Daniel Bradbury
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Posts posted by Daniel Bradbury
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Can anyone elaborate on the Noel Hill fingering technique?
I can refer you to this site with an interview with Noel where he discusses his fingering technique.
http://www.celticmusic.com/magazine/interv...interview.shtml
Beyond that, its best to attend one of his schools. You won't regret it!
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This is interesting, I requested info on my Pollitts Peerless a number of years ago and got a little feedback but no conclusive information.
It was sold to me by Lark in the Morning in the mid 1980s as a Jefferies. When I contacted Mickey a few years ago as to what his provinance might be, he couldn't remember. When Geoff Crabb first appeared on the forum here I asked him if he had any knowledge of Crabb making concertinas for Pollitts, but he said he had no records of Crabb making them for Pollitts.
I can see why it was represented to me to be a Jefferies because of the appearance and the sound. Shortly after I bought it, Bertram Levy played it and thought it to be a very nice Jefferies. Since then Frank Edgley, the folks at the Button Box, Randy Merris and Noel Hill have examined and played it and the concensus was that it was from the Jefferies factory. We were comparing it to a Crabb and the reed shoes in my instrument were much more like the Jefferies reed shoes than the Crabb we were examining.
What with Crabb making the early Jefferies, I can see that it could be an early Crabb. It is certainly a fine playing instrument. Steven, thank you for the clarification.
One thing you will notice, if you look closely, is that the distance between the rows flairs slightly as you move towards the buttons played by the little fingers. This is not like any of the Jefferies or Crabbs we had seen before.
FYI, the serial number on my instrument is 8383 and a pencil written 6 (which must be the number within the batch). There is also a capital cursive letter B in pencil on the inside of one of the reed pads. Mine has no gold tooling or fancy bellows papers. Its all Black. It was valued at around $6,000 for insurance purposes by Button Box a year ago.
I have seen one previously and that one is in France It has the gold tooling and fancy papers. It appears to be nearly identical to the one offered here. I traded photos and information with the owner. He was going to have Colin Dipper look at it. But I have not heard from him in a long time. Its serial number was 8133.
I would be happy to send a series of photos of mine (taken when it still had the original pads). and forward photos of the one in France should anyone wish to examine the instruments further.
Thank you for spotting this and Thank you Steven for the information.
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Wow! That looks amazing. How does the lack of fretwork affect the tonal qualities of the instrument, Bob?
We'll know tomorrow when I put the reeds in and tune/set them. I expect it to have an rather different timbre than an instrument with lots of fret work.
Like the "suspension bridge" effect on the hand rest?
I will put a more sophisticated strap adjuster on as well.
I will report my subjective opinions later.
Bob
I have noticed that the hand rest looks a lot like a banjo bridge (most likely a fretless banjo bridge).
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I use the tune-o-tron exclusively and extensively. I either write the abc file in notepad, or download it and save. Then I simply copy the file and paste into tune-o-tron. I can then play, print as sheet music and even edit by going pack to the pasted page to edit the abc text. By moving back and forth from the paste page and submitted tune I clean up mistakes, etc. Then I copy the edited abc from the paste page and save back on my drive.
Tune-o-Tron is one of my most-used tools on concertina net.
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I use the Amazing Slowdowner and find it a fantastic tool. One of the best parts of it is that you can select sections of the music and loop it so you can work on particularly difficult parts.
I use it a lot for transcribing music to ABC. It helps me to have written notes to refer to when I work out difficult sections of tunes. It also makes it easier to share tunes with other musicians I play with in sessions. Many of them can use ABC. We find it an easy way to learn each others current favorites. All in all, I don't think you can beat the Amazing Slowdowner from Roni Music!
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If you post a photo of the instrument here, I bet you will find out a lot more about your concertina!
Congratulations and happy squeezing!
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A 38 button Jefferies G/D and for the wife to agree that its not an unreasonable request!
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Hey Morgana,
Don't forget:
Music from Sliab Luachra - Jackie Daly
The early Chieftains recordings with Michael Tubridy
Generations with Bertram Levy (very rare)
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Yes indeed, so many wonderful tunes.
I now have Nigel Chippendales tunes down, as well as Bertram Levy's Paddy Rocker and Jig Set. I find I am playing bits and pieces of other tunes without thinking. They just seem to fall under the fingers.
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Speaking of unnamed tunes, the Mazurka that is played by Nigel Chippendale is known around here as "The Crested Hen"
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I cheated and looked at your past posts and noticed you had one and figured it might be the one you were asking about. I too have a Bb/F Jefferies. I think you have hit it square on the head. These instruments are made to be played gently. and doing so can greatly improve speed. I know that the weight makes mine more of a workout than my C/G Jeffereies, but it is such a sweet instrument!
If Geardoid Ohallmhurain thought that highly of it, I would guess that it is probably working just fine and might not be worth gambling on someone messing with the reeds unless it is a HIGHLY qualified and experienced repair person.
//Edited to remove previous and unnecessary posts//
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Is your Jefferies a Bb/F? The are a little larger and heavier which might take more effort when playing.
HelloCompared to playing my Linota, playing my recently acquired Jeffries takes more effort and strength with the bellows to sound.
Is this something others have observed? Could the reeds just be more efficient and more of the air going past the reed is doing it's job, and not escaping through the gap?
I wonder if the reeds just need to be adjusted. u
I am certainly building up more muscle and control.
Any universal truths about Jeffries reeds compared to Wheatstone?
Thanks,
Richard
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Hello Lloyd, where are you now living? Still in Florida?
Its great to see you resurface
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Stephen, I came across one of these with the hexagonal endes in Northern California at an antique store in the late 1970's. It was beautiful but only had one player roll. I was in no finacial position to make a purchase at the time, but have always remembered it. In fact I was just about to make a post asking if anyone else had seen these instruments. Thank you for the information.
