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paperpunchr

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Everything posted by paperpunchr

  1. Hey Bear, (also my daughter's nickname) Before you go badmouthing your home country on an international forum, you might want to get your facts straight...or do some world travelling and talk to people in other countries...really see how the rest of the world lives and understand what you have here. If we're so poverty stricken, and the rich have all the money, and everyone here lies, why do the poor and ambitious folks from most of the rest of the world keep trying to get here? Why are poor people here generally overweight, and have cars, heaters, air conditioners, and at least a basic education? The "poor" in America are still better off than the "middle class" in much of the rest of the world. I've lived overseas a lot, and travelled more. Try it. Might be wiser to stick to music and concertinas and avoid flame wars about topics where you only seem to know what your friends tell you. Paperpunchr
  2. LOL. I have asthma and a smaller lung capacity because of it. I don't think breathing while playing a concertina will kill me, though it might severely harm any listener. I'm also an asthmatic, and I have to confirm a tendency to breathe with the bellows direction can leave you short of breath...it was stronger at the start, and stronger on slow tunes than fast, but it's just something to be aware of and don't keel over...
  3. Would that it were so...I never heard a word of Greek until I was in college, taking an archaeology course...we benighted gringos....gringae? ... gringidae?...gringi? who knows!
  4. I digress briefly, If you can't find public transportation (subways/trains) in New York City you're not looking...it makes good economic sense in big cities...a lot of us Americans live in small towns and suburbs for a reason...we don't particularly like big cities...and other than Mother Russia and China, there aren't many countries (especially in europe) that have the population density and short spans between towns to make railroads viable...why should the rural taxpayers pay for cities to have more trains than economics can justify? Moving sidewalks? For now only practical in airports, protected from weather and vandalism. Can't argue with creating green spots in cities that don't have enough...buy up a few derelict buildings, level them, clear and grub out the old utility lines, and build parks...a more decent use of taxpayer dollars than buying healthcare for "children" up to 25 years old at my expense...as our runaway Congress (opposite of Pro-gress) seems ready to do. But I digress too much...Concertinas in the park...yes...definitely. Doug
  5. Hmmm...I see the link and can open the photo...it does look slightly odd for a duet...spacing seems to have a mid-row hiccup...custom built for someone with an arthritic hand or a missing finger? Do both sides have the same irregularity? Doug
  6. Interesting...I get more physically tired in the arms and shoulders than mentally fatigued...I seem to have the keyboard-position/bellows-direction/tone-produced matrix in my head, and once I can whistle or sing the tune, I can make the instrument produce it without a lot of concerted thought...this works better for familiar tune types, and not for 13/8 Moldovan swing lullabyes or other odd tune types, obviously, but as a rule if I can sing it I can play it.
  7. WoooHooo! Sounds like a winning concept, allowing you to learn one basic pattern and then play in any key...I hope it winds up being affordable as well as profitable...Good luck!
  8. Och, Aye, I'd have one o'them if me arm was long enought ta reach... Tasty stuff!
  9. David, One way (actually two...maybe three, I'm brainstorming here) I can think of to eliminate the timbre difference would be to either go to a Midi electronic concertina, ...or if you want to stay physico-pneumatic-acoustic, redesign the lever layout to put the two reeds side by side in the same physical location... or have two buttons/levers, one in each row, mechanically connected so they are both working one pad over one reed. Then you'd get the same exact tone quality from either button... Other than that you're going to have some degree of difference.... You can look at it as a problem, or you can look at it as an opportunity to introduce another variation into your playing. Cheers!
  10. Now, now...mustn't be snobby! Some of those classics are amusingly presumptuous and pompous, and some of those British (and french) folk tunes in 3/4 are quite lovely and elegant...not to mention ladies swoon when they hear them.
  11. The shield over their important parts is called a sporran. I hear that Sporran's made of Badger fur are now required to have a special permit... Badgers....We don' got no badgers...We don' gotta show you no steenkin' badgers!
  12. Well… I am willing to see if it would be feasible to offer a limited number of G/D Rochelles. Besides technical, there are also financial and logistic obstacles. Because of the way our production system is set up, we need to do a minimum of 60 instruments. If we get 60 orders for a G/D Rochelles, I am willing to see what I can do. Any one interested in a G/D Rochelle, let us know: info@concertinaconnection.com Wim Wakker Concertina Connection v.o.f. One for me! Email has been sent.
  13. Sure, an if the foto wuz reversed, it would be left to right, not upside down....and their kilts would be over their accordions.
