Azalin

We all love Darcy don't we? ;-)

Which festival is it? Years ago I used to camp at Willie Clancy week, but it would be a bit hardcore for my older self! I think I'm done with hostels too, I'm a light sleeper so someone snoring can ruin my night

My advice would be to keep your instrument(s) with you at ALL times.. just recalling the concertina that was stolen from between the feet of its owner, as he stood in the street talking with friends after a session at the Willie Clancy Summer School, some years ago! Concertinas and Flutes are easily lifted. I even bring my concertina with me to the pub's toilets, and trained myself to never have my concertina out of sight. It's a cruel world out there!

It looks like those spy drones from the Galactic Empire!

I love Android but that's one weakness of the platform: fragmentation. There's so much different hardware running Android devices that applications are not guaranteed to work on all of them. I'd be curious to know why the Archos 80, which is running Android 4, can't run this app.

I should have added, "commonly played *in sessions* in Em". Éilís Crean herself plays it in Dm I think on the audio clip posted by Michael, and Brad Hurley's plays it on the flute with her. But I could bet a big $5 with you that Brad is using his C flute to play this, using an "Em" fingering. I assumed Mary would play this in Em on a C/G concertina, but I might be wrong! I saw her a few weeks ago for a workshop, I wish I'd have asked her the question then :-) The ideal thing to do would be to learn this tune in both keys, leaving you with the option to be session friendly or anti-social

Michael, This is an amazing tune. This tune is Em, don't be fooled by the reference to Dm. Mary McNamara plays it in Dm on her CD because she is using a flat keyed concertina, but this tune is commonly played in Em.

There's a huge community of musicians playing irish music in Japan. Here's a nice concertinist... Your Japanese enthusiast friend might want to contact the uploader of this video for more information, but there's a few Japanese musicians lurking around, they might be able to help. PS: I'm crazy about Japanese women, that's why I know about that stuff ;-)

But Sadhbh does not switch in that tune, and she plays it flawlessly. I did not feel the need to switch in that tune either, and I'm happy with the result. But for a tune like Farewell to Ireland, where there's more of a mix of low A, B and C, I think switching is required if you don't want your fingers to do too much work.

Wow, nice one. She must not have heard that the anglo is so much limited in the low range, no one ever told her! ;-) That's the second amazing concertina player referenced in this thread which I've never heard of, is there hundreds of them? By the way it seems she is using the low A on the G row both times at the beginning of the tune. By studying the video for a while we'll probably be able to find out what's her exact fingering in the A part. Great stuff.

It was nice seeing you Lawrence!

Well, I can't give you an objective suggestion because I started playing with a "hybrid", and never played a Rochelle... but I think with this kind of mechanical instrument, you really want to play on a good instrument to keep your motivation high. A Morse (or Edgley, Tedrow, etc) would be MUCH easier to play, and sound better (in my opinion). I was playing an Edgley for a few years before I got my Dipper, the Edgley was a great instrument!

Well, I agree with the session boys in Rome ;-) If your primary purpose is to play on your own, then stick to whatever is easier. But if you want to play with people, don't be lazy and learn to play across the rows. I find Em very easy to play on a C/G. You should learn the 'proper' way now that you're starting on C/G, and not only in a few years, it will be harder to unlearn what you've learned. Ideally, you'll learn the same tune in two keys. The most common session key, and then the less common one. As for Dm, there are tons of tunes that are commonly in Dm in sessions, why not learn them? You can start with "The Broken Pledge", "Sergeant Early's Dream", "Julia Delaney", and many others...

So what happened to that Dipper on eBay? Did it sell? For how much? I'm always curious about such thing :-)

I registered today, yeah! Does anyone have any suggestion of a nice hotel/motel in the area, and/or would anyone like to share a room for friday night and saturday night? I know there's a list of accommodations on the website but I'd rather go at a suggested place! EDIT: Ah well, I remembered I stayed at the Red Roof Inn in South Deerfield a few years back... I made the reservation there for two nights.

Well, since it's St-Paddy's day, I thought I'd post this article about the irish music scene in New York. It's a nice article, and even contains a reference to a concertina, although I can't seem to figure out where it is on the picture (it's supposed to be played by Christy McNamara, a "Clare style" player). http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/arts/music/traditional-irish-music-in-new-york-city.html So, happy tunes this week-end for those playing irish music :-)

It would require you to use mostly the right side of your instrument, as these notes would be very high for an F/C. Would be too hard for me to re-learn!

You have to realize that an F/C is very different than C/G in pitch. For irish music (if this is what you'll play) if you're going to be mainly playing by yourself, the F/C is an amazing choice as its pitch is much lower than the standard session key of D (C/G) and it can be argued it's a much less irritating pitch. I might be wrong but playing an F/C "irish anglo style" will give you a base note of Bb, which is my favorite key for sessions.

Oops sorry for the double post. Well, I'll be at the Button Box on april 15th, and I wanted to give this one a try, now you robbed me from this experience! ;-) I wish you a great marriage with this Dipper, F/C must be wicked!

Do you mean the F/C concertina? Did they have another Dipper?

Do you mean the F/C concertina? Did they have another Dipper?

Wow, that Ventra looks very nice but pricey at $200 for the small model. My Sunpentown Digital Ultrasonic Humidifier with Hygrostat Sensor is less than $50 though it may well not last as long... we'll see. I don't think it's worth buying a Venta just to keep your concertinas humidified. But if you also want an air purifier, that will keep the air quality in your room to a good level, it's worth it in my opinion.

I've been using a Venta air purifier for two years now and it works quite well. Using a humidistat I make sure the humidity is always between 50-55%. The reason why I love the Venta is that it doesn't require a filter and works with tap water. It's simply using a fan that makes some type of disk stacks rotating in the water, which purifies the air AND humidifies it. Venta suggests to add some special liquid (sold separately of course...) every few weeks, but it's really low maintenance overall.

Don't follow. Are the early ones not as good? Or do modern concertinas depreciate unlike the vintage ones? Let's just take Wheatstone as an example. The value of these really depends on the year they've been made, because they were of different quality or even makers through time. So a "vintage" concertina is not worth top money just because of its age and name. I can't say about this particular Dipper as I've never tried it, but my personal (maybe wrong) opinion is that this early Dipper might not be as wonderful as the most recent ones. EDIT: I forgot to add the fact that some older concertinas might also require some repairs. For these reasons, and the fact that there's not much information on the eBay page, I was quite impressed with the high price it fetched.

Assuming it's the same concertina, it went for USD$7700! It's not bad at all for an older model, some people still have money