gcoover

Jake, thanks so much for posting this, a recent discovery for me, and nice to see a bio on Walter Dale. I've got one of his 78's with hornpipes on one side and I don't recall what on the other, and have offered mp3's to the site (assuming I can find them). Gary

I ended up using a photo from Randal Bays at Ceol Cascadia, but big thanks to Chas and Chris and Lawrence and everyone else for sending in some great possibilities. It's always great to have such support from the cnet community! Gary

Sounds like she's playing an English concertina. But unless it's in a funny key you should be able to play the same notes on the Anglo, just not quite as smooth sounding. Gary

Jake, as opposed to taking the ends off and making new handrests which I've had to do several times, I was thinking maybe something like the adjustable screw levelers used in survey instrument tripods might work? A simple turn of a wheel embedded in the handrest might do the trick. This way it would be easier to share and play other people's instruments without having to demolish them first! Gary

Yes, love it - very modern and very stylish looking! Perhaps you can come up with some sort of easily adjustable height mechanism for handrests? With hands coming in all different sizes, I've always been surprised that handrest heights are locked in, and that it's often a big hassle to adjust handstraps if switching players. Gary

If you're just wanting to play Irish tunes only, then the most important thing is where the C#'s are located on the top row, and in particular the high one on the right hand side. The other top row buttons are used so rarely for ITM you probably don't need to worry much about them at this point in time. It's probably more important to make sure the old Lachenal is up to the task of playing quickly with (eventual) ornaments. Things like airtightness, bellows capacity, reed responsiveness, quickness and quietness of action will be fairly important. Of course, that's assuming it's already in tune with good pads and valves. Hybrids can have a wide variety of tone, but are usually built pretty well once you get past the cheap ones. Metal ends will typically sound a little brighter. I definitely recommend checking out the higher quality hybrids built by Morse, Edgley, AC Norman, Marcus, etc. Happy hunting! Gary

With emphasis on the "mental"!

Excellent research, Andrew ! And what a great chase it's been to track down the details of the musical Professor's life, both good and bad. Although I'm sure the limelight of the music hall could be considered a career high point by some, I rather like the idea he ended up playing the half-time show for football games. To deliberately confuse English and American football, that would put him right up there with Beyoncé, U2, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Michael Jackson, ZZ Top and The Blues Brothers! Gary

Does anyone have good photos of a 30-button Anglo concertina at an Irish session that could be used on the cover of a tune book? Color or B/W, roughly square in size (after cropping), maybe even a bit artsy? Or maybe even some original artwork? In return I can offer copies of the book, full credit, the usual fame and glory, and with luck maybe even a few $. Please send PM, or email to gcoover(at)swbell.net. Thanks! Gary

The Professor plays two concertinas, one in each hand, and produces some most harmonious effects." Maybe that's what drove him crazy?!?

At one point Cajun musician Wayne Toups had a special accordion made with four stops so he could play in two different keys - two were in "C" and two were in "D". It would be a bit unwieldy for a concertina, but maybe some brave soul wants to try it? I once worked on an old 20-button German concertina that had a pull bar near the thumb side of the handles that added or removed an extra octave, but that's the only one I've ever seen like that. Gary

Well is it snorting, or BARKING? A perfectly acceptable move for a dogs body.

Way to go Jody! Never imagined you as an opera singer before - do you get to wear a steel brassiere and a hat with Viking horns?

Jeff, instead of "controlling" the bellows, I'd suggest thinking more about using the bellows to breath life into the tune. It's good to use tutors to learn about the button-pushing aspect of when and where, but the magic happens when you're confident enough with the buttons to be able to mix the subtleties of button timing and bellows action. Doesn't happen overnight, but with time and practice and lots of listening and experimenting you'll get there! Gary

Hi Stephen, I'm using Finale's Printmusic program to layout the notes and the music, adding the button numbers using the Lyrics tool and the line above using the Line tool. Sorry, but it's all manual, nothing automatic about it! It's not a very expensive program (compared to the full Finale which you don't need for stuff like this), and it can do a playback of the melody as a double check. Hope this helps! Gary

"Transinstrumentalist" - I love it!

Actually, pretty amazing progress for only 3 months, and with an instrument that's not really very quick for fast Irish tunes! It's a continuous search for the best fingering and musical phrasing, and eventually you'll find something that you like the best. I wouldn't worry too much about the ornamentation at this early stage - get the basic tune down good and solid first and work the ornamentation in later as you continue to explore the tune. I know it's tempting to want to do it all at once, but basics are important, and ornaments should be treated like frosting on the cake. Keep up the great playing and enjoy your voyage of discovery! Gary

For those wanting a sneak peak and a few free tunes, the "Look Inside" feature on Amazon is now activated for "Easy Anglo 1-2-3". Gary

So, why is it not called a "Butterworth Duet"? Gary

Merrygold, Alan's advice is spot on. Many beginners play the notes too long and too hard (and too loud), I know I certainly did. A 5-fold bellows is an additional challenge - you will probably need to get very familiar with alternate notes in opposite directions. But fear not, you're just getting started, it will take a while for your Anglo to get you trained! Gary

Mary B, et al - just posted 7 more videos on the "angloconc" channel on YouTube. These are mostly tunes that can be played on only one row, except for the harmonies on "Flow Gently, Sweet Afton", and "The Man in the Moon" which utilizes that little pinky F# on the left. Hope these help you get started! More to come...I'm putting them all together on an "Easy Anglo 1-2-3" playlist. Gary

Mary, since you've only had your Anglo for two months, I wouldn't think anything would be played very fast just yet. Slow and easy gets the job done until your fingers and subconscious get the basic movements and locations sorted out. I'll be posting YouTube videos of all the tunes from the book in the next month or so, so that should help. As for the previous question about G/D, if you don't mind playing everything a bit lower, the tablature will still teach you the basic patterns, just use the musical notation as an indicator of rhythm only and maybe pencil in the revised chord names to help you learn the chord patterns. Some accompaniments might sound a bit heavy with too many notes so just leave some out. No one has written a tutor for the G/D yet since they've been fairly rare up until now - I'd love to see Jody Kruskal write one (hint hint)! Gary

If Squirrel doesn't straighten up soon, he might hear you playing "Hunting the Squirrel" on the concertina...

Here's a new one, named after a favorite miscreant puppet. At one point the full name was "Mr. Punch's Victory Dance", so imagine him gleefully wielding a stick and prancing about: http://youtu.be/GON5_7WhnOY In the second measure, is that a stick clash, a barking Toby, a crocodile bite, a snapping noose, or maybe even a dropped baby?!?!?

Ok, everything has been sorted out and the book should be available on all the Amazons momentarily. Here's another excerpt - the Joan MacDonald Boes tune "The Sweetness of Mary". Although written and usually played as a strathspey, I absolutely love Yuka Nakafuji's beautiful interpretation on the Anglo. Here's a link to her playing it live with the combined bands of "Tricolor" and "The Corona": http://youtu.be/otoDX5EstAY Enjoy! Gary 50-51-SweetnessOfMary-G-ANGLO-123.pdf