Jody Kruskal
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Posts posted by Jody Kruskal
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Hope my wife isn't reading this.
You be nice to me Jim, or I'm gonna tell on you!
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OOOOOOh, Devil Woman/
Devil woman do-si-do...
That's funny! One of my earliest memories is making a nest of coats under the piano and listening to my mother play Brahms with her chamber music club. I still like that sort of thing when flipping through the radio while driving.
Here in NYC, my community of dancers have a very different model of fun than that of the club dancers out west. We did play a square at the dance shown in the clip and do one or two at most contras I play. Mostly New England squares with pretty simple calls, and we never dress up in those frilly skirts and bolo ties and hats. Tee shirts and shorts are common and comfortable for dancing.
I went to an Irish ceilidh in New Jersey a few years ago. Though they were using a kind of polka step and called the moves with different names, it sure seemed like the sets and figures were square dancing to me. The same in England, at several dances there this summer I danced squares as well. I guess when you come right down to it, the four couple square is just a very handy shape for set dances.
Grand Picnic will be playing again this weekend, Saturday at 8:00. If anyone is ever in NY City and wants to try it, beginners are welcome. Dances weekly. Info at www.cdny.org
(edited to add text)
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Last weekend four of us (no bass) played a nearby dance. The sound man had a video recorder. Gosh! Is that what I look like?
Best if listened to with real speakers or headphones, otherwise you can't really hear what's going on through computer speakers.
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Ah, well Nigel. Not to worry. There will always be another one coming down the pike. Thanks for posting and raising such an interesting topic.
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And, unless you make a nuisance of yourself by playing too loudly, no one is listening too closely anyway!
That's a good one there and a habit that I still fall into without constant attention. Dominating a session can make you unpopular even if you can play the tunes like an expert. Part of the problem is that my Jefferies is invariably the loudest instrument in the room, and the timbre is cutting. I've practiced playing as softly as I can at home. A great exercise for creating depth to your playing in any situation.
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I'll never forget. August 1999, Sidmouth folk festival, Radway with our concertinas ...
Gosh, might I have been there? or was it '98 for me? A memorable session though, all week long 18 hours everyday. Such variety and virtuosity. Saxophone day! I will never forget it either! All English tunes. Very inspiring. The endless tunes, the friendly folks, the beer and cider.
How was it this year? Chris were you there?
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Ok, I guess it’s my turn. I play with Half Moon Sword here in New York City. We mostly play with two or three musicians. Fiddle, whistle and when I can make it, Anglo. I really don’t like playing for rapper solo but I’ve done it. Way too fast, too much work, especially standing up with no chair in some parking lot. But in our little band I often just play the dotted quarters and let the other guys play melody.
Here are a few of the tunes we play:
10 penny bit
Rakes of Kildare
Morrison’s
Swallowtail
Taters are Dug
Bert Ferguson’s
Knocknagow
Kesh
Father O’Flynn
Shannon Bells
Lost My Love
Jig of Slurs
Athol Highlanders
Blarney Pilgrim
Fair Jenny’s
Banish Misfortune
Charlie Hunter’s
Oh yeah, Tobin's too!
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I'm playing and teaching old time Anglo at a festival in March all the way in Texas. Jerry Wright who runs the festival put up something I really liked about this topic on his web site: http://www.geocities.com/palestinefestival/index.htm
NOTE TO BEGINNER PLAYERS: If you are a beginner, whether mountain dulcimer or any other instrument, get in a jam session. Get as close as you can to someone playing the type instrument you are playing. Get close enough to see and hear them if possible. Now there is such a thing as jam etiquette - don't get into a situation where you aree annoying to other players. But watch, listen and learn. Don't just sit there and do nothing. Listen to the song. Try to memorize it in part or whole. Study the jam and imagine how you could fit in.
The main thing is do something and take it upon yourself to get something out of it. This is a wonderful opportunity. This is why Margaret and I go to the trouble to have this festival. We want you to learn. We want you to be happy. We would like to see you in the middle of a jam some day.
Just know this, what I have said is how I started. No one taught me how to play the pickin' stick. But people did teach me the tunes. They didn't teach them to me individually - they taught them to me in the jam. In fact, they didn't even know they were teaching them to me.
In all probability you will not learn to play your particular instrument in one weekend - but this weekend can take you a long way down the road.
This is also an opportunity to meet and visit with folks who are masters at the instruments they play. Make it a point to meet them. If you are a little shy, come get me and I will introduce you to them. There will be a lot of folks at the festival with a lot of needs but I have time for you - I will make time for you. Even if it is 5 minutes - if you are serious (which you must be to have paid what you did to get in) you can learn a lot in 5 minutes.
Don't miss an opportunity!
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Hi Jody
If I had the Wings of a Dove.....
I had a great evening when you came over to Sheffield - we certainly 'gelled' that night
Dave
Unfortunately I've badly damaged the biceps tendon in my right elbow and I've not played the concertina at all for the last month. Fortunately, I can still do repair work and tuning and have become pretty skilled at doing jobs while avoiding the use of certain muscles.
It is a real pity your stay was so short, I should have loved a couple of days playing and swapping tunes.
