lildogturpy

I'm in. Robin was first so I suspect mine isn't showing up yet. There is the other Robin in Montreal also. Yes but he plays english concertina, doesnt count! Plus I'm also in Glasgow for most of this year - so I don't count for two reasons

You're a bit further west Old Leaky but there's plenty of Irish sessions in Glasgow. On the other hand I have been asked umpteen times what kind of accordion that is. I don't think contertinas are very common in Glasgow. Must be karma me visiting Glasgow though, on the inside of my concertina the original owner has written their name and address in pencil, Glasgow 1928!

I find it is definitely not the criticism that makes me nervous when playing on front of others but exactly what Peter said, my wishing to play well. I think I'm lucky in that when I practice or play I tend to judge myself against how well I want to, or can play rather than those around me. If I'm not really worried about playing well (or badly) I tend to play better and be able to recover from screw ups more comfortably. As soon as I WANT to play well, my fingers seem to get disconnected from the rest of me and I just can't move them the same way. As soon as that happens I can't force things to get better, trying tends to get me through the tune but doesn't improve my playing. It seems counter intuitive but when I want to play well I have to plan ahead of time not to care if I play well. Another thing I have found when I start to get nervous is to conciously do the things I normally do when playing. I tend to stare at the fingers of a fiddle player I'm playing with, not so I can see what they are doing but it's just a habit I've developed. It stops me looking at peoples faces or becoming distracted by other things happening around me. When I get nervous, for some reason I start to look around and get distracted. If I force myself to go back to my habits then things improve. The only down side is if the fiddle player feels self concious because I'm staring at their fingers

Wonderful, many thanks

I have Jump at the Sun and Puddleglum's Misery but someone recommended Living in Sin (the tune, not necessarily the activity!) by John Kirkpatrick. Can't find the dot's anywhere on the net, does anyone have them? I can record someone playing it a week on Sunday but I'm not patient enough.

Oh - goody. A Cristmas quiz I would have to guess "Yesterday: The Beatles"

At the last squeeze in the Quebec tunes workshop played Diamond Bleu, long enough for me to fudge along but not long enough to remember it past the ride home. Does anyone have the abc's for this? <duck>to avoid the "it's copyrighted" chorus</duck> in case it is

The leader of our Sunday session managed to use a line he had been waiting over 30 years to use. A lady with young toddler was listening to the session and the toddler was having a great time dancing around and banging on everything is sight. The lady told us "He wants to be a musician when he grows up" To which came the reply "Well, unfortunately - he can't do both"

There was a piece on CBC radio about the guy from Newfoundland who donated the Christmas tree for Boston. He was very upset because the city would not call it a Christmas tree but called it a Holiday tree instead. This just seem rediculous to me - how many other faiths have a tree to celebrate a holiday at this time of year?

I tried playing my 1927 Wheatstone for the St Patrick's day parade in Montreal last year. The temperature was just below freezing and many of the reeds would not play. The steel reeds and brass shoes contract differently in the cold. Everything was fine once the box had warmed up at home again. Gives me a good excuse not to get stuck on a float freezing my ***** next time

Dave, not sure I want to play darts with you. Are you just a bad shot, or was the concertina player holding the map?

I've been playing amost two years now and always had my pinkies bolted into the pinkie rest. As I'm getting to play faster and more from the feel of the tune rather than remembering the notes I've notice my pinkies go wandering while I'm not looking. Several times I've realized that while I still use my index, middle and ring fingers to play the notes, my pinkie seems to think I'm drinking a refined cup of tea and is pointing to the player sitting opposite me. As soon as I notice this I get all disoriented and herd them back into their rests. Maybe soon they'll try pressing on the buttons by themselves and I won't even realize. I would agree with Jim though, when I started out, the way I thought about my hand position and what my fingers were doing is quite different from now. On a slightly different topic ... I don't use hand straps and don't like the idea for myself. I would like pointers on what to do with my wrists. I've begun to realize that ofter my hand is angled outward from my forearm so there is a bend at my wrist. My piano lessons when I was a kid taught me to "keep those wrists high" to give strength to the whole hand. Should I be aiming for a more straight hand/forearm, so my wrists don't "sag".

Here is a good example of that honking sound, although I think it needs a lot of practice to make effective use of the dynamic range it can offer. Soundfile

While I have to confess to being a Mac only guy, I believe audacity is free and is available for Windows. It does way more than slow things down but I've found it easy enough to use. You can also change the pitch of the playback too. Audacity

Nice idea Paul. Hope it takes off. It's an uphill battle playing English tunes and singing English songs in Montreal, but you have to do your bit Looks like I'll be shipping my dogs to the UK from Toronto sometime in December. If I can find a time to overlap with your session maybe you can point me at the music? Great to see you over the summer by the way. Singing on the Subway was something I'll remember for quite a while.

