michelv

Yes, the two sites are up again. There is this very old one which haven't been updated for ages: http://www.tangosite.com/ from the days I played Argentinian tango; and there is the one with music suitable for English concertina: http://www.tangosite.com/concertina/. Both are hosted by the company I work for and use a very old application I developed, and they will not stay there forever. I'm not sure if I can muster the courage of moving them to my own server, which implements moving the data and building a new app in PHP for them... My current site with sheet music is in Dutch (for now): http://michelv.be/folkbrigade/

Hi all, I'm Michel Van der Meiren, and tangosite and tangosite/concertina belong to me. Both sites are down due to a DNS change. I'll try and fix this this weekend... I played Argentinian tango with Dirk Van Esbroeck and Alfredo Marcucci until they both passed away. Now I'm playing English concertina. At present, I am recovering from a medical period in my life. That's why the site problems aren't fixed yet. I'll post here again when the (old) sites are back online. Newer material is on my new site, being: http://michelv.be/folkbrigade/ (currently in Dutch only) Michel

Hi all, Thanks for mentioning my site. Actually, I'm from Flanders, so there's a lot of Flemish stuff on it ;-) http://www.tangosite.com/concertina Michel

Hello, especially to the rare breed of concertina players living in and around Belgium and the Netherlands: The International Concertina Association presents the Concertina in the Low Countries: Belgium and the Netherlands. On Saturday 11 August 2012 two workshops are being given by Alex Wade In "De Schaapskooi" in Schijndel, Netherlands. For all concertinaplayers of all levels. More info: http://www.concertina.org/ica/index.php/news/37-spotted/191-11-august-2012-concertina-in-the-low-countries Not only is Alex a formidable concertina player and teacher, it's also a rare opportunity to meet old and new concertina friends! Please inform us when you are coming. See you there ! Michel

Here's a documentory on Concertinas in Bolivia:

Well, I know Jan, the anglo player, lives in Ghent. This is his facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/jan.debrabandere.9

It's a Belgium band...

Try cello or bassoon music.

Hello Paul. I like your tunebooks very much! As for the Blue eyed one, I play together with a very experienced accordeon player, and he came up with the chords. And indeed, it has to be played uneven, as most hornpipes. Careful with the rhytms though: 3/4 could be a lot of things: a slow air, a mazurka, a waltz or even a bourrée. 6/8 could be a jig, but also a march (e.g. 93 not out, Liberty Bell). Polkas are written in 2/4 most of the time, as they should be: they have a distinct 2-beat feel. 2/4 could also be something entirely different, as a bourrée in 2 times etc. Most hornpipes are written in 4/4. But so are reels, schottisches, etc. And to make things even more complicated, tunes could start as a march in 6/8 and end up being played by most as a jig. Slow airs in 3/4 could end up as a waltz. And some polkas were originally played uneven, but because this does not show in the sheet music, this is sometimes forgotten by players who learn from sheet music instead of by ear. The Blue eyed should however remain a set dance I think, because the number of bars does not fit a hornpipe.

What a coincidence... I discovered the same tune a few weeks ago and it's far out my favorite since. I found it in one of the Paul Hardy's tunebooks. But I asked around and it is in fact a set dance and NOT a hornpipe, so it would have to be played even slower as a hornpipe: one dances very complicated stuff to it... I also found the chords in the PH tunebook a bit too much. More simple chords: My link

I've uploaded the complete book in 2 parts: http://www.concertina.org/ica/index.php/news/37-spotted/161-the-concertina-book-of-music Please let me know if anything is missing.

Hello everyone. Alan has sent me the missing pages and I've zipped them and made them available from our website: http://www.concertina.org/ica/index.php/news/37-spotted/161-the-concertina-book-of-music. Should I zip the first part from http://www.juliettedaum.com/concertina.html as well? Thanks, Alan.

The readers tapes are now moved to: http://www.concertina.org/ica/index.php/sound-archive. Same files, nicer page...

Here's the original tune:

That's a kontradans (contredanse), usually one or two treble instruments (e.g. violins or sometimes also brass instruments of that period) playing the melody and accompagned by harpsichord or viola da gamba who played 'basso continuo'. This was the popular dance music in the 18th century. In the 'Hollantse Boerenlieties' manuscript, only the melodies are given. In other manuscripts of that time, sometimes the bassline and/or basso continuo notation was also present, e.g in: 'Gentse Contradansen' or 'De Gruijtter manuscript' found in Belgium and dating from the same period. Although it was not uncommon to play 'boring' melodies dotted to make them more interesting, in this case I would play this one straight. This is the time before polka, waltz, mazurka, schottisch and even hornpipe were not born yet...

