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Simon Wells

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About Simon Wells

  • Birthday 11/08/1958

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    I'ma schoolteacher by trade, a musician by nature.<br><br>I have been playing anglo for 21 years, and now have a 32-key Aussie-made Kookaburra. It's great, and in the 16 months since I took possession I reckon I've played more than I did in the previous 20 years. I used to work semi-professionally playing celtic music and some recording, but the market is not conducive for that now.<br><br>I have just finished a free online concer tutor, and am about to publish it through an Aussie concer site.
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    BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA

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  1. To those who may be interested, I have just published an online tutor on Anglo technique. It is published as a Word document, and is not really browsable, but until we overcome such technical hurdles, at least it's there. To anyone who wants to make serious use of it, it can simply be saved/printed off as a Word doc. It can be found at http://users.tpg.com.au/cghent/tutor.doc . Hmmm, don't think that's going to work as a link. oh well, too bad, copy and paste yourself if you're serious. These technical things are beyond me at times. The tutor has been published with the great help of Chris Ghent, whom you may have noticed is a contributor to this forum, and also the co-ordinator of Australia's (that's where we live) only concertina discussion list. Now this tutor is not comprehensive, it is not intended to be a competitor to the well-known commercial ones available in books, video, CD-Rom. It tries to supplement them. It does have diagrams, charts and transcriptions of Irish ornamentation within tunes. The tutor is of course a free internet resource. I've made no money out of this, I just want to share collective info, and invite more. In time it will be amended and improved with the contributions of others. So go and have a look.
  2. Morgana - since you are a member of the concertinadownunder discussion list, you will soon have access to my online Anglo tutor, which will be published through the list in the new year. This tutor has pages of general tips, both from me and gleaned from other players. I'm sure that some of it will be of use. It is a work in progress, and as other people contribute their own suggestions i will incorporate these over time. I'd say the tutor will be up and running by mid-Jan. If there appears to be enough initial interest I will also ask Concertinanet to make it available to non-Australian players. It's meant to be an adjunct to all the commercially available tutors. Bye
  3. I have devised a fairly simple ( though not comprehensive) method. What I do is score a tune ( I use a computer program called Sibelius) and simply add arrows above the staff. I use an UP or DOWN arrow above those notes which have alternate fingerings. UP means you play it on the pull/draw, DOWN means on the push/press. For other notes which don't have alternatives ( e.g. a low E and F#, or high F#) there are no arrows marked ( of course). Ok that only leaves those 4 notes - the G's and A's in the 2 main octaves- for which you have 2 choices ( course we're talking C/G system here). Now since you have in each octave 2 pressed G's and 2 drawn A's to choose I generally don't mark these. Why ? because it's such an individual thing. Some people are G-row based, others are C-row based, others mix em up. So I leave that to the reader's preference. An example of this notation is in the attached document, which has an image of the score of a well-known reel. You can see how it works. Oh of course I should mention that for those rare ( in my case) times when you might play a drawn G or a pushed A on the outside/accidentals row, you would simply mark that with the appropriate arrow. To me it's just so simple, a case of less is more, and so obvious that I'll bet someone has already used it. It's just that you don't see it in the tutors I've seen. I think I've seen em all, including Vallely's, except for Frank Edgely's. You see I've just finished writing a modest tutor on certain aspects of Anglo technique, which I will publish in a few weeks on the net as a free resource. And I came up with this notation in an attempt to teach fingering alternatives. But, as it's only just finished I haven't tried it out on anyone yet, so I'd be interested to hear any comments/critique that anyone may have. From, Simon Wells Brenda_Stabbert_s_word_doc.doc
  4. Dave can you give us details of your Tedrow's layout. Sound very interesting, and i am still at the stage where I may experiment with my layout. Altho yours is evidently a G/D, I'd still be interested.
  5. Pete - surely the punch line should be - He replied " The trouble is that Stradivarius made rubbish concertinas and Jeffries made crap violins !"
  6. I'm surprised that those in this thread have restricted themselves to 30-button layouts, and to Wheatstone vs jeffries. If you're able to order a new instrument I'd really recommend having some extra buttons. I have a new instrument, 32-key, and those 4 extra notes really help. I should say I play mainly Irish style, and to this end some of the tips in a Ken Coles article, which has a link on the home page of the concertina.net site, are very useful. I used some of these ideas, and others of my own when planning my keyboard. I don't think either the Jeffries or Wheatstone layouts are ideal for irish playing. One of the tips i took was to have a double high C# key, instead of the C#/Eb, Eb/C# arrangement (start of the RH accidentals row). certainly having the C# both ways is great for D and A tunes. I have put the double C#'s on an extra button at the inner end of the RH C row ( i.e. right next to the B/C button). I also have an extra low F# on the press, but not on the RH accid row as recommended in the Coles article, but on my other extra button which is at the inner end of the LH C row. In addition I have placed an extra mid-range A on the press at the first button of the RH accid row ( i.e. where the Jeffries and Wheatstones have the C#/Eb) It's a bit of a luxury having the same note 4 times on your keyboard, but this A with the extra pressed F# it gaves me a full D arpeggio on the press ( and linear too) as well as the draw. I felt a bit adventurous mucking round with trad layouts,but they were never designed for my style of playing nor for irish music anyway. and what a difference the alterations have made to my fluency. Even if I had a sacred old J or Wh I'd do the same, and innovate away. Bugger tradition !!
  7. I had a different numb thumbs problem a while ago. I was suffering almost constant numbness along the outside edge of my right thumb. Just couldn't figure it. After a while I worked out it was from the pressure of the air button. My instrument was brand new, and the action on some buttons pretty tight. So I just opened it up and removed one of the 2 springs on the button's lever. I was worried that this could have slackened the tension on the button and maybe cause a leak. But it was fine, and so now the button was so much easier to depress and the numbness vanished.
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