David Barnert

More recent additions to that discussion seem to suggest that the problem is resolved.

You’re on the right track, Ken. I’m running Big Sur. Opening the “General” pane of the “Security and Privacy” section of “System Preferences” after trying to open an app that the MacOS blocks will present you with an option to open it anyway. Once you allow it to open, the question won’t arise again unless you update the software. You need to take a leap of faith that you can trust the software, but nobody on this forum (or anywhere else that I am aware of) has reported problems resulting from downloading and running “EasyABC.”

Thanks, Gary, for correcting the spelling of my name in the video. It’s still misspelled in the HTML, where it says “This one is suitable for dancing! The June 2021 edition of the Free Reed Liberation Orchestra plays two bog norm scottishes. The group this time is mostly stalwarts with one new member – hello, David Barnet!” This was fun. When’s the next one?

A tune I’ve been playing for our Morris dancers for a few years. Just recently got around to posting it on SoundCloud. It’s full of two of my favorite tricks, parallel 10ths and using a leading tone grace note to emphasize a high note in the melody.

In 1977 someone took me to my first contradance and I realized I had to play this music. Already a cello, guitar and recorder player, I learned to play 5-string banjo, hammered dulcimer (78-string), mountain dulcimer and pennywhistle in rapid succession. In 1983 I started going to the “Fiddle & Dance” workshops at Ashokan. I was there Halloween weekend in 1986 with my girlfriend, Julie, who is now my wife of 34 years. I’d known Rich Morse for four years as a melodeon player and he was there. He showed me his new “toy,” a 46-key wooden ended Wheatstone Hayden concertina. He expl

Sorry. What was I thinking? 35 years ago. 1986.

There are as many answers to that question as there are concertina players. At this point I should say that I do not play Anglo. The only concertina I play (and am intimately familiar with) is a 46-key Hayden Duet. I’m very happy with it and I found it easy to learn (25 years ago, but I played many other instruments before and was well-versed in music theory). But at 46 buttons, even with a full chromatic range from E3 up to D5 it is difficult to play in keys with more than one flat in the key signature. Eb and Ab are there, but they are where you’d expect to find D# and G#. So whe

Anglo concertinas are, at heart, diatonic instruments, built around rows of buttons that are restricted to the notes of two major keys. Additional rows provide accidentals not found in the two main rows, but sometimes an accidental is only available in one direction when you may need it in the other direction, so you may have to come up with an “in-out” scheme that compromises somewhere else (remember that word, “compromise”?). Duets are designed as chromatic instruments from the start. I was thinking “chromatic button accordion” (or “bayan”).

Can’t access it without an instagram account. 🙁

Do you know something I don’t know? Doug looking to retire and sell the business need not signify the end of production of R. Morse Concertinas, any more than the passing of Rich Morse did. Doug doesn’t make them personally, his employees do, and I would think it reasonable to expect that those same employees would continue to do so even under new ownership.

You will find that there are trade-offs between ease of playing chords against melody, key versatility, abundance, and price. There may be no ideal answer without some kind of compromise. With enough buttons (ie., expensive), you can achieve your goal with any of the systems. The English is great for playing melodies and it is possible to play chords as well, but their placement is not intuitive, as the notes are arranged so as to alternate between the two hands. The Anglo is great for playing melodies with the right hand and chords with the left, but some keys will be more awkward than others

PM sent.

The Wakker W-H2 (65 key Hayden) has one such button on the right. It toggles between a high Eb and F (both higher than the range of my 46-keys). I’m not sure I’d have any use for it either, but there it is. I occasionally use the mid-range B and C# on the left to play melody notes as they arise (not present on the right). I only play 3 tunes regularly that go lower than that, to the A (Amelia) or G (Ashokan Farewell and Abbots). Which brings us to... That’s what key Cecil Sharp published it in, and I think it’s a good bet (although I have

It is, of course, quite possible to use the D# key as an Eb even when it’s at the wrong end of the keyboard. Here are two G minor tunes I play regularly making liberal use of it.

Sorry for the thread drift, but I should mention that he passed away two years ago after suffering for many years with Parkinson’s disease.