Henrik Müller

The tune is actually "Farewell to Milltown Malbay" (there is also a return ) - second one is "The New Road" /Henrik

What beating - that's good stuff! Excuse the bad pun, but IMHO it beats most song/concertina stuff, I've heard! Good un' /Henrik

Should I post a close-up? /Henrik Still more to come... Hi, Larryo - I think the term is "polka dot"... Anyway - two more: Gerald Haugh and Sharon O'Leary: - and a soon-to-be-mother Katie O'Sullivan: /Henrik The final act comes next week -

Should I post a close-up? /Henrik Still more to come...

Edel Fox, anyone else? No? OK - try this Micheal O'Raghallaigh in a very relaxed concert at Eigse Mrs. Crotty. Good stuff - and btw, the microphones were off: a lot of potential audience was at another concert, the church was only half full, so he chose to switch off the microphones, hence the sound is "as is". The tunes are "The Maid of the Green" (I think), "Trip to Athlone" and "The Hag with the Money". More to come - /Henrik More is here: I have placed two new clips on YouTube: • Mícheál Ó Raghallaigh - reels this time (surprise, surprise) • Tom Carey and Mariréad Considine - also from Éigse Mrs. Crotty Mícheál: - length: 5min 39sec Tom and Mairéad: - length: 6min 28sec Make sure you enjoy Tom's relaxed tempo - and Mairéad's cool shoes... /Henrik

Aha - bodybuilding, at a young age /Henrik

Think of the baffles or lining (fabric, leather, what-have-you) as absorbents - they are not supposed to stop or reduce air flow. If you empty your (tiled) bathroom of all sorts of fabric (towel etc), sing a tune (don't get carried away), make a mental note of the sound, put the towels back, sing the same tune, you will surely experience the absorbing effect of the fabric. But it didn't stop the air flow in your throat, yes? (Neighbors might do it, though - sorry, I got carried away ). /Henrik

Anyone know the name of the first tune? I've checked the full audio recording where Edel introduces the tunes: its is "Farewell to Milltown Malbay", Junior Crehan. Second one "The New Road"/Henrik

Yes Henrik, borrow some & use them here & there, but I don't really see the sense in trying to make one instrument sound EXACTLY like another. Surely that is doing a disservice to the instrument & if you wanted to go to that length, surely the sensible thing to do would be to change your instrument. Cheers Dick Couldn't put it better myself - when I "borrow" elements, I do it with expression in mind, not with the purpose of imitating. /Henrik

Hi, Yvonne - Appreciate your comment - yes, more will follow, probably during next week - should make everyone happy /Henrik

That is the essential point. As you said further on, it is an old conversation. To me, it a question of interpreting the tune with with whatever abilities you may have on the particular instrument. And to borrow techniques and style elements from other instruments is fair game, I think. /Henrik

It was indeed - two fine events in parallel.../Henrik

Edel Fox, anyone else? No? OK - try this Micheal O'Raghallaigh in a very relaxed concert at Eigse Mrs. Crotty. Good stuff - and btw, the microphones were off: a lot of potential audience was at another concert, the church was only half full, so he chose to switch off the microphones, hence the sound is "as is". The tunes are "The Maid of the Green" (I think), "Trip to Athlone" and "The Hag with the Money". More to come - /Henrik

Thanks, Mark - I better put out a warning: I have removed them - they weren't really representative anymore. They were done on the little Stagi (what Henk calls The Frankenstein) and I just might do a few again, just for the fun of it, when the bellows have been sealed wi' something. Right now they are so leaky that you hardly see any difference whether a button is pressed or not - /Henrik

Ah, good man - sounds like the real thing /Henrik

Hi, Aogan - Sorry to hear it, good to hear that you got out (almost) whole. I gave up motorbiking a thousand years ago, when I started to think about what could happen to me and I wasn't thinking of collarbones... Quick recovery! /Henrik

