know). . . . . . as i pointed out to the first person who notified me about the matter. . . . . . .i did not see any of the responses at all. . . . . . .they were downloaded (or opened if they arrived in hardcopy) by either one of two people in our music office. . . . . . . .the ID tags were immediately removed. . . . . . . .they were then handed over to the person who collated the data. . . . . . . .when this was completed, i received a copy of the questionnaire with the numbers (and other comments) on it. . . . . . . . i too was surprised by the lack of responses from Massachusetts. . . . . . . . .thus the quip about the boycott. . . . . . . . at any rate, the data posted represents what i (personally) received. . . . . . .and we can treat it for what it is or isn't worth. . . . . . . in the end, i do think it's interesting. . . . .and says something about that hypothetical/typical concertina player. . . . . .indeed, it will be interesting to see what people have to say about the data. . . . . . . .Allan