lildogturpy

I would agree with others that the fiddle and concertina go well together. Unfortunately the wooden flute and the concertina almost always sound terrible to my ears. Only once or twice have I been in a session where the two worked well together and then it was because the flute player was particularly accurate on pitch. When it works it sounds great but the concertina is so unforgiving that unless the other instrument is bang on, the clash can sound awful. Playing the English Concertina the instrument is tuned to play ok in any key, which means that instruments like the anglo that are tuned specifically for C and G can sound much better in those keys. I find the note that often makes me cringe is when I have to play a C natural. If any note is going to sound bad, that's the one that brings it out.

After playing the EC for 4 years I went to buy replacement springs at the button box and came out with a C#D button accordion (and the springs) I thought I would have great difficulties with the push/pull but it was much less painful than I expected. Haven't noticed much effect on the EC so far. In my case, this usually takes the form of getting to the tricky bit and realizing I never learned this tune, just recognized the melody and thought I had.

Hi Diane, On Wednesday nights from 8-00pm we have a session in O'Regan's pub on Bishop, just south of Ste Catherine. I'm usually there with my English concertina (although I'll be away for the next two weeks) and Rae is usually there with her Frank Edgely Anglo. If you're lucky Jim will be there and he has one of each I only know of one duet player in Montreal and she doesn't normally make it out to sessions. If you could possibly make it down to the Northeast Squeeze-In you would have a huge selection of concertina players to ask opinions of. A wonderful event in a relaxed atmosphere. If you can't make it to the session, send me a message here and I'll see if we can set you up with something.

Sorry to say I'll be missing this year too :-( Will be in Curitiba Brazil that weekend but I'll have you all in mind. Hope this year is a blast.

Hi Perry, I came through Manchester UK once, expecting my Concertina to be swabbed as it usually is. Instead they took a great interest in my carry on bag, swabbed it twice, pulled me over to the side and arranged for an interview with security staff. It turns out a British Army Officer had gone through Airport Security earlier in the day, after spending the morning on the firing range. Contaminated their detection equipment so every other bag was showing up positive for explosives. The security person said he was heartily sick of filling out the mandatory form each time someone showed up positive for explosives.

I'm still undecided but won't be there before Wednesday at the earliest. Last time I was there it seemed everywhere I went I was surrounded by concertinas and had a wonderful time. I think the building code is the reason for this since each bar seems to be a couple of miles from the next one - East Durham is very spread out!

Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin will be giving a lecture in Montreal on June 11th. The organizers of the Siamsa School of Irish Music and Dance would like to know if anyone would be interested if they could persuade Gearóid to give a workshop in Montreal. If you would be interested you can leave me a message here and I will pass it on.

It's a nice tune - although when I play it I find a few people wander off into Lord Inchiquin which sounds vaguely similar at one point :-)

After shamelessly stealing Paul's idea, this page has been up for quite a few months now O'Regan's ABC Editor / Converter

Yep, I'm there (MySpace too) under Robin Beech

Would you be willing to put similar, the same, information here? http://music.gordfisch.net/tradmusic/pmwik...nts/Instruments

I believe a semicircle over a dot is called a fermata, used to indicate a pause or sustained note held longer than usual, not normally an "ornament" as such. Apparently Hayden would love to confuse his orchestra by putting fermata over a rest.

Thanks for the info - see you there.

I would like to make a return trip to the Swaledale concertina weekend in May 2008 and need to book flights. Does anyone know which weekend it is exactly. I thought I would be able to guess from the calendar but I can't decide between the 17th or the 24th

Just a note here in fixing a problem that seemed to defy my best efforts for a long time. My high e on EC sounded flat on the push but the pull was fine. Cleaned the reeds - no difference, still flat. Swapped the push and pull reeds over - no difference, push was still flat but the pull was fine Therefore the reed was fine. Looked over Wim Wakker's excellent web article on how concertinas produce their sound and came across a reference saying the valve maybe too stiff and if it doesn't open far enough the note might be slow to start and when it does may be flat. Aha I thought. Looked at the valves and they all look new and all the same so why would just one note be doing this? Then I saw the metal pins that project just above the valve. For this one note, one of the pins was loose and had turned in place so now it was almost touching the valve. Put it back in position and pressed it into place firmly so it's not moving. Problem solved!! The push and pull now both sound perfect.

Luckily Gearoid plays with the bellows on his knee so his trousers blocked the hole up!

As always I had a wonderful time at the squeeze-in. Had a great time in the workshops run by Moche, one on Quebec tunes, the other on Jigs in minor keys. Now I have the Wren's Nest running around in my head. Highlights for me were: listening to Rachel Hall playing solo in the concert, normally she plays in a group but having the chance to listen to her by herself was wonderful; meeting all the wonderful people I run into every year; meeting all kinds of new folks who are new to the concertina. Lovely to catch up with Tony and Lynne again, great job as compare for the concert too Lynne. And Perry, how could you fail to mention your victory in the first ever squeeze-in haiku competition? Who knew that Jody Kruskal could be induced to sing Uncle Tom Cobley's and All after so much inebriation and so early in the morning? Bellowbelle's footbass accompaniment in the singing session was fantastic. I must confess my voice was a little rough for teaching my class today after staying up until getting on for 4-00am for the singing on Saturday night. I must confess I had my mp3 recorder going for most of it but I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet. So much to work on before next year's NESI.

Anyone need a ride from the Montreal area on Friday?

See you there Mike - haven't seen you since the Irish Arts weekend in 2005 !!!

Had to miss last year being out of the country but I'll be there again this year. Look forward to seeing all the old faces ... errr ... Look forward to seeing the friends made at the previous NESIs

A few weeks ago I noticed that the ABC notation page on wikipedia had been deleted due to copyright infringement. The page had been lifted directly from Chris Walsh's abc website which is clearly marked copyright. I recreated the page and put a brief description of abc with links to Chris Walsh's site and to the online abc tutorial. Since I am no expert on abc it might be useful if someone who is could flesh out the text (without copying directly from another source)

Should be arriving after 7-00 myself. Driving down from Montreal See you all there.

Following the advice given here the name has changed to http://music.gordfisch.net/tradmusic/

I'll add this to the list as well Trad Music Wiki Site

My first EC was a very cheap chinese knock off model with a quirk that really confused me when I switched to a wheatstone. The button layout looked like the standard button layout except the buttons were spaced much wider but the f# and f buttons were reversed. This meant you could start on G and walk up the middle buttons and play a major scale.