michael stutesman
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Posts posted by michael stutesman
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The original poster asked for the comparison. My point is that Morse hybrid concertinas (tenor or treble matters not)are likely to give much less trouble than an old lachenal.
I wouldn't agree with that one. Concertinas are tough. A basically sound vintage instrument will give very little trouble unless abused. You surely aren't going to guarantee that new Morses and the like never need adjusting?
Absolutely right. A properly restored vintage instrument (as anything bought from Chris Algar will be) is as reliable as a newly built one.
I happen to own $4000 top of the line Lachenal Edeophone purchased from Chris Algar several years ago and a $400 dollar jackie. The Edeophone has had several (admittedly minor) issues with it including one immediately on arrival and the Jackie has had none. Concertina reeds are more finicky than accordion reeds. Instruments like concertinas with hundreds of small parts are going to have occasional problems. You will encounter more of these problems with a vintage instrument than with a newly made one. You gentlemen are blowing smoke.
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With regard to your original question, the Geordie is an excellent light weight instrument that is much less likely to give you trouble than an old Lachenal. Those old instruments can be quite 'fiddly' at times. I would go for the Geordie.
Aren't we comparing apples and bananas here? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the Geordie was a 45k tenor instrument with accordion reeds - a far cry from a 48k treble of traditional construction.
The original poster asked for the comparison. My point is that Morse hybrid concertinas (tenor or treble matters not)are likely to give much less trouble than an old lachenal.
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With regard to your original question, the Geordie is an excellent light weight instrument that is much less likely to give you trouble than an old Lachenal. Those old instruments can be quite 'fiddly' at times. I would go for the Geordie.
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I have no experience with the scarlatti but I can vouch for the jackie. Don't let the 30 vs 48 buttons throw you off track. The Jackie does not have some of the duplicate notes that the 48 button has and does not have several of the highest notes but it has all the notes you are likely to need especially when starting out. I'm sure the range of the Jackie is posted somewhere.
Cheers,
Michael
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There would be many reasons.
I'd like to hear them.
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I play guitar and EC and I much prefer the sound of chords on the guitar over the concertina. I also play diatonic accordion and I prefer the sound of chords on it over the concertina too. It all depends on the sound you like. Chords on the EC to my ear are often not pleasant especially close voiced chords such as the 'triangles' mentioned earlier. The ear is more forgiving with string instrument chords than with single reeds. If you want to experiment with EC I highly recommend the Jackie from Concertina Connection.
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I am actually looking into replacing the reeds with a better set; the button thing was just a sideline improvement I was thinking of. I figured if I jazz up the insides (the important part), that if I could spend $50-100 on some nicer metal or ivoroid buttons it might be a further nice way to distinguish my instrument.
Anyone know how standardised the buttons might be? If it's just a matter of popping them off the end of the action wire and popping another button on, that wouldn't be bad at all. Just need to find out if there's any off-shelf substitute.
Michael, mind if I ask who did your tuning/settup, or did you do it yourself? I lack any reedsmithing ability, so not sure if it'd be economical to have these reeds tweaked vice just having it re-reeded entirely.
I did the tuning myself and I realize that the availability of tuners is an issue and I'm not sure what it would cost. The way I would present it to you from my own experience is that 90% of the improvement you would get from a complete new set of TAM reeds you would also get from simply tuning and setting the machine reeds that are already in your instrument. The increased responsiveness you get from a TAM reed compared to a machine reed is very marginal compared to what you get from a good set up and tuning (which of course should come with a new set of TAM reeds). There are others who will disagree I'm sure, but I think many who have done much tuning would agree with me. It's just astounding how much difference a good tune up can make.
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I don't think you will ever wear out those buttons. If you want to be way happier with your Elise, spend a little money getting the reeds set and tuned. All of those chinese made instruments are surprisingly good quality for the price but all of them benefit tremendously from reed setting and tuning. I have a Jackie which was actually fairly well set up but, even so, tuning it and setting the reeds made and enormous difference in how good it sounded and how well it played.
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What is the little lever he's operating with his right thumb?
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My vote would go to the Aeola every time.
I have owned six Aeola EC's and two Edeophones,over the years, both metal and wooden ended versions.With the Aeolas there was allways a consistency of tone throughout the keyboard. It is usual,with the Aeola, to be able to hear every note of a chord even when that chord is spread from top to bottom notes. So it is in the balance of volume and sweetness of tone that I feel the Aeola wins.
Geoff.
This is interesting because it is the balance of tone and volume of the edeophone that Mr. Wakker cited as his reason for preferring them to Aeolas, as I recall. He felt that the 12 sided shape of the edeophone was largley responsible for this.
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In contrast, all the Morse Ceilis I've played Have been pretty uniform in tone and quite good despite being a hybrid.
Having played all the modern hybrids (except for the new Clover), one definitive conclusion I'll offer: the Morse boxes are by far the most consistent. I've played maybe a dozen, own one, and I've seen almost no variation in their (high) quality.
BTW, Dana, I played in your neighborhood last week - the Kensington Labor Day parade. With Washington Revels..
You can say that, in your experience, the Morse boxes have very consistent quality but to say that they are the most consistent you would have had to play a dozen of each hybrid.
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i will say as someone who started playing and fell in love with the anglo concertina for traditional irish music about five years ago, that its lack of full chromaticism in both directions is beginning to absolutely infuriate me. i'm starting to find it really disappointing and limiting from an expressive standpoint. i still love the instrument in the keys which do have all notes in both directions, but not being able to play irish tunes in all keys with equal fluidity and suppleness, and equal range of expressive options available to me as the player in terms of phrasing a passage all in one direction or breaking it up and switching directions depending on the effect i want, like you have in the keys which indeed are chromatic in both directions, is starting to feel very stilted and confining.....i'm actually teaching myself CBA right now using a small, combact CBA with thirty treble notes (four rows) and two octaves of freebass notes on the bass side for this very reason....it's the size of an irish button accordion, but you can play it in any key brilliantly. the very small freebass side is more than enough for the super-light, minimal double-stops or light chording used in irish accordion bass arrangements (tasteful ones, that is, not the heavy-handed PA bass blitz....)