Till next time....
Dave
So Dave,
First they pull you back form the brink, and now this. So sorry you are having such a rough time.
Yeah, that session in Dungworth was a blast. Perhaps we should take our chatting off Cnet.
But what I'm wondering is... did Nigel go to the session or not? Nigel?
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get their # and call them next week to get together and play some real music without the pressure.
So Dave and Nigel, how about you both come over to my place and play a few tunes?
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I have never played at a session, or anywhere outside my house, but today I had an opportunity. There is a new music shop in my town, so I popped in for a browse and a chat. The shopkeeper invited me along to a seesion being held tonight in a nearby village, saying "it would be good to have a concertina there." I said I would think about, and thought of little else all day. Eventually, having decided that I would probably, possibly go, I sat down and played a few tunes and promptly changed my mind. In other words I chickened out. My reasoning was this - I only know 7 or 8 tunes reasonably well, and I make frequent mistakes when playing these. I could imagine myself sitting in a corner playing a tune or two rather badly and not doing much else, except feeling out of place. So, I was wondering, what was your first experience of a session and how many tunes did you have under your belt at the time?
Nigel,
I feel like I’m at risk of making a fool of myself at some point before almost every gig I play. With one or two exceptions, it’s never as bad as I fear and despite the way I feel before, afterwards I’m glad I did it. This is even more so for sessions where folks are generally friendly, drinking and talking and a pretty much informal and relaxed atmosphere. At least it should be.
The great thing about sessions is that you may meet someone you want to play music with, just the two or three of you. That can be so much fun and the best way to improve, learn new tunes and hear what you and your fellow musicians are really doing.
My advice is... Go. Play a few (mistakes and all), listen, meet some folks, talk, get their # and call them next week to get together and play some real music without the pressure.
Oh yeah, one more thing... don’t forget to record the tunes you like so you can learn them later at your own speed.
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I believe Henk was planning to be on holiday until last week. Perhaps he was having such a good time...
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what is the consensus of the forum in likewise duplicating the A/B button (from the left hand) for the first button on the bottom row (index finger button) right side (next to the d/c# button). Will this likewise reduce the number of times I'll have to take the melody onto the left hand as well?
I notice in Jody Kruskal's layout, his choice for this button is A/G (not A/B).
Your help is appreciated.
Rob,
I don’t know how it would be it that button were A/B instead of A/G but I do use the G draw some and would certainly miss it if it were not there. I make use of both of the pitches in that button in my tune Gone Fishing. You can hear it on my Naked Concertina CD or if you want instant gratification, Theodore Kloba has a link to him playing the tune in the thread titled Recording + Reverb or perhaps you could click here:
http://www.aquila.net/sworkers/rm/gf.mp3
BTW, you used the word “choice” in reference to that button. I did not choose those pitches. My Jefferies 38 came that way and the other Jefferies 38s that I’ve examined have all had that button with those pitches. Of course, I haven’t seen as many as Chris.
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This method was used for this attempt at one of Jody Kruskal's tunes recorded a few months ago: Gone Fishing
That's an interesting coincidence. Where in town did you live?I wonder which church in Chicago was used as the model for the reverb? I grew up there and remember the acoustics of quite a number of churches still.Theodore, Danny and All, sorry, I haven't checked this thread for awhile. Nice job with “Gone Fishing” (which is on my Naked Concertina CD and also in my tune book “Feet in the Clouds”)
I listened on my laptop speakers only, and from that, I would say that the panning is rather hard. The left being the accompaniment and right melody. So much so, that it almost sounds like two different instruments. Perhaps that would be different on a proper system. Sounds good for all that though.
I grew up in Hyde Park. Ever heard the acoustics of Rockefeller Chapel?
www.photovault.com/Link/Cities/ Lake/Chicago/Places/RockefellerMemorialChapel.html
Amazing!
As for recording:
I liked what Greg said about compromise. My Naked CD was recorded with plenty of it. I needed to do it at home... a hard walled, low ceilinged basement room, a pair of Rode NT large diaphragm mics ($200 each). I live in Brooklyn and on the CD you can hear trucks roaring past from time to time. I put the mics about 2 feet from each end of the concertina and angled them toward me a bit so they were not pointing directly at each other. I did zero editing of the final take for each track, no cut and paste at all.
My goal was for the concertina to sound right up in your face with just enough separation to be able to make out the right and left sides and still not have the notes jump back and forth when the melody crossed over. In my room that meant hard panning of left and right.
I had it professionally mastered and the engineer used some compression and reverb and an analog tape simulator effect to warm it up a bit, but nothing very drastic.
The result? Well... you can hear for yourself if you have the CD. Though my set up was way far from ideal, I think the sound was OK and nobody has complained about the recording quality. All they really hear is the performance. I listen to scratchy old 78s recorded into some cone on wax and enjoy that music too. For a player, I think the performance is the thing to spend your time on if you want to improve the quality of the listeners experience.
Still... it is fun to play with technology, though I’m not sure that it counts for too much when making acoustic music once you get up to a certain basic level of recording quality. Sure, if I had used a great room, mics, engineer and all the CD would have been better, but would my listeners have enjoyed it more? Not much, I think.
