allan atlas

FOLKS: please note that the data for the CSFRI survey is NOW POSTED PLEASE GO TO: http://web.gc.cuny.edu/freereed scroll down the left-hand bar to the proper link and click away. . . . . please note that the formatting is sometimes a bit messy. . . . .i'm still learning how to use FrontPage............ hope everyone finds the results interesting...................allan

FOLKS: some time ago there was a discussion about tuning and the various tunings for the "A" that we generally associate with 440 today. . . . . .there is a relatively new book (2002) on the subject that has gotten good reviews: Bruce Haynes, A History of Performing Pitch: The Story of "A" (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press). . . . .a bit pricey: about $80..........but libraries may well have it.................allan

FOLKS: finally, we have put together the data from the 77 responses to the survey. . . . .i will get the data posted on the CSFRI website as quickly as i possibly can. . . . . .just a bit more patience...........thanks............and special thanks to all those who took the time to respond.................Allan

You might want to look at Jared Snyder's article: "Breeze in the Carolinas: The African American Accordionists of the Upper South," The Free-Reed Journal, iii (2001), 17-46, which, however, as its title implies, does in fact deal with accordionists, not concertinists. You might, though, find it interesting. Allan

FOLKS: as threatened some time ago: here is a list of errors (and corrections) for CONTEMPLATING THE CONCERTINA (i do not include run-of-the-mill typos; i use the following system to designate pitch: middle C = c'. . . an octave higher = c''. . . .and so on): p. 24: something went awry with the foonotes here. . . .footnote 21 is where it should be. . . . .footnote 22 ended up in the caption for Ex. 3.13 on page 26. . . moreover it should read footnote 23. . . . .meanwhile, footnote 23 back on page 24 should read footnote 22. . . . I EVEN KNOW HOW THAT HAPPENED. . . . .when Ex. 3.13 was moved for spacing reasons, it took its foonote with it and renumbered it because it went to a later position. . . . . p. 39: measure 6: add an arrow pointing to the right for the bellows p. 45: Ex. 5.5b, measure 7: delete the note e'' in the last sonority; the only note should be the c'' p. 67: Ex. 6.10: measure 13: the one fingering that's given should be L1 measure 14: the second fingering offered should read L1* measure 16: the proper fingering is 1 p. 77/note 12: the citation should read ICANL, 127. . . supplement, pp. 1-8. . . .at any rate, that article is now available at http://www.maccann-duet.com OUT OF CURIOSITY: now that the tutor has been out there for a few months, i'd certainly appreciate any feedback--good, bad, or someplace in between--that anyone might be willing to share....................Allan

FOLKS: Stuary Eydmann also has a very nice article in a journal called BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY. . . . .it think it's volume 4. . . . .somewhere around the year 2000 or so............Allan

FOLKS: the Graduate Center has been working on its website-related materials. . . .something about updating the server. . . . . .if the precise link that i gave does not work. . . .try the simpler one: http://web.gc.cuny.edu/freereed and then simply scroll down to "announcements. . . . . . . the website should be back in business as of this moment.........few minutes before six p.m. on tuesday, january 20th................ flyers should be in the mail by the end of the week.................... they go bulk rate. . . . . . so it could take two weeks or so to reach some people. . . .i'm told that it's up to the local post office on the receiving end.........allan

Göran: to be quite honest. . . .i do NOT know anyone (least of all myself) who has tried the bowing valves "in the flesh". . . .in part, of course, because i don't know anyone who has played on an instrument outfitted with them. . . . . . needless to say, though, i disagree with the very premiss that led those co-conspirators in fraud to develop them in the first place. . . . . .the bellows on the English concertina are not the same as the bow on a string instrument. . . . . .except in the most minimal sense..................... but let's not open up that pandora's box again. . . . .it leads nowhere..........allan

PAUL: regondi didn't have bowing valves. . . . .alsepti didn't develop them until after regondi passed away. . . . . .R died in 1872. . . . . . alsepti (and ballinger, his co-purveyor of outright fraud) describe the valves in their patent, No. 8290, , which is dated 8 July 1885. . . . .Allan

