Hooves

I had not been to concertina.net for many weeks, then today i saw this picture and it reminded me of all the folks on concertina.net.

I think its easy for people to forget how much an influence the Clancy Brothers had, and Liam was one of the best. Of course now that he's made it past the pearly gates, he's playing a Crane.

these threads do get long, its easy to unintentionally mis-quote, thanks for acknowleding this. As to the Stops, its not quite the same but I can see that one could argue that it constitutes re-arrangement. My last ever comment on this topic: Its almost always anglo players who want to re-arrange the notes, when I was learning on the Anglo I felt the same way and asked the same questions. My observation over 3 years: Anglo players : want to change the note layout Duet players : want more buttons or bigger bellows English players : complain the least perhaps there is a reason as for me I'm off to find a Duet forum.

I read an article online once that stated that there was a loose connection between tumors and or brain hemoraging associated with music or songs stuck in your head - that is, that people who were suffering from one of those conditions would hear the same song over and over again. if its true, then we may have some proof that advertising jingles cause brain damage...

Not to derail the thread, but alternate tunings for guitar are most definately NOT just an "American" thing - John Renbourn, Adrian Legg, Davey Grahm, Nick Drake, and many others have been doing it since the 60's. and for that matter, tunings for other frettted instruments have always been evloving, just look up how many tunings are/were used by lute and cittern players. True they have solidified to a certain extent, but only because people like to take snap shots of history and blanket apply it to everything. I would say alternate tunings are a "Fretted Stringed Instrument Player's" thing, not any particuluar nationality. Though Fiddle players will sometimes use alt tunings. Think of the poor Trumpet player, if he had a Recorder we could just drill another hole. Personally I think anybody who wants to re-tune the Anglo is really looking for a Duet... many high end, modern accordions can be retuned. I think you missed the point. I'm not sure why you are quoting me. No one is saying Accordions and concertinas can't be re-tuned. They can be but not in an easily accessible manner unless you happen to be an accordion/concertina builder or tuner. The comparison was to fretted string instruments and thier ability to be re-tuned easily at will. Some accordions have stops for turning on/off reed banks, but that's not what the original question is in regards too. If you haven't figure it out, we are discussing alternate arrangements of notes. A statement was made that alternate tunings were an "American Thing" if you had actaully read the previous responses, I was responding to that statement. Perhaps you migth read my response, take it in context of the thread, before you quote me. So are you claiming then that you have an accordion that you cna re-arrange your note layout at will? Send us a picture then.

I wonder how many people own or play a Les paul, but have never heard a single note played by the man? To extend it to concertinas, I wonder if Wheatstone, Lachenal, Jones, et al, wrote music which we have never heard performed. Obviously it wouldn't be recorded by the makers themselves owing to lack of recording technology, but they could have written scores. Perhaps langusihing in some Pubs basement is stack of brilliant pieces composed by Wheatstone himself, just waiting to be discovered.

looks great, my 48K Lachenal doesn't ahve an air button either, so far I do not miss it, though often I wish it had one for putting it away (I just try to rember to end on a squeeze and not apull). Mr. Barelycorn's shop does a great job of restoring. I'm hoping one of these days to get a Wheatstone as well, But concertina is the instrument I reach for after my Mandolin, after my Guitar, but just before the Bodhran!

Not to derail the thread, but alternate tunings for guitar are most definately NOT just an "American" thing - John Renbourn, Adrian Legg, Davey Grahm, Nick Drake, and many others have been doing it since the 60's. and for that matter, tunings for other frettted instruments have always been evloving, just look up how many tunings are/were used by lute and cittern players. True they have solidified to a certain extent, but only because people like to take snap shots of history and blanket apply it to everything. I would say alternate tunings are a "Fretted Stringed Instrument Player's" thing, not any particuluar nationality. Though Fiddle players will sometimes use alt tunings. Think of the poor Trumpet player, if he had a Recorder we could just drill another hole. Personally I think anybody who wants to re-tune the Anglo is really looking for a Duet...