  14. There's truth in jest...I have noticed among all but one concertina player of my acquaintance, we do make odd momentary facial expressions while playing, as if the part of the brain that decides which button to push is close enough to the facial control center that there's an occasional impulse overflow...I feel it myself when playing... Eyebrows and lips tend to move up and down or do odd things when playing 'tina...Tell me I'm not the only one who ever noticed this? Doug
  15. Now There's some good news, good enough to make me hold off moving up so's I can see what a G/D would really be like to play, for the kind of music I do. Still, Wim, I think a Rochelle in G/D would sell well enough to be worth the little investment (different reeds/reed turrets) it would take. I suspect you know your own business but I know a lot of folks who'd want one. Cheers, and thanks for making a decent affordable beginner's instrument...bound to funnel more folks into the concertina habit. Doug
  16. I have one of the $125 look-alikes, and while it plays surprisingly well for the money, the mechanism is nothing like a Rochelle, which is to say nowhere near as good a feel. The action is a single aluminum sturcture with one or two pins that run the length of the structure and all the arms in a row pivot on that one pin...disassembly would be a nightmare as you can't undo one without undoing the whole row. Buttons occasionally stick, and the breather hole was the same size as all the tone holes...which is to say way too small...the concertina is black and my standing joke is, it's the Darth Vader signature model, as it used to wheeze through that tiny breather hole, taking forever to let air in or out. I cut a bigger hole and put a bigger pad on it, and it's more functional. Buttons do occasionally stick as they have no means of keeping vertical alignment except the hole in the end plate they pass through and the lever arm below that they slide on. If I had it to do over again I'd buy a Rochelle. Still, the super-cheapie was good enough to convince me that I could learn the anglo, and better for my hands than the English...bought a cheapie of that system too, to help me decide Anglo vs English. Doug
  17. I play guitar and mad-olin :-) and find that for Guitar I need about a four inch lift under my right foot so my leg parallels the floor, otherwise the guitar keeps sliding down and away from me. Mandolin is so light that I just hold it up against my midsection...which is ample ;-). Concertina, I don't rest on either knee most of the time...I just hold it, but I play anglo and the hand straps transport the weight well enough to my arms that I can play standing or sitting for long periods without resting the box. And yes, I find that a couple of pints "sweetens the breath, slims the hips, and numbs the backside" as well as lubricating the vocal chords for pub-volume singing.
  18. " I'm sorry but I don't quite understand most of this quote. I'll be living about a mile and a half from Humboldt University and plan on taking many courses there. As I said, I'll be on the internet every day, that's easy to do even when I'm bicycle touring and camping. Antibiotics I haven't used in many years, since I had Lyme disease. I think they have them in Humboldt County, Ca. Frankly, I doubt future generations are going to admire us, but that's another topic. Why no future generations? I haven't a clue what you mean by the nameless religion comment. Voldmort from Harry Potter? I don't think my plan is evil or devil worship or something. Check out the small house society for info on what I plan......and thank you for the good wishes. " When you say Off the Grid it means something to me a little different from what you apparently have in mind. I've seen a number of folks really go off the grid, a more extreme version than you apparently intend...in extreme reaction against all the trappings of civilization and modern life...good luck. Doug
  19. Good luck, Bruce, but I for one don't envy you. If we all give up refrigeration and antibiotics and universities and the internet...there won't BE any future generations to admire us...or else they'll all be members of... The-Religion-whose-name-we-dare-not-Speak. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, ...even the vanity of forsaking all other vanities is a vanity.
  20. USA. Also quite a bunch of young geeks writing software. People are a sheep, regardless of nationality and education. You teach them, they follow. You give them violent video games - they gobble. You give them real fight - follow. Give them waltz lessons - same. Give them what's good for them, not what they 'think' they want. That's the secret of success. I only wish I was there at your company's party, just to see the expression on your face, when after some waltzhing, tangoing, foxtroting lessons you'll see your young geeks circling the floor to the soothing music of string oktet (sp?). DJ is anachronism. Has always been. It's just an ugly distortion, depending on booze and drugs. I did an experiment. I withheld my child from mass culture completely. Now, that she is a consumer on her own, you should see her lough at Michael Jackson, Brittney, Madonna. It's just plain funny, the amount of bad taste, stupidity. We all got used to it, but a fresh mind is bewildered. Interestingly, we did much the same with our two kids......they are into classic Jazz, Big Band sound, Irish and other non-"Popular" garbage, by their own choosing. No tattoos, no piercings, no drugs, no trouble. Now I just need to figure out how to "market" the idea of a waltz party to these guys! I'm not in a position within the company where I can dictate or even forcefully suggest such a thing. Thanks, and Cheers! Doug
  21. They're also known as gasket punches...used for cutting holes in copper sheathed gasket materials and sometimes as hollow punches...As Here available on ebay
  22. If swapping the reeds doesn't change the effect, it's probably the usual situation on an Anglo where you have duplicate notes in the inner row and outer row, and the openings are, respectively, physically on the outside edge past the buttons and under the palm or the wrist...differences in internal resonance due to reed chamber shape and location of air opening, and also differences in the "escape route" for the sound come into play. I take advantage of this timbre difference where I can in Irish music to play a same-note triplet ornament where the three notes alternate between the two buttons, and you can hear the triplet more distinctly because of the timbre change...if you don't play a lot of triplets on those particular buttons, it's just part of the territory and you have to live with the difference, at least on most Anglos. Doug
  23. Saw that one...and noticed it had an empty buttonhole for the breather...I was wondering if the lever was for the breather valve, or possibly a drone. The general detailing looks German to me, but I'm still fairly new to Concertinas and haven't seen a German one close up. I thought this one might be a German import that was dressed up and cased to look more like the more-expensive English built ones...if anyone knows, I'd be interested to hear what the levers are for as well. Doug
  24. I've seen three or four turn up on ebay over the past several months, and generally they're more often mistaken for Lachenals than Wheatstones...the ones I've seen bore some resemblance to mid-grade Lachenals. never had the pleasure of playing one, though, so not much more I can say.
  25. You're most welcome...interesting that they had radically different positions to hold for sitting and standing, and even thought of left handed playing...the engraving was maybe not DaVinci quality, but did the job. Cheers! Doug in Colorado, a.k.a. Paperpunchr
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