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PaddyLosty

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Posts posted by PaddyLosty

  1. Lovely photo as always, Peter. I wish I had gotten to meet them both. Your recording with Kitty was a big influence on me taking up the concertina to begin with, starting with a borrowed 20 button that belonged to Nick Brown's grandfather (so pipers are to be held responsible on multiple counts for bringing this fiddler to the dark side). 

     

    Anyhow, I Just heard back from Custy's, and they do have copies in the store, so will be updating the stock on the website tomorrow. Hurray!

  2. If you can do with 30 buttons, the spacing on a 30 button Jeffries, or a modern maker following that pattern, is very nice. I have long fingers, and while I can get used to a Wheatstone and manage fine with it, I feel very comfortable on my Jeffries with 30 bone buttons. 

     

    However watch at Liam O'Brien play his Wheatstone. He's a big lad! 

     

    There's also a lot to be said about the height of your palm rest. That may have a bigger impact on comfort than button spacing alone. 

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  3. It'd be around 1903 with that serial number.  Strike that, I was looking at English serial numbers. We'd have to see some photos to give much more idea of value - a lot comes down to condition and individual playing characteristics. 

  4. 4 hours ago, Richard Mellish said:

    I have a Bflat/F baritone, one intended purpose of which was for playing Swedish tunes in G minor and D minor, but I've never got on very well with that so I'm now having one made with basic keys G and D but diatonic minor. I had noted that Swedish minor tunes tend to have a sharp seventh (a bit like classical melodic minor but not exactly) and I wasn't very sure what to do about that, but in the end I'm keeping those notes sharp, the same as on a normal G/D, and hope to be get used to finding the flat sevenths on other buttons when I need them.

     

    I know one Swedsh tune (I think from Jämtland, anyway it fits some dances from there) which is in G-minorish, with the F always sharp, the B always flat, and the C sometimes natural and sometimes sharp. I think the E, which you might expect to be flat, does come in at all.

    Who made your Bb/F Baritone, Richard?

  5. 27 minutes ago, Jim2010 said:

    When I try to watch on my laptop I get an error message from the TG4 website (not my computer) that says: The video you are trying to watch is encrypted and we do not know how to decrypt it.

    MEDIA_ERR_ENCRYPTED.

    Any help appreciated.

    I am in USA.

    What browser are you using? Try opening it with Chrome. 

  6. Where I live we have very cold, dry winters and comparably humid summers, so there's a constant battle. In addition to the constant humidifier in the winter and dehumidifier in the summer, the Oasis humidifiers seem to work well. 

     

    Usually if a reed starts to act up from a change in humidity, I've found that simply sliding it out of its slot and then putting it back in place will alleviate the issue. You might want to try that with your Hayden.

  7. 3 hours ago, Stephen Chambers said:

     

    In fact both names appear on them (though Double-Ray is more prominent), but here in Ireland I've only ever heard them referred to as Black Dots.

     

    Interesting Stephen, I didn't know that. The few that we have had kicking around over the years have all been older models. Currently neither of our two household Hohners are double-rays at all - one is a black Erica retuned to C#/D, and the other is a silver pearloid 4 voice B/C box, but it has white pearloid buttons and no black button "De-Luxe". I wonder if it pre-dates the Forbes tutor? 

     

    SaltyD, any of those options from Theo would be top choices. They'll be expertly set up and will likely play much better than a Hohner sitting in a corner in some dusty music shop.

     

    If you want to stick to someone on the US side due to everything going on (though the mail seems to be operating normally), Scott Bellinger can probably source something for you. There was another guy using the name "Dancemaster" who seemed to do some good work too, but I'm not sure if he's still operating. Worth reaching out to. 

  8. Very much agree with Stephen. The nice thing with a Hohner is that with some work by an experienced specialist, they can be brought up to a very high standard. My wife prefers hers over other boxes that she has had, that cost many times more. So you could get a Double-Ray/Black Dot, and in the future send it to someone like Martin Quinn or Mike Rowbotham to be tuned and adjusted or "Souped Up".   Martin Quinn's Youtube page has many examples of instruments he has done this for. 

  9. I heard a few clips of Bernie playing with some pupils on Youtube. Her playing is lovely, just the style I like. I'm wondering if anyone has any other recordings of her they could share or point me to? She doesn't seem to have recorded any commercial recordings, as far as I can tell. There must be some private recordings out there. 

     

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