AnnC
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Posts posted by AnnC
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Gran always found it too painfull to talk about.
I recorded several hours of material from my paternal grandfather, when he was aged 90. About two hours of it covered WW1. He could talk about the horrors of it; things that you would not wish on your worst enemy.
Mum said that her father was so badly affected that he often used to wake in the night, screaming with nightmares. He was a musician, and was the one-man band in "Passport to Pimlico", for which he was paid £25 per day whilst filming. This was the late 1940's and I think that the average weekly wage was about £8.
Regards,
Peter.
I used to work with a man who's Dad had been a Regimental Piper, he was one of the few survivors from his regiment and when he got home after the war he never played in public again, he had been in demand to play for dances/weddings etc but couldn't face playing infront of people as it brought back memories of his dead friends. When he was very depressed he'd lock himself in the bathroom with his pipes and play laments then he'd pack his pipes away, not to be touched until the next time he needed to get rid of his grief.
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We had a mixed kids border morris in oughtibridge, 'The Morris Minors', but the kids grew up, everything has its day.
Dave
Most of the primary/junior schools around here have Morris/Sword/Clog or Maypole dance sides, it's accepted as normal. Where they all get to once they leave school I don't know but there is a vast 'bank' of morris dancers who may well come back to it once they get past the teenage years, when they find it just too embarrasing and have dicovered other interests to occupy them
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Does anyone play the tune "Battle of the Somme", which was, as far as I am aware, written during the battle? I've played it for as many years as I can remember, but heard it played both as a slow march, and lament, whilst I lived in Scotland (1991/4).
Regards,
Peter.
I play it as the middle tune in a set, Arran Boat song to start then Battle of the Somme (retreat march tempo) changing into a brisk Earl of Mansfield to finish.
Both my granfathers came back from WW1 but several of my great uncles did not, one served with the Kings Own Scottish Borderers and was killed in one of the first major battles, no remains ever recovered, Gran always found it too painfull to talk about.
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No luck, not even the text will download, our computer runs XP and there must be some glitch that stops it opening 97 properly
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Hi Ann,
Can you view the text? I know that it's a poor substitute for both text and graphics.
Regards,
Peter.
I cancelled the download when the failed graphics notification came up, I'll try again
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It looks like a beauty - and delivery in THREE years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I must have been very lucky and caught them at a 'quieter' time, mind you I needed at least 3 years to save up the balance, every spare penny went into the concertina fund
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My computer can't open the graphics bit
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I'd be interested to know the story of the concertina; Rosewood Lachenal with new 7-fold bellows? Did I see brass buttons? etc
Hi Paul,
The photo caption suggests a Dipper, and I think that I recognise Rosalie's wonderful bellows.
Regards,
Peter.
Yes it's a Dipper
a 30 button C/G Anglo, bought new ( ordered 1989, delivered Oct 1992 ) the button caps are gold (old Wheatstone stock) and I asked for 7 fold bellows instead of 6 fold. It's a pleasure to play, very responsive and equally good for quiet ballad tunes, bouncy ceildah tunes and playing Morris tunes in the open air. The rosewood came from an old piano, the ultimate recycled instrument -
Apparently being in the school Morris side is regarded in the same light as making it into the sports teams, in the entrance hall there are photographs of the victorious football/hockey/rounders teams and.....the triumphant beaming faces of the Morris sides
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I went to our local primary school's summer fair today, they have two Morris sides, a girls and a boys ( the boys do sword) who were dancing their socks off. There was only one musician, one of the teachers, with a melodeon so I ambled across after the dances and asked if she could use a concertina player........ my details are now lodged in the school records and with any luck some of the children might get interested in playing concertina as well as dancing the Morris.
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Thanks for the link , the guest list certainly looks impressive. I see the festival's still run by M Storey, he's obviously not managed to flog it to the highest bidder yet. It will be interesting to see what the venues are this year, last year he'd got one listed and the owners only found out that events were due to take place on their premises when they saw a programme! Apparently he'd popped in earlier in the year to see what room there was but never got back to the owners to confirm anything, hence the shock when they found their name in print.
It's a shame that The Plough still can't have live music, it was so easy to met people there, just sit in the yard and eventualy anyone and everyone would stroll past
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For anyone in England:D There are some cracking sessions at The First Inn Last Out in Whitby on a Tuesday evening and on one Saturday night a month. A good mix of everything, including songs, lots of different styles traditional, english, scotish, contempary even old comic and music hall. Each session is different as there is a different mix of musicians, instruments and singers each time.
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It's not really ' classical' but I enjoy playing Playford dance tunes,( The English Dancing Master, popular dance tunes from the 1650's onwards ) and O'Carolan tunes. They come out beautifully on the Anglo as do Tango's Rodriguez's 'La Cumparsita' s guaranteed to get people smiling and dancing in the street.
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102 people last time I looked
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My accordian and I went everywhere.
I used to know an accordianist who took his accordian with him to Burma and India in WW11
, he somehow managed to keep it going in the jungle and made lots of friends with Indian troops who used to take him to their film shows. It got dropped off a boat when disembarking somewhere and he had another one sent out. He'd been taught to play by an accordian teacher and was a pleasure to listen to, classical music, big band dance tunes, popular songs (from the 30's, 40's and 50's) and all with the proper bass accompianment on the left hand, he could even do solo's on the bass side -
Will anyone be going to Whitby Folk Week this year? It runs from Saturday the 19th of August to Friday the 25th. I've not seen a programme yet but they should be out soon and if there are any concertina related events I'll post them here
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. accordion players always seem to know what a concertina is and even entertain the idea of learning to play one until i tell them how much i had to pay for mine. but when i tell other people i play the concertina, and they ask me "what's that?" i don't know what else to tell them except that it's kind of like a little accordion and that sometimes you see them in old cartoons. The best incorrect identification of my concertina was one May morning in Oxford while playing for a Morris side when a very well spoken chap congratulated me on my lovely harpsichord!!
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My first tune was the Far Away Waltz, which I'm still playing regularly as well as the Tenpenny Bit and many of the other tunes that I learned right at the beginning.
Also comes in handy when you get a request: to play "Far Away"
'On the Street where you live' is another good tune to learn for those odd requests
I started out with a very cheap Hohner but it worked well enough to learn on and to be honest if I'd had to spend a lot of money on my first concertina I could never have afforded to start playing, after a couple of years I got a second hand Gremlin, the Hohner went to a friends Mum, then a few years later after much saving a Dipper but I held on to the old Gremlin for a while because I still enjoyed playing it. You can get some good tunes out of less expensive instruments, there is the story of the concert violinist who became so upset that people said his playing was only good because of the expensive violin he had that after one perfect performance he smashed the fiddle he'd played, to the horror of the audience, only to tell them that it was a cheap one he'd bought that afternoon.
Correct Hand Strap Adjustment
in General Concertina Discussion
Posted
I don't know about straps on a Hayden but on my Anglo I have both straps fairly loose, I did try them tighter once after someone commented on how slack they were but found it too restrictive and having small hands it made it more difficult to reach all the buttons easily. I suppose it's whatever suits you and your style of playing best