FOLKS: you'll also find a good illustration in alsepti's tutor. . . . .though it is a line-cut illustration. . . . . . Göran: by all means, Paul should have a go at it. . . . . . .by the way, i recently came across a review of one of Regondi's concerts in Vienna (i think it was in Vienna) during the winter of 1840-1841. . . . . .quite aside from the fact that he performed with Mozart's son. . . . .one of the reviewers mentioned that he played the instrument with FIVE fingers (on each hand)................allan

DEAR PAUL: yes, they've been discussed to great length. . . . .there's a summary in my CONTEMPLATING THE CONCERTINA. . . .published this past Fall by the Button Box. . . . . . . . BEST ADVICE: put everything on "open" and make believe they're not there...........allan

FOLKS: the concertina-harp combination was well known in the 19th century. . . .there's a whole little sub-repertory for the instrument. . . . .Berlioz in particular praised the combination. . . . . .and dave townsend has a concertina-harp track on one of his CDs................allan

FOLKS: sometime during the last week of january, we'll be mailing out about 2,000 flyers announcing INCREDIBLE CONCERTINA 2, which will take place at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York, on FRIDAY, MARCH 26TH, 2004. . . .at 7:00 P.M.. . . . . .the CUNY Graduate Center is on the corner of 34th Street and Fifth Avenue. . . . . . the featured concertinists are (in REVERSE alphabetical order): WIM WAKKER, TOM KRUSKAL, JODY KRUSKAL, and ALLAN ATLAS. . . . other performers are: Bill Ruyle, hammered dulcimer; the Half Moon Sword Dancers; Michael Gorin, fiddle; the Queens College, CUNY, String Ensemble (directed by Maurice Peress, once an assistant conductor of the NY Philharmonic); and the mezzo-soprano Giulia Grella. . . . . . . the music will range from one end of the spectrum to the other. . . . . .just as it did in INCREDIBLE CONCERTINA 1. . . . . . . . (i've tried to make this announcement as entertaining as the concert will be) there will be an informal reception at which people can talk shop at 3:00. . . . . PLUS: Jody and Wim will conduct workshops on Saturday, March 27th, at 1:00 P.M. . . . . . . FOR DETAILS ON RESERVING PLACES at both the concert and the workshops, please visit the CSFRI website: http://web.gc.cuny.edu/content/freereed/announcements.html hope to see many of you there POSTSCRIPT: flyers will go out only to people in the USA. . . . .we can mail bulk rate. . . . to send the flyers overseas means placing each one in an envelope and mailing it as first class air mail. . . . .we just don't have the $$$ to do that.......... Allan

GOOD FOLKS: to everyone's great relief, no doubt, this is the FINAL NOTICE about the CSFRI CONCERTINA SURVEY. . . . . . .any responses cybermarked after MONDAY, 5 JANUARY 2004, will not be considered. . . . . . . what, you might ask, is so special about this date. . . . .it has to do with our tallyer's schedule. . . . .he leaves for Greece on the very next day and would like to do the talleying while contemplating the Aegean Sea. . . . . . .seriously!!!!!!! with a bit of luck, we'll have the results posted by the beginning of february. . . . . . you can access the questionnaire by going to the CSFRI website: <http://web.gc.cuny.edu/freereed>. . . . . .then scroll down to the survey wishing everyone a very happy new year allan

FOLKS: as long as we're talking about old instruments: one of the two concertinas recently purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of those very early "open pallet" types. . . .unfortunately, it was displayed in such a manner that the serial number was not visible. . . . .i am waiting for information about it. . . . .with a bit of luck, Mr. J. Kenneth Moore, Curator of the Music Division at the museum, will be writing up a little note about them for volume 1 of PAPERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONCERTINA ASSOCIATION................. the other instrument is one of Wheatstone's early "duetts". . . . .rectangular, with 24 buttons altogether. . . . . .and by all means, see Bob Gaskins's VERY INFORMATIVE contributions about this type of instrument -- and the tricky terminology concerning duett/double -- on his maccann website..............Allan

FOLKS: yes, with December 1st only hours away, it's time again for a reminder. . . .our last one (back in mid-November) brought forth three new responses. . . . . .so i'm hoping for a repeat performance. . . . . .(since i don't look at them, i have no idea of how many responses have come in)............. go to: ............ scroll down to the survey. . . . and voilà.........absolutely painless.............and anonymity guaranteed........... next reminder on or around December 15th....................and then one final one when we're ready to start tallying at the beginning of January.................. thanks........Allan

