RatFace

It's rather nice. I've made some small modifications, mostly to the middle part. I'd say that bars 21-26 definitely county as extremely awkward, but they're playable. The changes preserve the movement in 6ths in the upper part, which I think is important (actually in the notation I would clarify that by making the d stem go up in bar 23, and the e stem go up in bar 26). The last two chords are a bit odd in your arrangement as they're both missing the fifth - is this intentional?! My inclination would be to add it. The big thing though is that the bass minims need to be played as (long) crotchets. The sound is better, and it's the only way that the fingering is really practical. In order to keep the "long-short-long" phrasing in the bass, you can try to avoid jumping with the same finger from the first to second beats... but in some cases you just have to (e.g. bar ll left-3 needs to play the E long, and then the Bb) I'll try to make a recording - but still need to get those bars 21-26 secure! For anyone else who tries, the G# is easier played as an Ab. And if you could transpose it down a fifth to give a version for us tenor-treblers, that would be great!!

Excellent - Bach always sounds like Bach whatever the instrumentation! Hope you'll post the rest here when it's done, and are enjoying the process.

I just treated myself to a new portable recording device - the Zoom H4n Pro. I thought I'd try the multi-track recording capability (which is pretty easy to use so long as you don't try to read the crazy instructions) and turned an almost random book open at an almost random page, to find quite a nice little duet by G. F. Handel, arranged for two guitars by Fredick Noad. One of the problems with guitar music is that it's written an octave above actual pitch, so on the concertina tends to be rather squeaky. However, the concertina sounds rather nice (like a clarinet) when pitch shifted down: https://soundcloud.com/mrrowl/menuet-by-g-f-handel-concertina-duet Here's the original for comparison: https://soundcloud.com/mrrowl/menuetorigmenuet-by-g-f-handel-concertina-duet And if you want to play along: https://goo.gl/photos/MMMQj9cCX6mTwKgi6

I didn't really understand the original post, but it mentions YouTube and not being able to keep up. Click the gear/cog symbol at the bottom right of videos on YouTube and change the speed to 0.5 (0.25 cuts the audio) for a quick/easy slow-down. In general, don't worry about playing fast - concern yourself with playing well, at whatever speed you can play well at. As you play more, you'll find yourself able to play well and play at the speed you like (whether that's fast or slow). It's not a process you can rush.

The aim should be to get to the point where you don't need to hear yourself - the physical action of pressing the buttons, or even just the thought of pressing the buttons should evoke the sound of your concertina in your head. If you know exactly what it will sound like before you press the button, you don't actually need to hear the physical sound. If you don't know what sound it's going to make before pressing the button and squeezing... well that's a problem isn't it?! Yes... this is a slightly idealistic position to take... but it is something to aim for. I can't help but "hear" the exact sound of my concertina in my head when I imagine playing it - even when imagining playing something I've never played before. If you can develop this association it works the other way too - being able to hear a melody, whether audibly or in your head (e.g. improvising), and immediately being able to play it.

I think if you listen to T&M expecting to agree with everything you hear, you're making a far bigger error of judgement than Milligan!

The last time I met Henk was up on Arran for the concertina gathering in 2012. We stayed on for a bit afterwards, and so did Henk and his friends, so we met up once or twice to play music: https://goo.gl/photos/xmHgj5p71NMKZPxB6 Sad to not be able to do that again, but happy to have the good memories.

Thanks for the prompt to dust off my concertina again! https://soundcloud.com/mrrowl/the-new-anything

It's unclear whether you mean they want you to play in a different room to the one in which you normally play, or in a different room to the one in which they're trying to occupy. Actually - your family might be offering the most sensible solution - why don't you just practise in another room?! Or place - e.g. garden shed, or even the car. I used to use the apartment's storage basement when I was living in Germany - no neighbours on any side, and empty offices on the ground floor out of work hours. The external baffles I made (see Myrtle's cook post) primarily change the tone than reduce the volume (reducing higher frequencies), but might be worth trying. Unfortunately, I think that making them thick enough to have a substantial effect will involve so much weight that it would affect the playability a lot. Another option is to play silently when other people are around. So long as you're above a certain level, you can get your fingers working and learning techniques and tunes without moving the bellows enough to make any sound at all. I used to do this when living in student accommodation, for example. You can also continue this practise technique when in the same room as other people, and even when they're talking to you, especially is the conversation is of the type where only an occasional nod is required Obviously such practice should be backed up with some proper bellows work too!

