asdormire

Hi Jen, Which side of the river are you on? From your comments I assume I am about 80-90 miles north of you. Alan

Trust me, it is even more impressive in person. Yeah, Ken showed it to this old cowboy as well. Alan

Greg has one posted here that he just bumped up this morning. He does good work, but it is on this side of the pond. Alan

But if bought at the right price, that $500 to repair the 26 button will still not be unreasonable compared to the $2000 spent on a comparable new hybrid. Especially if you have to have that english concertina sound. Alan

CowboyPoetry.com has a listing of western songbooks if you are still interested in the topic. Alan

I always thought that was a friendly face myself. Alan

I went to NESI. Alan

Well this is it till I get back, we will leave early in the morning, and maybe this year we will make supper. If I don't see you at NESI, we'll see you all Monday. Alan

I mean mine.

Oddly enough I was talking to Bob on the phone while he was packing it to ship it to you. I hope you enjoy it. I know I like it. Alan

There saying up to a week to get the power back up completely here. We had seven straight hours of 60 mph winds on Sunday here in the Columbus area. My biggest problem with the storm is getting replacement batteries for my lanterns in anticipation for my trip to NESI. Alan

Another trip to the states so soon. Good for you boys. To bad you will be on the other side of the continent for NESI. Alan P.S. If they bring anymore of the flying pig shirts, be sure to get one.

Backyard is full of fallen limbs, but I've got power. I just got back from Walmart which was closed as they just got their power back minutes ago. In a way, I am lucky here as with all the new fancy houses built in the last few years, our power lines have all been redone to feed the new housing. Robin called me yesterday when she got to work to let me know that all the grad students and her boss were with out power, but they all live in older neighborhoods in Columbus. Alan

Isn't that the layout that is in the Jones tutor on concertina.com? (I could be wrong) Alan

Don't keep yourself from having other fun by putting everything away to buy that new concertina, maybe put away half that a week, and have some money to go to a festival or a performance occasionally to see other folks play and get an idea what all is out there. Plus there is always that jacket or hat or music book that appears that you just have to have. Alan

You know, I don't know if this will work, but maybe doing some of those old touch typing exercises, especially if you can find one of the old manuel typewriters and put the setting for the keys on hard. Alan

Like you said, it is an inexpensive box, I would say go for it. Alan

Still willing to offer a ride to someone from Ohio, or for that matter to someone farther west or south, as they could park their car in the church lot here. Or for that matter, could even pick someone up farther to the east. I have a Honda Element, so there is room. Alan

You know, this topic is driving me a bit crazy. What is the traditional music of an area like where and when I grew up? The polkas we listened to while we milked that the country station out of Saginaw broadcast in the evenings? The bluegrass and oldtime music that the neighbors who had moved north to work in the auto plants would play? The conjunta that same Saginaw station played Sunday Mornings (yes, more polkas, just in spanish, not german or polish)? The Motown from just south in Detroit, not to mention blues? The country my folks listened to the rest of the time or the rock my peers were listening to? What about the old lumbering songs and the songs off the Lakes? Or all the old folk songs that we taught out of our music books in public school? And that doesn't even take into account ethnic heritage. The folks spent the weekends dancing to local German polka bands, but I never heard Norwegian or Native music until I moved away. And yes their is some English and French heritage as well. I like to listen to Irish music, but it doesn't speak to me as something I want to play, even with a strong North American Irish community nearby, though I try to support the folks who play it locally or bring in outside bands. I haven't been doing any bluegrass sessions in a while (dobro mostly) though that community is strong here, especially with Appalachia only a county away. And face it the concertina just isn't a bluegrass instrument. Ultimately, I like playing the concertina. I like older music, and occasionally I hear it played. So I play old songs, some oldtime, some cowboy, some off the Lakes and from the lumber camps. And mostly I play by myself. I guess mostly what I play would be called the english style, a melody on my right hand, and I keep trying to add some accompaniment on the left (trying being the operative word here). I'm hoping another trip to New England will help me find some folks to help me with that. So I sit here in my 19th century schoolhouse or outside under a tree next to the cemetery, and play what I like. A tradition and style of one, knowing that it is likely someone else may have sat nearby playing a concertina doing old german songs or irish songs or whatever was popular at the end of the nineteenth century playing on an old concertina or maybe a mandolin or a banjo, doing the same. Alan

I found the Glenn Ohrlin book, it is actually called "The Hell-Bound Train", University of Illinois Press. No Streets of Laredo (Tom Sherman's Barroom, The Lament), but a lot of good cowboy music, mostly tunes and words--no chords. And nicely, everything is in C or G (after I learned some of those songs in F.) Alan

PS I'm also selling a WW2 RAF Irvin Jacket. Is there anyone out there who thinks I should mention it's a 63 year old dead sheep? Shouldn't that be a sheep that died 63 years ago? I would actually like to see the corpse of a sheep that lived 63 years. Alan

Musical notation is just like tab for a C/G Anglo -- all the push notes are on the lines, all the draw notes are in the spaces. I've never noticed that, but I suppose it's true to a point, though I do know I generally play most things up an octave from how they are wrote. The biggest trick early on was remembering where the accidentals were when played outside of C, G and their relative minors. Once I got those in my head though it wasn't too bad. Alan

Cowboy and Western Songs by Austin E. and Alta S. Fife; Bramhall House, Pub. Songs of the Great American West, Irwin Silber; Dover These are at least two to start with. Somewhere I have a book by Glen Ohrlan (?) Called Ten Thousand Goddamned Cattle but I can't find it and I wish I could. The collection by Carl Sandburg has many as should the Lomax collections (Alan and/or John). I'll try to locate the titles tomorrow. I know of two sets of performers doing western music on concertina: Rex Rideout; and Call of the West. Rex plays an old 20 button German concertina as part of his recreation education effort and the woman in Call of the West has an old 20 button Lachanal. At least this is a start. Alan

I do fine with the dots, wish I could do the ear thing with something besides the voice. Actually was complemented on my sight reading last December at Robin's Classical guitar meeting which is held in a book store. Being Christmas time, I picked up a book full of Carols and started site reading tunes, a lot of which were new to me. The fellow sitting next to me said, "You sight read very well." I was a bit shocked. Alan

Dan would be the best person to ask, as he wrote the article and did the research, but I think it would be far more likely for a cheap german box than an english to be there at that time. Alan