Paul Schwartz

My email address is in about a zillion address books, so of course you'll likely see emails with virus attachements which look like they come from me (I myself get several dozen a day!). I use plenty of up-to-date virus protection software of course (on my server and client). Paul

Can't we make musicians wear a flag like this too? So that way when you go see a band or performer, and one or more of them are poor musicians, you can know when to duck out for a bathroom or beer break. Just a thought... Paul

Thanks for letting me know... I've deleted the user. The current registration system (with email validation) makes it tougher for scummy people like this to invade the site, but not impossible (if they're really determined). So just let me know when you spot people or posts which don't belong and Ken or I will zap them... Thanks! Paul

Thanks for the concern, but this thread can certainly stay as-is. The photo was put up there on the web for all to see in the first place... If the owner wishes the thead removed, please contact me (or Ken Coles) privately and of course we'll do so immediately. Thanks, Paul

Don't forget to be very vigilant when it comes to scams and payments (especially checks!). Here's a site member's experience: http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php...entry7143

I've fixed the problem. It was a bug in the software. I tested it with a regular user account and it worked fine for me. Thanks, Paul

Thanks for letting me know about the "profile mismatch" bug. I've found and applied the solution and it appears to work fine now, so you should be able to modify your profile. Paul

This is from Jody Kruskal: ------------------------------- You may have heard about the Incredible Concertina concert that I'll be performing in on March 26th in NYC. An Anglo playing acquaintance asked me if I thought the workshop I'm presenting on the 27th would be helpful for 'someone like him who is learning anglo in the Irish style'. Of course I told him to come. In answering his question it occurred to me that other folks might be wondering the same thing. I'm not known as an Irish player. My specialty is English and American music using full chording and bass notes throughout. I play English ritual traditions and country dances as well as American contra dances where the repertoire includes, New England, Canadian, Old Timey and Southern tunes, original tunes that I wrote and also lots of Irish reels and jigs. When I play Irish tunes I don¹t use much ornamentation, partly because I'm keeping my fingers free for added notes below the melody consistent with my harmonic approach to the instrument. Although I will demonstrate and talk about how I do that, there is much more to making music than how many buttons you push down at once. I can offer the straight ahead Irish player a new way of thinking about and analyzing the music that you play without asking you to change your fingerings to accommodate the chords as I do. I am sure that any Anglo player would enjoy my workshop on Saturday and get a bunch of concertina information and inspiration. I plan to work with whoever comes to the workshop, at their level, using their material as well as my own, asking them to come prepared to play a few tunes and share what they have been working on. Beginners are welcome. The workshop will not be so much about learning new tunes (though we may do that too) but more about playing musically and getting control of the instrument. We will be listening for phrasing, using the bellows to create rhythm, letting the melody sing with internal micro dynamics, accenting for added pizzazz and back beat, playing legato and staccato, the creation of tone... and what about all those other buttons that are not being used to play melody? What to do with them? Except for this last subject of chords and self accompaniment, the rest are all elements that can apply to any style at any level of accomplishment on the instrument. I hope to see you there. Jody Kruskal Voice 718-369-3644; 914-737-0950 jody@kruskal.net

I've enabled a new test "portal-like" view of the forum content. If you like it, you can simply bookmark it. Maybe I'll do something more interesting with this in the future (it's a free "lite" version add-on to the forum software provided by the programmers). http://www.concertina.net/forums/index_portal.php Paul

I've just completed the forum software update. Everything appears to have gone smoothly and I don't see any problems. Not many new features that I'm aware of for the average user (there are some admin improvements behind the scenes), but most of all I wanted to keep up to date to get ready for the next big version (2.0) which is in testing with the developers now, and which offers lots of new features and improvements, including one which looks interesting and might be popular with people familiar with my old forums: the ability to view the forums in the current linear, OR a new threaded format. I've tried test versions and it looks like it might work quite well... stay tuned. Thanks, Paul

Please note that all questions about this should be directed to the seller! I cannot vouch for, or answer questions about specific details or condition, because I'm not the seller, and I don't have the instrument in front of me. Yes, I have seen it and can vouch that it appears to be in excellent condition (I opened one side, and the reeds look almost brand new). The instrument has clearly seen very little use. There is some damage on one end to the fretwork (looks like it was dropped on one edge), but otherwise it really does look great, and the bellows look excellent (definitely do NOT need to be replaced). Good luck to all. Paul

You may post your ad for free in the Buy & Sell forum, but if it helps you sell something, we ask for a minimum donation of 2% of the final selling price donation to help keep the site running. Keep in mind that it would cost you a LOT more to sell it through an online auction service. Click here to send a donation. Note that you are able to use a credit card to pay using this link... we use PayPal as our payment gateway, but you do not need a PayPal account and you do not need to register with PayPal or anything like that. Thanks -- we really appreciate it! Paul

I've found that whenever you're shipping a concertina (out of country, overseas... anywhere where you need to enter a description...) it's best to simply list it as an "accordion". I know, it's painful , but it sure makes it easier. Paul

Thanks again Greg! Very kind of you indeed. Seeing people get pleasure from the instrument and the music they make with it is always support enough. And that's what I want from the forums and the site... I just want them to further that aim, and not just degenerate into too internal much navel-gazing

A "guest" is someone who hasn't registered. A "member" has registered and validated their membership. "validating" is someone who has registered but not yet validated (usually because they gave a wrong or bad email address, and so can't complete the registration process -- part or the spam-prevention scheme). Paul