Now, here's a man who knows his pixels /Henrik

I have placed a 4 minute video with Edel Fox on YouTube. Recorded in Teach Cheoil - the old protestant church in Kilrush, converted to concert hall and used by Comhaltas. Done with a Canon IXUS 70 and shaking hands. The soundtrack has been replaced with a cut from the Edirol recording I ran through the whole concert, so quality is as good as it can be: Dynamite, IMHO! /Henrik

From a very reliable source I have it that the Kitchen Table Concertina and I will be in the Old Crown Pub, Hesket Newmarket, this (August 3) Sunday evening /Henrik

1) ...to abandon pinkey rests and put your instrument on your knee, while sitting... 2) ...Those pinkey rests will not help you... 3) ...Some think EC is designed by God and need no improvement, some (like me) think it's been simply a practical joke. re:1) Hear, hear! re:2) Hear, hear, hear! re:3) IMHO, there is definitely room for improvement... . - and folks attending Bradfield Trad Music next week will have a chance to see one /Henrik

Yep - QuickTime is a life-saver, one of my main tools. And if you have a steady hand, you can locate the tricky part with the little handles in the player's timeline - it helps to pull the player window as wide as it goes = your screen, with the lower right corner. That gives you more "resolution" in the handles. Put the player in "Loop" (Command-L) and "Play selection" (Command-T). If fine-tuning the selection is difficult (with a long track), select a bit more than you need, copy, open new player window and paste. Draw out the player window to full width, and Bob is probably your uncle. Fine-tune away... This is nitty-gritty stuff... but it has made the penny drop more than once with my slow brain (ears?). As Larry points out, this is not quality pitch/speed change, but it does the work. Interestingly, there is no real reason why Apple couldn't implement higher quality - the component is there already, deep down in the OS core: The problem is to get at it - you will need a special (free) tool for that and maybe c.net isn't the right place for that description. Unless I hear pleas, of course or is contacted off-forum. /Henrik

Homemade papers - very neat! How's the pattern made? *** As promised - here are a couple of photos of the Aeola-bellows (from 1976): - after use: From a distance, they looked alright (OK in a museum, if never played ), but in my eagerness to make them soft and pliable, I used very thin leather - ("split"?), almost like paper. Not good (as "after use" shows). The parts were hand-skived: sharp knife and a glass plate, lots of time, lots of leather and lots of "Blast - have to do it again...". The "bellows"-paper isn't paper - it's the thin leather. Surface: I was fascinated by the shiny surface of the original bellows but couldn't find the varnish (shiny, elastic and definitely non-sticky). The otherwise knowledgeable leather folks at the institute where I worked at the time, shook they heads when I described it - "doesn't exist". A phonecall to Colin Dipper proved otherwise, and he was kind enough to send me a small bottle of elastic, spirit-based leather varnish (still have it - thanks, Colin). Amazing stuff - still don't know what it is. /Henrik

Absolutely - we will! /Henrik

Allright! Congratulations! They look great - handskived? Would you have a photo of the mould? /Henrik Hi Henrik - how's the kitchen concertina coming on? Yes, all hand skived leather (although I also use a Dremel & attachment to 'fade' down some of the leather sides. Causes a lot of leather dust to kick around but I reckon its worth it - frankly it means less waste than using a knife). I'll try and put a pic of the jig later - answering this in a hurry! God Bless AL Hi, Al -There has been a lot of silence around the kitchen concertina for a long time, but that is because I am busy playing it (that was a lame attempt of a pun). I am making a radical change to it - to be thrust upon the unexpecting folks at the Bradfield Trad Music Weekend in August. I actually made three bellows, about 32 ( ) years ago. One is still sitting one a 56 key EC that needs repadding, a new set of bellows and selling. The other was for an Aeola I played for a number of years (and eventually had John Holman make "real bellows" for). I'll put up some photos over the weekend. The main outcome was - not unexpectedly: there's more to bellows than meets the eye. I hope my eyes will meet some more in Bradfield! /Henrik

Allright! Congratulations! They look great - handskived? Would you have a photo of the mould? /Henrik