Most bandoneon players play mostly on the draw nowadays. The old bandoneon masters used to master both directions equally. And indeed, it is possible to play fully chromatic in both directions, but the fingering is completely different, so very difficult to master. I've met Carel last weekend. He's an old friend of mine. Did you know that he also plays English concertina? But he only plays Irish music on it, he told me.

Here's my link: (the bass player of the orquestra at the very end of the tango is me)

Thanks for that. But I would say that accordion school is just the better way to have...accordion style! Here is the myspace of my chromatic accordion duo with Tiennet. You can listen to the mazurka "les ormeaux" arranged for two chromatic accordions. http://www.myspace.com/duottc I think that you can recognize the same style I play concertina. But I would like to say that franglo system or my duet are just ways to allow accordion players like my dear friend Emmanuel Pariselle or myself to use our accordion experience. Nothing more. But accordion style is not a guarantee to play mazurka correctly and I think that mazurka can be played by any instrument (except drums...) and moreother by any type of concertina. In France, people who play concertina play mostly anglo for irish music. But I think that an anglo player (or another type of concertina) who is interested by playing french mazurka could play it very well. So to answer to your question Ubik, I would say that if you like accordion style for mazurka, perhaps you can choose duet or franglo. (difficult to find a franglo...). I say perhaps because I don't know much about the differents systems of duets. I have to read what Dirge said in second page. Concerning the mazurka dance in France, we have several forms of mazurka who were collected in France by regions. The form called "samatan" is the most danced actually with no difference between A and B. (But there are other types of mazurka with part of waltz like Alan said.) We can observe a slower tempo compared to the old collectages and sometimes new figures inspired of tango. (I don't want to say if it is a good thing or not!...there are a lot of debate here also between "trad" and "newtrad" supporters...) Amicalement, Thomas PS : salut David, au plaisir de te rencontrer et de discuter de concertina. (et mon système n'est pas un darwin de serafini...) Sounds fantastic. Is it possible to get the sheet music for 'les ormeaux' somewhere?

Here's an example:

It's very beautiful. But it's not an 'old style' mazurka. It's some modern composition in 3/4 in a contemporary diatonic accordeon style. These young musicians took a way of playing mazurkas in one specific region of France where they play them even, flattened out, romantic and close to a waltz and proclaimed this style as the way to play it. This style doesn't correspond in any way with the way it is (was?) traditionally danced in most of Europe. I got a friend who teaches traditional dances and she confirms that it's almost impossible to dance a proper mazurka on these new melodies. Apart from that - I really like the tune and the way it's played. I wish they hadn't called it mazurka though...

I used to play double bass, mainly Flemish and French traditional dance music. In all the history there was never one single double bass in sight. Yet people loved to dance on the music we played. My band had a French bagpipe, a hurdy-gurdy AND a piano accordeon. And now I play French mazurkas on my English concertina, disregarding what people might say :-) It's not what you play, but how you play it. And knowing the traditional way of playing this music because I played it myself for years on end, I feel that Alan does a fantastic job and it sounds exactly as it should on his Anglo.

It's all in the way you play it: the accents, the long- or shortness of the notes, the little bounces in the melody that makes or breaks it. And in fact, there's a long story behind it. Young people nowadays don't play mazurka as we used to 30 years ago... Hence my expression "real" and "traditional"... Maybe I should have used "old" and "bouncy". To me it seems that the concept of mazurka itself is fading from memory, as is the way to dance it properly. That's a shame, really.

Right on the spot, Alan! That's how a real traditional French mazurka sounds. I'll see if I can squeeze one out of my EC myself this weekend.

I forgot to mention: I'm a big fan of mazurka myself, and I collected a bunch of them on my site: http://www.tangosite.com/concertina/pub/dc-tunes?open&tag=mazurka

I've attended a workshop by Eric Thesé last year. He plays a chromatic bandoneon as far as I can recall. And I played EC with him. He plays and composes in the 'modern' French style of mazurka... I prefer the old style mazurkas as we played them some 30 years ago though. Since I play tango with double bass, I know a lot of bandoneon players. If you combine concertina with bandoneon or accordeon: this sounds very nice, but I tend to see the concertina as a melody instrument then and play stuff a violin would do. If you don't see them playing, I find it hard to tell the difference between a good Anglo player and an English one... Most folk tunes are with two sharps or flats at most, so equally accessible for Anglo. Compared with concertina, the bandoneon has a 'rougher' sound while the concertina sounds purer, more angel-like. Concertina and bandoneon: the beauty and the beast ;-)