In an effort to clean up the main discussion area and to make it more about CONCERTINAS again , I moved all the Forum System discussion into a new "Forum Questions, Suggestions, Help" forum of its own. Good to see that people are still interested in concertinas and not just concertina forums Thanks, Paul

At the recommendation of a fellow forum member, I've added a new "Instrument Construction & Repair" forum. It's pretty self-explanatory, so have fun all ye who dare take your reeds in your own hands! Paul

Bingo. That's a big reason why I went with this package. The lines between publishing web pages and forums then blur, which is good because people like to discuss articles anyway, and since the forum system becomes a remarkably flexible content management system. So my idea isn't so much to break up discussions, but to create more, guided and interesting ones. For example, I'm trying to line up some Q&A sessions with pros and other concertina world people who don't normally participate in these or ANY forums, so the Q&A will be in a separate, moderated forum -- cool! Same thing with some specialized content... it can be posted in a closed forum, then there can be a separate dedicated Q&A and/or discussion forum attached. Paul

That's exactly why the new forums are here to stay. I currently don't have any time to read the forum posts at all, or to play the concertina. So yes, I'm on a mission to automate more of the site (the forum was a good start), so that kind people like Ken can also donate their time and do more on the site (without having to learn HTML or programming, as you point out). Vote? That sounds like all the talk and email banter years ago about reviving the C&S Magazine. People were ADAMANT that there MUST be a print version because online is hard to read, blah blah blah, but guess how many people were willing to actually CREATE and PUBLISH a print version. You don't have to be a programmer to understand the various forms of ZERO. Okay, so I just went ahead and started Concertina.net on my own... Thanks, Paul

Yes, it's all PHP and MySQL, just like every page of Concertina.net, so in theory I could get in there and tweak, but the point is that I don't have to, don't want to, and don't have time to. Also, it would mean breaking any potential upgrades, so the point with something like this is NOT to make any changes that would be overwritten by an upgrade. It is quite tweakable already (via the admin interface), and I've already done plenty of that. Concertina.net consists of many thousands of lines of complicated code and database tables, and this forum system is the same. The days of one person "doing it all" are gone. People want and need more features... not the least of which are wanted/needed on the back-end admin side (that none of you see). Yes, the spammers have indeed made it a sad day and sad state for the internet in general. It's all I can do to manage than many hundreds of spam messages I get each day, and they were getting into the Concertina.net registration system and then the message boards via automated spam systems, so Ken and I had to manually prune this garbage. This new forum system keeps them out. And that's just one example... Thanks, Paul

Try clicking the Bold button (the square "B") in the Code Buttons section while in Guided or Normal modes... slightly different (Guided holds your hand a bit more). TEST people, TEST! TRY things out more!! Paul

If you're not sure what a feature does, try it. It's all free. Think of it as an adventure. Live a little. Paul

No threading, because each TOPIC is supposed to be a thread. If you want a new thread, you should start a new topic. It's a different way of looking at the same idea. Busy boards have mostly all moved to this way of doing things because threads can quickly get really big and cumbersome (which is why you don't see a whole lot of threaded boards anymore). Also threading is more difficult to program, and causes complications there too (keeping track of multiple children/parents can really eat up application and database server resources as the program recursively looks for where it is in each thread). Paul

Hi everyone, I think it's time for everyone to simply start using the new forums. They really do work, and we'll all learn to love them (or not, be that as it may). I will not re-activate the old system. The folks on this same system I just implemented for my regular job (http://www.readersdigest.ca/forums) are finding their way around just fine and are having a good time. This same system is also used on many of the largest and most successful discussion forums on the web (look at the amazing discussions on www.egullet.com). The old site systems took me well over 200 hours of programming, often staying up until 2:00 AM in the morning, for months on end. I have a family with 2 young kids and a full-time job and a house to look after. The new forum system should be more than adequate to allow a nice way to fulfill the basic functions of allowing a long-term, permanent, no-cost and feature-rich way for concertina enthusiasts from around the world to communicate. This board fixed many of the problems that people were complaining about with the old system (and which I had no time or desire to implement... programming an effective search engine for example, is no trivial task), so you need to take the new features along with some changes. I've played my concertina about 45 minutes total in the past 6 months, so sorry, but I'm not about to give those 45 minutes up because some of you don't like the colours or fonts of the new system. Sorry folks, but I really don't have anything more to say on the subject. If you want to know how to do something, ask politely by posting a message, and please don't right away complain that a feature is not there just because you don't see it staring you in the face after you've been using the new system for all of one hour. And in case you're wondering, Concertina.net has always been consistent, at the same address, fast, and popup-ad and junk-ad free because I pay for good service (averaging about $35 US per month) and don't use those junky free hosting services (most of which have of course gone out of business). This web server has in fact been running for 210 days with no restart (zero downtime). Yes, I do have some paying advertisers now (thank you!!), but the site has been around for 7 years now. That's over $3000 just in hosting fees. Before you bash me and send me nasty email and yell about how you're not going to come back to the forums now because you can't figure out or it's harder to do this or that and takes 2 minutes more of your time per day to follow a discussion, please just take a deep breath, calm down, and think about how awful it was when you just sat there in your bedroom (like I did), trying to learn to play concertina from a book and cassette tape, and with no other contact with any other players, and no information about how to learn or where to go get involved with some sort of community or festival or concert or store or course or teacher. So my message is: keep on squeezin' folks. Cheers, Paul

Image attachments/uploads are now enabled! See the announcement in the Official News forum. Enjoy!! Paul