May I ask where you found such an instrument?
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I have an internal medicine practice in North Carolina.
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I have a 48 key Edeophone EC number 57513 with raise ebony ends. Intersting comments about the bellows. I remember Wim Wakker saying that in his experience in restoring instruments he almost never had to replace the bellows on an Edephone because they were so well made.
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Actually, I misread the specs. It PROVIDES phantom power, it doesn't run off it.
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Thanks John. FYI the current model apparently does run off phantom power.
Michael
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When he plays EC he often uses the bellows very much like an Anglo player, holds the instrument above elbow height etc, and he's probably the most rhythmic and punchy EC player I know. Why does he play EC like that? Presumably because that's part of the tradition he's playing in, but also surely because as a melodeon player as well, he's used to using the bellows to drive the rhythm.
No criticism intended, but I suspect that many EC players are simply not used to doing that.
It would be quite possible(-ish) to play fiddle playing one bar on the down bow, one bar on the up. Most fiddlers don't do that, it's not part of most fiddle traditions, (but it could be!)
Getting out of my depth here, but what do EC players actually think about bellows articulation, (that the Anglo folks are mostly forced into.)
I play the english concertina and the melodeon. I've often seen it suggested that if EC players would just 'learn to use the bellows' they would be able to get the 'bounce' of an anglo. In my opnion an EC cannot be made to sound like an anglo no matter what you do with the bellows. A bisonoric (different note push/pull) instrument can make a particular sound of changing from one note to another by holding down a button and changing the bellows. This has, in my opinion, a unique sound and energy to it that cannot be duplicated on any unisonoric (same note push pull) instrument. The suggestion that EC players just don't know how to use their bellows properly to get the 'right sound' out of their instruments is offensive. The bellows of EC's and anglos are also constructed differently reflecting the different way they are used. The anglo bellows is built a bit stiffer to better accomodate rapid pressure changes.
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I have a pair of small Sennheiser dynamic microphones for my english concertina. I run them through a Sampson S-combine to make a single channel to go to the amplifier. The signal output is rather low which is a problem if the mixing board is a long ways away. Any suggestions for a preamp that would boost the signal onstage?
Thanks
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Geoff, do you tune button boxes?
I toyed with the idea of 1/4 meantone for a C#/D rig but after corresponding with Paul Groff on the subject decided it was a step too far into the unknown. But 1/5 comma meantone might work better...OTOH one of the advantages of having a 2- or 3-voice button box that is not totally dry-tuned is that even a very light tremolo takes most of the harshness out of major thirds. On tina there is no escape... except uneven temperament.
I think most of the advantage of these alternate temperments is to sweeten the chords in selected keys. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you generally do not make chords with the right hand on a C#/D rig. For that reason plus the reason you already mentioned about the tremolo softening things, I don't think this meantone tuning would be much of an advantage for you.
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I believe tona is playing a duet concertina with some additional modifications. The duet may be better suited than English for this style of music, but I play English concertina and am trying to learn swing musette style on the English. I haven't found much material recorded or in print with regard to concertina playing swing musette. In fact, I'm thinking the best approach might be to take what is written or recorded on accordion and try to adapt that to concertina, since I believe this style of music has been played traditionally on accordion. Is there a good source for these tunes on the web?
'Indifference' is actually in 'The Waltz Book III' compiled by Bill Matthheison. There are many books of this type music available at Djangobooks.com
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one recording more!...
Here is a mazurka "les ormeaux". It is not a traditional tune but composed by a friend, Tiennet Simonnin. I think this tune has the supports rythmic of the mazurka. I play this tune on my baryton duet which pitch of the lefthand is almost the same as the right hand.
Au plaisir.
Thomas
Excellent playing again. Seems like accordion school once again proved it's superiority. I like treble sound however, when bass line is clearly under the melody and chords don't sound unexpectedly high.
With all the quality of playing and composition it has little to do with Mazurka.
On the other hand:
To say that Tona's recording has little to do with the mazurka is ridiculous. There are many styles of mazurka and both Tona's recordings have a beautiful french mazurka rhythm that is very danceable.
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I was at a workshop for dance musicians a few years ago which was filled with good dancers and musicians and the question cmae up of what makes music danceable (aside from simply being too fast or too slow). One of the musician instructors said it was identifying the 'one'. They then proceeded to demonstrate by playing some music that was undanceable. The tempo was medium, it was musical and not just chaotic noise, but you couldn't identify a 'one' anywhere. There was literally no place to put your foot on the floor. For me as a dancer and musician it was a very compelling demonstration.
I believe that the easiest way for musicians to be problematic for dancers is to get the tempo 'wrong' for whatever type dancing you are playing for. There is a 'comfort zone' for almost all dances outside which the dance becomes a chore or boring or completely impossible. All dance musicians should strive to know these zones and they are, of course, very different for different dances.
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Indeed it's been a year since you joined the forum and brought a lot of ... erm ... colour into it.
Happy birthday,
Chris
Yes. A single flower in a sea of grey beards...
Lachenal Excelsior 48 key Treble English concertina made around 1890
in Buy & Sell
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Being able and willing to fix small problems yourself is really a key point. the issues I had with my edeophone were minor only because I was willing and able to open the thing up myself and fix them. If I had to pack it up and send it off to a repair person each time it would have cost me several hundred dollars in shipping and insurance alone not to mention time without the instrument.