Peter Brook

I've never been to Arran, I'm told by my wife that it is a lovely place although they do tend to have the odd rain shower. However, John Shuttleworth, the singer/songwriter from Sheffield, South Yorkshire wrote a song called "Isle of Arran". I'll just give you the chorus, the rest of the words along with many others are in his book "honed lyrics" published by the Warple Press "Oh, I've got a son called Darren and a daughter whose name is Karen Without them my life would be barren like living on the Isle of Arran" I think I'll leave it at that... all the best

BTW you know the scrolling advert thingy at the top. Well it just listed several UK pantomimes!!!!! Big Brother is watching

Some of our brothers and sisters from the "dark side" (ie border morris) will already be familiar with the greasepaint, not sure about the crowds though

I've only heard of the monkey being associated with barrel/crank/street organ. My dad's actually got one (a street organ - not a monkey) and he has a toy monkey that sits on top. They are very loud and even more strident in tone than concertinas. You certainly wouldn't want to play one inside a cafe or pizza place. As for the seriousness or otherwise of concertinas, it does say in one of Thomas Hardy's books referring to the Melstock Quire that they we replaced in the church by a sober chap who played hymn tunes on a barrel organ after the band played a jig by mistake ("The devil amoung the tailors" I think it was).

"It's a knockout" was a "contest" between two towns or cities. Typically the participants would dress in clown costuumes or as animals, invariably with ridiculously large feet. They would then have to tackle assualt courses whilst carrying an egg on a spoon or by carrying a bucket of water with a hole in it. It's hey day was the mid to late 70's with commentary provided by two sports commentators, Stuart Hall and Eddie Waring. Anyway, I happened to catch a few minutes of "Children in Need" on Friday night here in the UK. There was a "skit" from inside the Rovers Return the pub on "Coronation Street" where the characters were singing songs from the musical "Oliver". One character was sat on the bar during one song pushing the bellows of a concertina in and out. The way he was holding it I couldn't tell what type it was and it obviously wasn't being played, just being pushed in and out to the music. It had very nice decorated bellows papers and I would think that it (or at least the bellows papers) were not very old. Did anyone else see it? PS Children in need is a fundraising telethon.

Mark, Do they still sing Christmas carols each week at the Royal on sunday lunchtimes? It must be at least 10 years since I was last there, but I'm hoping to be in Sheffield on the 12th of December and want to find some caroling. (i'm now in exile down south) all the best, Peter

Not sure about the relationship here Jim. As I understand it the Bernoulli equation relates to airflow (or movements in fluids - at least it did in my degree - airspeed instruments on aircraft work on the principles described by this equation), whilst doppler effect is to do with the wavelength of light, sound etc. "blue shifting" or "red shifting" relative to your observation. ( is this the tongue in cheek smily?)

I agree with Lester and Jim Besser, and Jim Lucas - amazing! Tune books like the Mally series in the UK and also the dance manual by Francis Bacon (aka "the black book") are a good starting point to learn morris tunes. However books such as these can never fully convey the nuances of speed, emphasis and rhythm. In the same way as annual accounts are a "true and fair account by an auditor" at a particular point in time these books were also a "true and fair" representation of traditions when they were written. The Morris side I play for has only been around for 16 years, and dances Cotswold Morris broadly in the style of Fieldtown, Adderbury, Bampton and Headington. However over those 16 years the music and dances have subtly evolved and taken their own path which has meant that the tunes are now almost all slightly different to what appears in any written record. So I have had to learn from the established musicians. Just to complicate matters even further a lot of the tunes have also been renamed by the local musicians, so their names do not easily correspond with "standard" morris tune names. If you can, there is no better way to learn than with a morris side alongside established musicians

The Anglo that John Kirkpatrick plays is a 40-key Crabb with Aluminium ends that was part of a batch being made for the South African market (in 1968).

That explains all the miscommunication between UK and US - you have 14 months in a year whilst we have 12!

I know this is about Irish music and William Kimber was an English Morris musician but he played almost the whole time in C (on anglo) usually on his own. It is my belief that tunes got stuck in the D / G jelly mold with the cheapness and therefore popularity of Hohner Pokerwork melodeons at the beginning of the "folk revival" in the early to mid 1950s. edited to fix spelling :-)

Be interested to see those words... (obscenity laws allowing) and I thought it was Black Joak and that "Joak" was some sort of scarf. there are at least two other "Joaks" as well , the Blue Joak and the Yellow Joak.

i wouldn't worry - we're a pretty broad minded lot. the important thing is you speak our language and play our instruments - you can't be bad really

It seems to be getting less by the day particularly as people on the island of Pitcarin are now trying to say that island doesn't belong to us either!

As much as I hate to admit it, there are some mighty fine PA players coming out of the North of Ireland in recent years! But they seem to be exceptions ..... PA is making a comeback in Scottish and Northumbrian music too in the last few years. Typically it seems to be played by a younger generation eg. Shona Kipling (Northumberland), and the all girl group Dochas (from the Western Isles).