Ah yes the Crane, welcome to the club, you have taken a bold step in your own evolution and carved out a piece of destiny others fear to gaze upon. And a Wheatsone to boot, my have you grown. You have my respect and envy, young duet player. You didn't tell us the sundry details - buttons, size, wood/fretting, bellows... come come now, don't leave us guessing.

I think that would be the best use for a MIDI/Electronic Concertina: quiet practice. As an apartment dweller I know all too well the need for quiet practice. 2nd best use would be in re-configuration (as per your other thread). However I have found that you cannot be a shy concertina/accordion player, just like you can not be a shy singer.

if they could make the reed chamber plus reeds into a single unit that was of a universal size and accomadate the air holes and pad diameters to work interchangeably, it could work. In some respects the German style (accordion style) set up seems more lendable to such a re-configurable layout. Its easy to envision and we have tall tales of enthusiasts re-arranging reeds for thier own amusement. The more costly and currently viable solution is to try different layouts/systems which already exist. As a Mandolin and Guitar player, I find the duets layouts actaully appeal more to me than the Anglo or English. But each of those has its strengths and limitations too.

ah yes the Anglo, if you want to name yours I suggest "Squishy"

ah yes the English Concertina, if you play it long enough it becomes Bisonoric.

ah yes Doppler, amusing chap

that's a great name, if you do be sure to get a Jug player. My current band is "Long Tall Guinness", we are Barley Juice tribute band (I play the economical low-brow mandolin...) However I still like the idea of a Celtic/Irish Rolling Stones cover band "The Blarney Stones".

something else to consider is that a real piano plays multiple notes for a single key: inside the piano are sets of wires the hammer hits, not just one string. I wonder if people who have been chased away from music, being told they had no sense of pitch, actaully have a really good sense of pitch and can hear the individual notes thier instructors can't. Imagine trying to harmonize correctly when there are 3 notes that are supposed to be the same, yet you can hear they are not, while your instructor shouts "C!". I was in a singing class (which I dropped), and I swear that piano in the classroom was out of tune, the music I practised to was on a CD, prepared by instructors for asinging class with this very annoying Recorder for the melody - I always thought it was sharp, at least compared to the class room piano.

Just pretend your moving the bellows back and forth with your hands in the air. that seems to end all further inquiry.

I used to think the perfect pitch myth was just baloney, however after reading some other expierences on other posts, I'm beginng to think there is more to it - one expierence detailed somebody having heard an out of tune piano at an early age, and the out of tune notes sticking in the persons head. I believe I too was exposed as my first musical expierence to an out of tune piano. Just about anybody remembers a song or tune, you can hear it in your head, why shouldn't people be able to recognize a pitch without any reference, if you can hear the song in your head? Rather than saying all pitch is relative pitch, it could be that everybody at some point is programmed by thier surroundings to recognize a pitch as a specific pitch, regardless of weather or not its the accepted "pitch" of that note (as in our poor fellow with the badly tuned piano). I'm thinking about the 60hz/50hz power hum - if you take the octaves up from 60hz : 120hz, 240 hz, 480hz, (compare to A 440) - could we be programming ourselves everyday to hear the power hum pitch as a standard pitch, and thus our attempts to recognize notes accurately on the fly are hindered by continous bombardment of 60/50 hz hum? and what about playing in a room with a fan going? from the Wikipedia (take it for what's it worth...) Some idea of the variance in pitches can be gained by examining old pitchpipes, organ pipes and other sources. For example, an English pitchpipe from 1720 plays the A above middle C at 380 Hz, (info) while the organs played by Johann Sebastian Bach in Hamburg, Leipzig and Weimar were pitched at A = 480 Hz, (info) a difference of around four semitones. In other words, the A produced by the 1720 pitchpipe would have been at the same frequency as the F on one of Bach's organs we already know different standards of pitch have been used in the past, I included the above excerpt because I thought it was funny that Bach's organs were tuned to the power hum harmonic! well maybe, its from wikipedia... I don't have a tuner to tune to A=480 (if that 480 is indeed still an "A" or "A#"), it might be interesting to try to see if your ability to recognize pitches is enhanced by tuning to the harmonic of the power line hum for your geographic area.