And don't forget the tireless efforts of Ken Coles

I've recorded a four Polka set, with the last being Yolanta Kruk's, which you can find here Polka Set

I just submitted a new Polka I wrote for one of the whistle players in our session. Let me know what you think of it Yolanta Kruk's Polka

I must confess, it's the second one that got me when I first heard it, I love that type of rhythm. Thanks for the help so far, you guys are great

This year at the North-East Squeeze in Concert there was a lovely rendition of Scott Joplin's Sycamore Rag by Rachel's concertina/accordion band.

I've just transcribed a couple of Polkas from a CD by Timmy "The Brit" McCarthy: Movin' On. The last track has a set of three, with the middle one being the Maid of Ardagh. Can anyone furnish a name for the other two polkas? I've put them in the Tune-o-tron just called Unknown Polka for now. Unknown Polka #1 Unknown Polka #2 (edited to add blue clickes)

At the recent North-East Squeeze-In in the Quebec Tunes workshop we played Reel Ti-Me, a great tune that I wanted to make sure I learned. Since my mp3 recorder was full I wanted to get hold of the sheet music. I now have a copy of "Danse Ce Soir, fiddle and accordion music of Quebec" which has the tune in. Originally when I asked in the tunes section if anyone had the abc file, Jim Besser pointed out that the tune was copyright and that posting the abc would be on the wrong side of Copyright law. When I looked up the tune in the book, indeed it does say "Copyright SOCAN". SOCAN is the Society of Musicians and Music Publishers of Canada. On their website they state that SOCAN only handles copyright of performed music and on their site they list the tarrifs for various performance situations. The other two aspects of Copyright, the right to publish sheet music (and abc I imagine) and the right to produce CD's of the music "are handled by the Copyright owners or other organization". Since the only Copyright mentioned is SOCAN does that mean that distributing the abcs or sheet music would be ok or are the other two situations now handled by the original composer, even if it does not say they hold copyright? According to the tarrif sheet, when during the Toronto Ale over Labor Day weekend we broke out our instruments and had an impromptu session on the public bus, if we had played Reel Ti-Me it would have cost us $62.74. Is a session in a pub a "Public performance"? If so, we'd need to pay royalties for that too. I guess any performing artists who play the tune in public needs to pay $83.65 and I think that's per year.

I had a great time at NESI this year. A little different from last year but just as much fun and maybe a bit more educational for me anyway. I had the impression that there were more workshops this year than last year but that may not agree with reality (there's that singing session again Perry btw I don't remember Dave B playing the accordion at the singing session and I'm sure I would have noticed if he had all that hair and who's the guy he's sitting next to? ) Ken Sweeny's playing by ear got me thinking about how to recognize tune parts more quickly and I learned a lot from his singing with concertina workshop. I find that it takes several weeks, if not months, for the stuff I pick up in the workshops to filter through into practice. Gives me lots to think about. One thing I came away with this time was an appreciation for the thought process and effort that can go into preparing the performance of a single tune or song. I spent the trip back in the car trying to get my face mask to resonate while singing as Ken had described in the singing session Matt's slipjig workshop was fun, especially the image of melting sheep in the Scottish Highlands. The performers at the concert this year were excellent as always although the lack of a raised stage meant that the first few performers who sat on a chair were invisible to most of the audience and speaking as one of the performers, sitting on the table with one foot on the bench was not the best position for playing the concertina although not too bad under the circumstances. The fact that I got lost in a couple of places in my first piece had nothing to do with the setup but was a result of me thinking about the second tune before I got there. I must confess, at least half the audience had kittens at the idea of Rachel sitting on a chair perched on top of the table. I didn't stay for the Contra-dance but hopped over to the main building for the singing and boy what a treat to hear Tony and Dave. I loved Dave's songs - There aren't real folk in the folk clubs anymore and The last person in the world who can add. I must say that Perry really has a good singing voice. I'll also not soon forget the phrase - Is there any news of the Iceberg? The food was exellent, as it had been last year. The catering staff do a great job, even down to the chips, guacamole, salsa and M & Ms laid out for the last evening. I can't really vote for the Labor Day weekend, or the end of October next year as I will probably be in Glasgow for most of next year but I hope that what ever happens, things run smoothly.

Well - placed my order for Danse Ce Soir - Fiddle and Accordion music of Quebec. Looks like it has a lot of good tunes in it. Has anyone else used this book? Comments?

Yes - I love the syncopation in the B part - missed you at the weekend Jim