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This is all very fascinating, but it reminds me of how we used to see who could pee highest up the wall when we were kids.
Yeah, I almost titled this thread:
"What's your LTD?
I bet mine is longer than yours!"
But I didn't want to brag
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Don't believe I've run into him yet, though I haven't gotten out much this semester. Will say hi if we meet. Now, now, Pittsburgh aint' all bad (only in sports).
Perhaps you might run into his spouse Sally Denmead, a remarkable singer. Neither one plays the Bb/F concertina though, as far as I know...
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It's sort of long, and the concertina part isn't until the end, but nonetheless, here it is:
Hi Steve,
Thanks for sharing the link. I enjoyed your video. One thing that intrigued me was the sound before the concertina. It was all swirly with harmonics and traffic/ ambient noise. Nice. Just an artifact of your equipment or deliberate? Nice tune as well, yours?
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In my local session the whistle players are the ones most limited in keys, though they tend to bring whistles in a large variety of keys so they can play sets in just about anything, just can't change in the middle easily without changing instruments.
My friend, poet Jonah Winter plays in any key you like, all on one C whistle. Amazing! Too bad he moved to Pittsburgh PA.
The fiddlers I play with around here (US - East coast and the South) play in D and G, A modal (2 sharps), A major, Em, Am, Bm, C, E, Dm, Bb, and are listed here in decreasing order of popularity (in my experience). Other keys you mention are pretty much unheard. The fiddlers seem to like the open strings for harmony and double stops and miss them when they are not so readily available. I think that American fiddlers use this double stopping more than some other styles I've heard and played.
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I think the current trend of playing tunes in G or D is far from traditional....
It's the tyranny and glory of the fiddle, says I.
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Hi,
I assume you mean transposing styles, not keys? Well I've tried it a bit of cajun and sometimes it sounds very cool. I love to play Port Arthur Waltz. Though the concertina is plenty loud it does not have that full throated cajun sound. Yet, there is no reason why not... except historically. The Cajun music descends from the French Arcadians through Canada and the essential manifestation of that free reed instrument sound is a one row with minimal and mostly unused chord buttons. However the "whatever works for you" rule always applies. Plenty of mixing things up and doing what works with what you've got ethic down there, for sure. Look at all the off shoots... Dr John, Fats Domino, Second Line, Dixieland Jazz, Louis Armstrong on down the line.
Basically, concertina is not part of Cajun culture, but there is no reason why it shouldn't be played if you want to. Often in my contra dance bands we will call out the code words "Cajunize it!" and everyone knows that means a certain incessant treatment of the eight notes (semi quavers?). Dung a dak a, dung a dak a, Dung a dak a, dung a dak a, or something like that. Kind of like the triangle sound. Cajun informs my playing for sure... but I don't play cajun for real. Except when I do attempt Casey Jones. Fun!!!!
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Here is a link to my 38 G/D Jefferies layout.
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Steve,
Bb/F is my key of choice for solo gigs, esp. when playing al fresco. This for all the reasons mentioned above. Also, it fits my voice well and has a reputation for being good with singing. I didn't get mine for that reason though, that was just an added bonus function. I got the Bb/F anglo so that I could play (in my harmonic style) for English Country dances, the main genre I know that uses flat keys. Those Cm tunes seem to lay just right on the Bb/F. Many Klezmer tunes also fit better with their distinctive tonality though I don't get to play too much of that .
If you play C/G and are shopping for a useful additional key, consider the G/D. This key puts you in the right place to take full advantage of the right hand melody/left hand accompaniment harmonic style... and still play tunes in the same keys as the rest of the world. Since I got a G/D, that's what I play 95% of the time.
The timbre advantage of the Bb/F is nice, but the social advantage of the G/D I've found to be essential.
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Now who wants to learn a new language?
Stoverus,
Two words I would like to know.
Goodnight
Hello
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Thank you all for your test results and comments. I like this measurement index in that it:
• comes up with an actual number
• measures a number of factors that contribute to quality including bellows volume, leakiness, reed efficiency.
• requires no special equipment like microphones, DB meters etc.
Along with that are many shortcomings. I’m pretty sure that low pitched reeds require more air than high pitches. Every reed is it’s own little instrument and there might be great variation in LTD between reeds in any one concertina.
Regardless, I’ve often thought, when playing some unfamiliar concertina, that the depth of quietness possible counts for a great deal in it’s ability to make music meaningful. Dynamic range is the main expressive element on the concertina and the wider the range the more expression you can put into your music. Most concertinas play loud OK, but quiet seems to be more limited.
Playing Your First Session
in General Concertina Discussion
Posted
Rhomylly,
That's great news. Looking forward to meeting you and playing tunes. It sounds like a fun and friendly festival.
For others who might want to consider it, the dates are 3/29 -31 in Texas.
http://www.geocities.com/palestinefestival/index.htm
I'll be there helping folks to figure out how to play chords with melody on the Anglo. We'll learn a few old time tunes and try to get that chugging rhythm thing going. There will be lots of open old time sessions for brave souls to join. Bring your dulsimers too!