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Jake Middleton-Metcalfe

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Posts posted by Jake Middleton-Metcalfe

  1. I believe Gary Coover plays a C/G 30 key with Wheatstone layout. Personally I would recommend it if you want to play in the harmonic or English style, the A/G reversal on the top row is quite useful for combining chords with the melody sometimes both in terms of cross row playing to smooth out a sequence of notes or also giving depth to certain chords. 

     

    I believe the Jeffries layout is generally preferred for Irish music as you get a C# in both directions on the right hand side.  

  2. Wolverton Concertinas have some merchandise to give away totally free. Your chance to acquire a beautiful hand pulled linocut by Karen Carter and a limited edition mug. We have two of each to give away so two people will be selected randomly to win both a mug and a linocut print. All entrants will receive a complimentary Wolverton Concertinas sticker. To enter simply send your name and postal address to chloe.e.metcalfe@gmail.com subject:prize draw. Contact info will only be used to facilitate the draw. The two winners will be chosen at random. Date of draw 10th of January 2021.

     

    Best wishes to you all

     

     

    merch.jpg

  3. what model of concertina was it off? Was it one of the mahogany ended ones? I have heard it suggested that on those instruments they just pressed out the frames and didn't bother fettling, flattening or squaring up the slots at all on the more basic mahogany instruments. You do have to flat them off on the bottom at least when they are pressed out, its done that way in the Wheatstone workshop to this very day. 

  4. First came the isolation, then came the depravity, then came THE Grand Northern.

     

    A lot of the music me and chloe learn is geared towards being able to play with others. This is a tune we learned just because we liked it - it is from the slip jigs and waltzes fiddlers tune book. We hope you enjoy it too. 

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2KEtUM32WA&fbclid=IwAR3AVdchdsrM4ZrxCsFZEkj1L-pn1aRDn8FRCCQ0WiM-AkT2kCQqMytOrm0

    • Like 5
  5. Thank you for sharing this experience.

     

    This is quite interesting that you did not get as much extra air as you expected. I have played instruments with loads of folds and it seemed as if the bellows move faster somehow when played, so that you ran out of air faster somehow despite having more length. I believed the problem was that the reeds were not very efficient or something like that, though maybe there is something else going on here (perhaps relating to the volume of air and the resulting pressure? I am no physicist and have no way of working out why this would be). I never tried playing say a 7 fold bellows then the same instrument having been converted to 11. I was told by a very well respected maker that there is no point going above 7, though I have made eight fold sets and found that quite good, but not totally essential (with anglo anyway) as you can always find another way of playing a piece of music to get around any problem of running out of air. But this is all relating to playing an anglo and specifically in the English style. I have never learned the duet and am quite fascinated by it.

     

    Given your experiences, what do you think would be the optimum number of folds for your duet playing?

     

    Best wishes

    Jake

  6. 13 hours ago, Daniel Hersh said:

    Jake--

     

    Very nice! 

     

    FYI, re Train of Artillery, Anahata has written, "It was the official quick march of the Royal Artillery until 1706 when it was replaced by the tune we now know as "The British Grenadiers",  and he also says, "I've just discovered the first half of the tune elsewhere as "The Grenadiers' Train of Artillery", while the second half is "The Marquis of Granby's March"."   His version, where this is written in the description, is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGcWPJ0q2VQ .  There's sheet music for The Grenadiers' Train of Artillery (from 1765!) at https://digital.nls.uk/special-collections-of-printed-music/archive/94689964 at the bottom of the page and for The Marquis of Granby's March in the same book at https://digital.nls.uk/special-collections-of-printed-music/archive/94689880 .

     

     

     

     

    Thank you for this Daniel, I knew two of the parts were another tune but I did not know what tune. I did actually first hear the "set" as I think we will have to call it from Anahata, in a session and then learned it from the youtube video. I have saved the sheet music you posted for reference. What a set! Always loved it.

     

     

  7. Today I uploaded a couple of videos of a few of my favourite tunes. They are played on one of my own instruments, a G/D wolverton. Just recorded on my laptop so the sound quality is not great but I hope to further popularise these tunes as few people seem to know the train of artillery and the dukes, the waterloo dance being more common generally.

     

    The Dukes hornpipe in D and the Waterloo dance also in D

     

     
    Train of artillery in G:
     
    • Like 5
  8. On 2/25/2020 at 1:29 AM, Dana Johnson said:

    Hurray! Socket head screws on your reeds.  Why not on the end bolts too, or do you make those yourself?  Sorry everyone, I am not a fan of slotted head screws.  Perhaps they have a place, but it isn’t on things that are designed and destined to be taken apart.  
    BTW.  Fine looking instrument.  Bet it sounds even better!

    Dana

     

    In this case I did make the bolts but that is not my normal practice. Honestly I did once put socket head screws on an earlier instrument but found that visually they just looked a bit out of place. Though they are indeed easier to use, I like using them on the reed frames.

  9. Very happy to see this book, it would be nice to hear some more jeffries duets, a guy turned up to one of my local sessions once and played some very developed, beautiful and complex music on one which very much impressed me.

     

    Great to see the book. 

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