Oh and also - if you record close and add reverb, you'll end up with more clicking sound than if you record slightly further away and add less reverb. This is because the clicking sound comes from a very small/localised source, but the "concertina" sound comes from the whole instrument/end vibrating. Sound from small sources will decay with distance faster than from bigger ones.

By the way - you should always have mics well away from walls. And if they have to be by a wall, put some padding on the wall. The reason is to reduce reflections, where a sound wave going directly to the microphone will interfere with a sound wave that has gone via a reflection off the wall. These will constructively or destructively interfere with each other, depending on the frequency (it's called comb filtering), resulting in some notes "booming" more than others. Even if you don't change anything else - just moving your chair/stand/mics back away from the wall is a good and simple thing to do.

The silver box is a DMP3 pre-amp, used to provide power to the mics and to combine the two signals to a single stereo signal. The smaller black box is a Tascam DR-07 recorder. When using the internal mics it's not great quality, but when recording using the line input the quality is (I think) as good as anything significantly more expensive. I can't comment on whether the quality of the pre-amps in the Zoom H4n is as good as the quality of an external pre-amp like the DMP3...

With regard to mic placement, have a look here: http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=13357&hl=

Thanks for pointing that out. Yes - it seems like my hosts let it expire (like they did last year!) in error. Hopefully it should be up very soon.

And as I thought I remembered (but didn't say, because I wasn't sure), the concertina isn't even metal-ended. Danny, do you have any recordings showing the difference in sound between baffled and un-baffled? I don't have any controlled experiments, unfortunately! These are definitely without the baffles: http://rowlhouse.co.uk/concertina/music/GanivelleImprov.mp3 http://rowlhouse.co.uk/concertina/music/Beveridge.mp3 This is definitely with: http://rowlhouse.co.uk/concertina/music/ACoyToy.mp3 I don't use them any more, having "gone off" the sound a bit.

See here: http://rowlhouse.co.uk/concertina/pictures/index.html

Very nice! It's on Mairtin's "Chatterbox" album (written by him) - the CD notes say "The tranquility of the pier, late one summer's evening (when the weather was good!), suggested this air to me".

I liked this!

Yes you have - though the extra beats are quite well disguised! You actually start the B part one beat early, but add an extra beat in the descending phrase that follows, so this bit comes out "in the wash". However, just after this (in the second "answering" descending phrase, starting on F) you add an extra beat (about 3 eighths of the way through the B part), You might want to try playing along to some of the other recordings here to figure it out - or listen to your own recording counting one-gap-three, one-gap-three etc (I tend to sway like a lopo-sided metronome, if that helps!). Nice playing otherwise, though.

Here's my effort (though by "effort" I mean a few snatched minutes between other things...), warts and all: https://soundcloud.com/mrrowl/trollspolska

I know this is a ancient thread, but I had reason to look into where I'd got a copy of "Round the Samovar" which is in the list above (many thanks!), since I made a rough recording of it many years ago. So I thought I'd post that here, in case it had slipped under the radar... It's a very nice arrangement, I think. http://rowlhouse.co.uk/concertina/music/samovar.mp3

Hi, very nice but the second tune played as a schottische is not Rosline Castle with a faster tempo or did I miss something?... Cheers It is! There are a few little changes - in particular the second crotchet beat in the first bar, and also a slightly different distribution of accidentals, but it's basically the same tune.

Rosline (however you spell it) Castle is a lovely slow tune that also works really well as a schottische. Apologies for the "here's one I made earlier" recordings: http://rowlhouse.co.uk/concertina/music/Rosline.mp3

Thanks for the post - I just bought the CD (it comes with a download option too) and it's great - inspiring, exciting playing from both (as one would expect).

The bit about the space in the reed chamber having a resonant frequency being comparable with that of the reed is completely wrong. For example, the wavelength in air of middle-C is about 130cm - about 50 times more than the size of a reed chamber. Obviously the size of the chamber has an effect on the reed/sound produced, but not as described here (and the statement that there are no overtones is wrong too, fortunately).