AnnC

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.

Thanks

No luck, not even the text will download, our computer runs XP and there must be some glitch that stops it opening 97 properly

I cancelled the download when the failed graphics notification came up, I'll try again

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

My computer can't open the graphics bit

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

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.

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

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.

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.

102 people last time I looked

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

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!!

'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.