yes they are "cricket": I am a potential buyer, a mandolin player, and providing useful advice in a time of economic hardship. Really you should be thanking me. Apparently the instruments were sold, you should have offered me a wager, I would have taken it. what does the Weber corporation do? - hand select trees with druidic rituals at the equinox, cut the trees with gold embossed saw blades forged from meteorites, glue the pieces together with a mixture of Holy water, balm of Gilead and the tears of Mother Terresa, use diamond and saphhire dust to polish the frets, buff the finish with silken cloth weaved from strands carried one at a time by camels from the distant orient, and then string them with silver coated white tiger whiskers? I suspect that each and every Weber mandolin has a piece of the cross inlaid or utilizes leftover Ark planks.

good luck on that. 18 grand in today's market, can't see that happening. Weber mandolins are some of the best mandolins out there, however as a mandolin player of 25 years I can say assuredly they ain't worth that much, in fact, no instrument on planet earth is worth more than 2 grand. I play a Tacoma M1 and M3, not in the class of Webers, but I get compliments on them all the time. And they sound good to me, one is better for bluegrass the other for folk and blues. I paid $700 for one, $400 for the other. Weber Octave Mandolins sound more liek guitars than Octave mandolins, what's the point of that? My Johnson Ma-550 is 10x better for a fraction of the cost, if you actaully wanta mandolin sound and not a fancy "guitar". I'm happy to own instruments of lesser value, I think of the greatest mandolin players and guess what, they didn't play 4 thousand dollar Webers... Yank Rachell the most famous Blues Mandolin player played a Harmony Mandolin! Pick one up on eBay for less than 300 bucks. A good musican can make any instrument sound like a 10 thousand dollar work of art. Truly I sympathize with those of you caught up in the "gotta have the best possible instrument" and now face trying to recoupe the outrageous buying cost. For those of you contemplating instrument purchases, let this poor soul's predicament be a lesson to you.

I bought a concertina a couple months ago and a bodhran becuase the exchange rate to US dollars was so low, lowest Ive ever seen! It was a bargain for me, about half price on both the drum and the box. Haven't checked the exchange rate lately, but if you buy overseas and live in the US its something to consider.

although I don't have my concertina reading quite up to par with the other instruments I play, I think you should consider time to learn to read music ifor the concertina in your equation. Some people learn all songs by ear, I use a combination of the two. I read sometime ago (I think on these forums) that the Famous Berklee school of music classed thier Violin players into 3 progressive "skill" categories - all that was different was the amount of time the player put in. They estimated 10,000 hours of practice to be a first chair violinist. If you could practice 8 hours a day, every day, it would take 3.4 years to master the instrument. Calculate the amount of time you put into Practicing, though I'm sure the requisite amount of hours is different for each type of instrument (drums vs fiddle vs tuba, etc.) hmm 2 hours every day would take you 13.7 years...

sounds like quite the adventure. what I'm thinking is: one month in an enclosed enviornment with other passengers, I haven't been on too many square rigged vessels, but I imagine the accomdations are somewhat cramped. Your biggest fear may not be getting your concertina soaked, but watching it sail over the horizon as your bunk mates reach thier "Concertina Limit".

well said, the modes are often forgotten and are very important in certain styles of music. I believe some irish tunes for "D" are actaully "D dorian" and not "D major". Also, the anglo layout is very similiar to the Richter tunign used on Harmonicas, I would think this would lend the Anglo to "Cross Playing", famalir to blues harp players.

I was told years ago the phone dial was A440, I tried it with my guitar tuner and it appeared so. so, what does somebody blessed with "Perfect Pitch" do when they hear Gamelan music? Everybody who claims perfect pitch claims it with the western equal tempered 12 note scale. We have no such claims for 15, 20, 22 note scales, Japense scales, or even "just tempered" scales. and let me ask you this: how many ways can you split the octave? How many "notes" exist between c and c'? I'll answer this for you: infinity well Ok not infinity, as the human ear must have a minimal freq of difference it can detect, that would be the limiting factor as to how many "notes" could be recognized within an octave.