FOLKS: just three little notes to the thread: (1) the mid-19th-century ledgers already show evidence of mixing and matching. . . . .there, what we call the "ends" are called "tops". . . . .and one occasionally sees an entry for a purchase in which the "pans" of one instrument are being matched with the "tops" of another. . . . . . to be sure, it's not an everyday event, but it does happen . . . . . .if memory serves me correctly, it might be that Regondi was involved in one of these entries (but my memory often does not serve me correctly).............................. (2) i too have an instrument that made its way to New Zealand. . . . .purchased for me by a friend in an antique store in Christchurch some years back. . . . .an 1850s Wheatstone. . . . .the original purchaser was Lieut. R. Peel. . . . .surely the Robert Peel who was the son of the recently deceased (1851???) prime minister of that name. . . . . the son was in the navy. . . . .and we know, from naval records, that he travelled to New Zealand. . . . . .the instrument still has its original brass reeds tuned in meantone style. . . . . .with A flat a bit higher than G sharp. . . .and E flat a little higher than D sharp. . . . . .i enjoy using it in the "Prayer" from Molique's Six Characteristic Pieces, which, being in E major, places a lot of emphasis on G sharp and D sharp. . . . .depending on which way the melody is going, i play the higher or lower pitch. . . . . .i always tell the audience about the instrument in advance. . . . . . .so that they don't think I'm playing out of tune. . . . . .when we did it three weeks ago at NY's Met Mus of Art, a specialist in early 17th-c music (particularly Monteverdi) came up after the concert and said he really enjoyed it: "it twanged my ear". . . . . . . . (3) will second Bruce's kind words about Wim. . . . . he just restored an 1868 Wheatstone for me. . . . .sounds absolutely wonderful. . . . . . allan

JQQ: changing fingers vs. repeating same finger: CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT. . . . . .and there is no right and wrong. . . . .there is only CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT. . . . . .you might like to sneak a peak at the tutor that i just published, though it's certainly not intended for "newbies". . . . . . . you can get an idea of what it's like by going to the button box website..............allan

CHRIS: can't say that i've seen many of them. . . .and if memory serves me correctly, they've all been basses rather than baritones. . . .................allan

GOOD FOLKS: please indulge me. . . . .still another reminder about the CSFRI survey. . . . .only a few more (reminders) to go. . . . . .it's just that each time i post one it spurs a few more people on to fill it out. . . . . .you can find the questionnaire at: http://web.gc.cuny.edu/freereed ......... and then scroll down to the questionnaire/survey............ further reminders on or about december 1st, december 15th, and early in january (that will be the LAST ONE)............... the person who will be tallying up the results says that he'll try to have everything ready for posting at some point in february................. and remember: the more responses, the more meaningful the results........allan

ANDY: a free-reed event on your side of the river. . . .not at all a bad idea. . . . .are you volunteering to organize it. . . . .please note that the brothers Kruskal will be perrorming at our INCREDIBLE CONCERTINA 2 concert on friday, march 26th. . . .wim wakker will also be there. . . . . as will i, with mezzo-soprano and pianist at my side. . . . . . the Kruskals are bring the Half Moon Sword Dancers. . . .Wim brings with him the Queens College String Orchestra. . . . .and Jody brings the dulcimer player Bill Ruyle. . . . .a grand time it will be. . . . keep an eye out for announcements. . . . . are you volunteering to organize a brooklyn gala.........why not............allan