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Hello Felix,
I realized after re-reading the draft notes for the collection that you played Galacian music. I appologize for the misstatement. Somewhere along the line in conversations with Alan, I got the idea of Catalan music in my head.
You have every right to be very proud of adapting the tradional music of Galacia to the concertina. It is an inspiration to those of us who have heard your playing and will continue to inspire those who will soon have access to the collection.
I am already working on your pieces and hope that we will be able to hear more recordings of your lovely work.
I am happy that you have posted this because I have a couple of questions. I notice that you are playing a "C#/G#" Dipper instrument. Are these keys the traditional keys for the music? If so, is that based on the tuning of the bagpipes, or have you just chosen that particular tuning. Is the fiddle in a normal tuning EADG or is it tuned sharp?
Thanks again for the wonderful music! I apologize for any misunderstanding I may have left with the concertina community.
" or the emotional lyricism in Felix and Castor Castro Vicente's Catalan music. "Thankyou very much for your reply. It's true, we think that it is a wonderful collection and it shows that anglo concertina is a instrument with a lot of capabilities and different styles in which it can be played.
I reply this post because we aren't from Cataluña and we don't play catalan music, we play galician music, and we are from Galicia, in the northwest part of Spain (the corner over Portugal, where it is Santiago de Compostela), and we are very far from Cataluña, 1.000 kms., that it is in the norhteast part.
Our traditional music is mainly played in galician bagpipes, drums, tambourine, wooden flute, accordion, and hurdy-gurdy, and our rythms are usually 6/8 rythm, (muiñeira, similar to jigs), 3/4 rythms (jotas, foliadas, valses and mazurcas) -jotas are very common in Spain-, 2/4 rythm, (pasodobles, pasacorredoiras, polcas), and free rythm music (songs, i. e. alalás), and 5/4 rythms (foliadas).
Our neighbours are the portuguese and we have links with the portuguese culture too (our language, the galician, is very close with portuguese, because they have the same roots, the galego-portuguese language spoken in the Middle Ages).
Sorry because of the long post.
Felix
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The two pieces played on 209radio were wonderful. But....in light of a couple of related threads, I was a little disappointed that they were both Irish music. It would really have been great if some English music had been played, like the brilliant set by John Watcham, or some of the Will Duke, Roger Digby, Rogers Edwards, Andy Turner ....
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Now you have me wondering about the effects on tonality and timber when using various trousers such as cordoroy, denim, and khaki.......
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Could it possibly be "TheDark Isle" ?
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John Kirkpatrick is remarkable in provinding accompaniment to his singing.
I would suggest you get the soon to be released Anglo International for some wonderful examples of this, plus a number of other truly amazing performances!
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Southwind. A very simple song that can be as remarkable as one has imagination.
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If I've missed this lesson in spam-proofing, could someone please enlighten me?
As far as I am informed, SPAM (unwanted mail) only applies to mail addresses and not to URL's. If we really should disguise URL's, it should be the end of internet, because direct linking from page to page via URL is the basis of the web(dot)(dot)(dot)
Thanks guys, I guess I just erred on the side of safety. It's not fun typing all those (dot)s
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I think that one of the most amazing things about this collection is that it makes available recordings of people we would otherwise not have an opportunity to hear. Here in the US, recordings of the likes of Fred Kilroy, Nigel Chippendale and Scan Tester are very difficult to come by. And the amazing playing of Andrew Blakely Edwards is virtually unknown. Who of us even knew where to find recording of Squashbox playing and Afrikaner style playing. Over here we have never had the chance to hear amazing enthusiasm found in Chris Sherburn's playing, or the emotional lyricism in Felix and Castor Castro Vicente's Catalan music. While many of us know Frank Edgley and Bertram Levy by their tutors only, their playing on this collection really show their true level of musicianship. Even Jody Kruskal who is American, is relatively unknown outside the contra-dance circle. I find Roger Edwards' playing absolutely wonderful, which really describes each track on this remarkable compilation.
It is difficult to speak of any one of the performers, because all of them deserve equal mention. This is a recording that will be treasured by all of us interested in the music!
BRAVO, ALAN, BRAVO
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WGBH's Celtic Sojourn airs at 12 noon Eastern Standard Time and should be accessable in the UK and Europe in the late afternoon or early evening.
WWW(dot)WGBH(dot)ORG.
Can you provide the URL for Culan and Ceili House?
Henrik's suggestiion for the late session can be found at :
http://www(dot)rte(dot)ie/radio1/thelatesession/
Live Ireland can be found at WWW(dot) liveireland(dot)com/ch1_popup(dot)html.
If we gather a fairly comprehensive list, perhaps we can add it to the site in a rather permanent way.
I know that there must be some programming in on the West Coast of the USA.
I will ask WMNF if they can provide an archive of Music of the Isles and perhaps we should flood WGBH with the same.
//Edited to add the intended message to the post//
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I listen regulary to a local program "Music of the Isles" Thursday nights on the independent radio station WMNF here in Tampa Florida. (The best little radio station on planet earth!) www(dot)wmnf(dot)org
I have also been listening to the fortnightly 209radio web broadcasts from their archive. www(dot)209radio(dot)co(dot)uk
It would be terrific if we could gather a collection of superior Celtic/British and other roots oriented radio broadcasts which could be listened to over the web.
So tell me, what programs and stations do you all listen to when you want to hear the music in which we share an interest?
(editied to try to make the urls less attractive to spam)
Looking For Lessons
in Teaching and Learning
Posted
Hello taibhse,
I live in Tampa and would be happy to help you, I have sent a private message off board.