Lester, I would be really grateful to receive that! Have you got an electronic copy please? thanks, Peter

This is all very subjective and personal.... but here goes Irish style Just got a copy of Planxty - "the collection" - (from amazon) absolutely fantastic Irish traditional music - no concertinas listed on the slieve notes. Last night's fun - "tempered". excellent album. Chris Sherburn playing a Steve Dickinson "Wheatstone" accompanied by guitar and uillean pipes Noel Hill and Tony Linnane - recorded in 1979 on tara records - the CD doesn't seem to have a title but fantastic concertina and violin! Niall Vallely - "beyond words" - unbelievable breakneck speed - but still has a great rhythm. Agree with others regarding Mary Macnamara's 3 albums. "English" style Anglo playing No CD but there are tapes of Scan Tester playing on a cassette tape "I never played to many posh dances" from "Veteran Tapes" in Suffolk, UK Two CDs by Will Duke and Dan Quinn "Scanned" and "Wild Boys" (Will Duke plays one of Scans concertinas and both albums include material from Scan's repertoire) As previously mentioned William Kimber - Absolutely classic John Kirkpatrick - plays anglo, melodeon and button accordeon. I have most of recordings. Highlights in my opinion are 2001 "Mazurka Berserker" and 1998 "One man and his box". if you are interested in learning English tunes John has published a book called "John Kirkpatrick's English Choice 101 English Dance tunes" There are two accompanying CDs as well. Brass Monkey - 4 albums of English song and dance music using, trumpet, guitar, trombone, anglo, melodeon and percussion - very exciting stuff! My favourite would be 2001 "Going and staying". There is a song called "A maiden sat a-weeping" on that album played on an anglo in D minor that sends shivers down my spine! that's my two peneth all the best, Peter edited to change Norfolk to Suffolk

I went to Dublin earlier this year and although I'm not a beginner to Irish music went on the "Irish Musical Pub crawl". It cost 10 euros and basically two guys gave a really interesting talk about Irish music and how it came to be at it's present place, including references to step dancing, bodhrans, ulliean pipes and the clarsach. The two guys were also excellent musicians and illustrated the talk with really good performances on variously, guitar, melodeon, bodhran, whistle. In addition they sang some really lovely songs. The evening was about as far away from the "diddle-diddle-dee" stereotype as you could get. They also gave information about where the proper sessions were in Dublin and to avoid the "temple bar" amplified plasitic irish music. I thought it was a great evening's entertainment. atb, Peter

I think anglo is perfectly suited to accompanying singing. In my efforts I usually play chords or base notes and sing the tune part. I then play the tune as "bridge" between verses say two thirds of the way through. If I'm not sure of the tune I'll start by just playing the tune, then adding words. Once I'm happy with this I'll then stop playing the tune and carry on singing whilst putting chords underneath. I usually keep it very simple and only use three chord trick eg. for key of C use chord of C chord of F and chord of G. One of my favourite songs in this key is "Sweet Fanny Adams" which was recorded in about 1935 by "The Two Leslies" - in the UK we would call this style "Music hall" but I don't know the american equivalent. If you go onto Stuart Estell's website there are some great examples of the anglo being used to accompany 80's british alternative pop eg. The Smiths. John Kirkpatrick has loads of recordings singing English Folk Songs accompanied by anglo, and Peter Bellamy (sorry not sure i have spelt his last name correctly) sang Sea Shanties. atb, Peter

Don't forget the European Commission. oh please can we....? we often do in England IMHO a waste T&M (time and money)

will the "Flying Pasty" be in attendance?! see review section of The Independent 6th October (UK). [i'll try and scan it it late this week] I'm sure that's a certain concertina player pretending to play a melodeon! all the best, Peter

any relation to Seth or Sam Lakeman?

Well I for one think it is a great idea. I did however find that I could update the diary on this site myself to put events in. The problem is though you rely on other people going to it specifically as I think it is hard to notice the little hyperlink about events. It would also stop the general discussion forum being swamped by postings about things that some of us can't get to because we are on the other side of the world. We had a problem at work where every so often we would get an e-mail to all staff in the organisation saying - "there is cake on the top floor" - which was nice except for the top floor in question is 40 miles away from me!

Looking at those pictures of the squeeze in shows me that I'm not the only one who pulls funny faces when playing In fact I've had children laungh out loud and say "look at that man's face!" much to the embarrasment of their parents. Hey I don't mind... It's wierd isn't it and so many people seem to do it, and it is not just confined to concertinas. Alistar Anderson has it bad, as does Phil Beer (fiddler from Show of Hands) and most of the musicians that play for our morris side. I think the worst afflicted I ever saw was the northumbrian piper out of high level ranters - his extends to his whole body twisting in knots anyway I'm going to try and scare some more children now.... see you later