Göran: I wish I had as much time for this as you do. I don't, so I think this will have to be my last response (at least for a while). (1) Of course there is a difference between playing detached notes by (a) changing fingers, ( changing direction of the bellows while keeping the button depressed, and © stopping the bellows and starting them moving again in the same direction, all while keeping the button depressed. My point is this: a good concertinist should be able to do all three equally well. (I remember that when Wim did a workshop at our INCREDIBLE CONCERTINA concert two years ago, he mentioned the technique stopping the bellows and then keeping them moving in the same direction; that seemed new to most of those attending.) In the end (and at the risk of sounding like the proverbial broken record): the music and the player's idea of what the music should sound like must dictate which method one uses at any given time. (2) It is not "wrong" to accent with the bellows going in. As for your "laws of nature": please, have a heart. We're dealing with a concertina that weighs a few pounds, not something that weighs a ton. As I said, a player should have sufficient technique to play anything in any direction. Yes, I too find most things are more comfortable in one direction or another. And yes, I generally try to work out the directions in which the bellows will go so that the accents do fall with the bellows going out. But should we think of this in terms of right and wrong? No. (3) You talk about "fanning". Dear G.: all i can say is this: work up a veritable breeze! Of course the bellows fan a bit. Would you have them sag? (4) Though it seems like two lifetimes ago, I always played standing up when I used to go out on the midwest college circuit during the 1960s. Why did I do so: two reasons, perhaps: (a) that's how Boris Matusewitch played, and I was obviously very much influenced by him; ( the then far-more-"uptight" sense of recital decor more or less dictated it. I now play sitting: (a) it's more comfortable, and ( I think it contributes to a greater sense of intimacy between performer and audience. Indeed, this last item is of paramount importance to me. I drive David Cannata (my accompanist) and the other two members of the New York Victorian Consort (a mezzo-soprano and another pianist) crazy in this respect. I am the one who opens the program (when we played at the Metropolitan Museum of Art last Saturday, David and I opened with three of the pieces from the Molique Six Characteristic Pieces). And what drives them crazy is this: I do not make an "entrance" on the stage after the audience is seated. Rather I sit there and doodle as they come in. This serves two purposes to my way of thinking: (a) let's me continue to warm up right until the moment we start, and ( breaks down the sense of suffocating formality that I find at so many concerts. In fact, I think I shall work out a little arrangement of Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance, which is the music that always accompanies the entrance at academic commencement exercises hear in the USA. But I have strayed from the topic. If your own intuition says that you should play with the bellows manipulated in symmetrical fashion, by all means do so. What worries me, though, is the following statement that you make: "I have not come across the recommendation in any tutor. . ." I fear that it is this very statement that leads us to talk at cross purposes throughout this and other exchanges. It is as if you are saying: if a tutor recommends something, it is correct; if I cannot find evidence for such a recommendation in a tutor, it must be incorrect. I'm afraid that we have very different notions of what a tutor should and should not do. And I was very careful, I hope, about the way I handled the "evidence" in the Victorian tutors. We should not see them as laying down "laws" for all eternity. Rather, they show how one group of players -- and very good ones, I would say -- thought about the instrument at that time. One takes from them what one feels comfortable with and leaves the rest behind. (5) I am not ridiculing the accordion establishment. If I'm poking fun at anyone, it's at those who would take one of the most glorious things that some of the greatest minds have given us: MUSIC, and would turn it into an anatomy book. I am against such pedagogical methods whether they deal with how to play an instrument or how to analyze a piece of music or present set-theory analyses of the music of Tin Pan Alley. The analysis of music should talk about things in terms that the ear can hear; a tutor that deals with how to play an instrument should not require the player to sit there with a ruler calibrated in millimeters. (6) You talk of the "concertina world" and the "accordion world." Yes, I suppose I do have two legs in the former, though I really prefer to think of myself (and I certainly hope that audiences will think of me) as a musician who happens to play the concertina (not as someone belonging to some arbitrarily circumscribed world of one type or another). (7) You question whether I challenge my own routines. I will only say that I challenge them every time I sit down to practice or go out on the stage. Indeed, as I look through the tutor from time to time, I say to myself: I wish I could rewrite this or that, or why didn't I think of this other possibility, or whatever. In other words, whereas you look to fix things in stone, I look to change all the time, to keep both the music that I play and the my own playing living and breathing new air every day. (8) I have absolutely no idea what you mean by: "bringing the history of concertina tuition up to the present." As for the audience to whom I addressed the tutor: I spelled that out clearly. (9) You conclude with a "somewhat" interesting point: that the musician in me is pulling against the pedagogue. And I would reply to that as follows: THAT'S HOW IT SHOULD BE. For what am I (or anyone else who would write such a tutor teaching): how to hold the instrument? No! How to change the bellows? No! How to play with "1 over 2" or "2 over 1"? No! Rather, the aim is to "help" people MAKE MUSIC. And that, dear G., is something that you simply refuse to understand. In the end, I really do fear that our vantage points prevent us from talking to one another in a constructive manner. Your are looking for "truth"; I say there is no "truth". You think in terms of right and wrong; I say there is no such thing. You see a tutor as something that should lay down prescriptive recommendations; I see a tutor as place in which to make suggestions and lay out possibilities. You think of the concertina in terms of anatomical this or that and "laws of nature"; I think of it as something on which to make music. As I said, I simply cannot do not have the time to reply to your long postings. I do not say this to be impolite. But I simply can't do it. Best, Allan

ANDY: which part of brooklyn is he from. . . . .i grew up on east 3rd street, between Avenue P and Quentin Road............he looks a bit more Park Slope-ish..............allan

OK. . . .i give up.........how does one get rid of that yellow guy. . . . .i edited the post. . . .deleting something. . . .and that yellow guy came on and won't go away...............allan

Göran and Folks: Well, let me respond while I have a bit of time. I'll take G's comments up in turn. (1) G. gets the impression that I "aim for sparse changes of bellows directions." I aim for NOTHING. But why change the direction of the bellows when (a) it serves no musical purpose, and ( one doesn't have to? I don't equate many or few changes with being good or bad. One simply changes directions where the MUSIC dictates a change. (2) G. "cannot accept the idea that 'legato' playing is possible. . .except in one direction at a time." As he often does, G. is seeing things in terms of black and white. Obviously, it's better, I think, to sustain a legato line with the bellows moving in one direction. No less obviously, this can't always be done, in which case one simply changes directions. In the end, it's a matter of degree. (3) G. writes that "Mechanically speaking. . .[one] get a better attack, precision and force on the 'draw' [that is, bellows going out]." I agree, and I usually try to attack with the bellows going out. However, note that in the example that I cite in the tutor from the Molique "Serenade," I really do whack away at the big chords with the bellows going in. One should be able to do virtually anything with the bellows going in either direction. As I stated a number of times in the tutor, we want to build up our technique to the point where we can do more than we normally have to do. (4) G. asks if I "discussed the reasons. . .for playing with the bellows as much 'closed' as possible. . ." Simply put, one has greater control over the bellows when they are less extended. (5) G. states that the concertina "invite. . .symmetrical management" of the bellows, and that that is the "most natural" way to handle the instrument. To be frank, I don't watch the bellows as I play. I think, however, that I do handle them more or less symmetrically, though if I favor one direction over the other, I suppose I pull out to the left. (6) G. states that I "don't mean [that my] approach is SCIENTIFIC. . ." I certainly don't. Such "scientific" -- or, as I prefer to view it, "pseudo-scientific -- approaches is the very thing against which I argue most strongly. As for being confrontational and "offensive" in assigning that "pseudo-scientific" approach to the Central European/German milieu: let's call a spade a spade. There is a difference, one that cuts across many areas of both scholarship and the arts, between the Continental and Anglo-American approaches to things. And I am not ashamed to say that my allegiance is to the latter. As the great soprano Beverley Sills has often noted: you can take the kid out of Brooklyn, but you can't take Brooklyn out of the kid. I am what I am! (7) G. seems to harp on the way in which accordionists do things. Now, while both the accordion and the concertina have bellows, the two instruments are NOT the same. One doesn't handle the bow on a double bass as one handles it on the violin. (8) G. ends by saying that he hopes "there ARE a few things would enjoy making a bit clearer. To this I can only say: not really. I was as clear as I could be (which is not to say that I expect everyone to agree with everything I said). I was not trying to lay down "laws" or establish anything that smacks of a definitive method (for I don't believe such things exist). I wish simply to challenge players to think about what they're doing and why they're doing it, though the "why" can sometimes be difficult to answer, since the best playing is, to my way of thinking, intuitive. In the end, I think G. and I come to these problems from very different vantage points: G. from that of seeking "scientific" answers to things, I from that of someone who simply goes out on the stage and plays the likes of Molique, Macfarren, Regondi, Blagrove, some pieces from the music halls, a hornpipe or three, and an occasional "sean nos" air. Morever, I play these things a bit differently each time, as David Cannata (my accompanist) and I can, by now, read each others minds. We listen to one another as we play, and we adjust right there and then. Such "improvisation" (to use the term in a very general sense, though we really do improvise -- in the more specific sense of the term -- at times) results in performance that, I hope, are spontaneous and "alive." And that -- not the literal reproduction of the flyspecks on the page -- is what music making is all about.