StuartEstell

I would be very interested in the chair's view of this move. Liverpudlians have been known to play a similar game to Mornington Crescent which involves navigating different crossing points along the Mersey river. Play can be so tense that participants are left needing pacemakers.

Wolf -- likewise as a classical pianist I never encountered this, but I suppose to an extent on piano you just take it for granted that what the instrument is doing is self-contained. I wouldn't agree that anything "shouldn't" be faked. Somebody, somewhere will find a way to do all sorts of things successfully, and more power to them. I would venture to suggest, though, that many that do this sort of thing very literally (and I think guitarists / bass players can be particularly guilty of this) often seem to forget to make any actual music while achieving blinding technical feats.

Ceemonster, I think you and I view this "single instrument as band" from a similar perspective, although it sounds as though we differ markedly in our preferences. For me the appeal of concertina tone is in the interplay of the overtones that sometimes do such weird and wonderful things when playing chordally/contrapuntally. Fistfuls of notes, preferably with added drones! From the perspective of one who is a player of "all of the above", I'm also not sure I agree that a "whole band" feel is technically any more difficult on a 30-key anglo than it is on one with more buttons, or -- in practice -- than it is on a duet keyboard. As you suggest, the limitations of the instrument force certain choices, from key to individual notes, but it's more than possible to develop complex arrangements on a 30-key instrument.

Is that a bluebottle I hear? West Acton

Our lovely assistant who kept score in our esteemed game for Humphrey Lyttelton, and who now works for Mr. Jack Dee on the radiogramme.

Very much agreed, Jim. Learning when to play nothing is a valuable skill -- musical absinence, if you like, versus being over-keen and plastering oneself liberally all over everything. (I've been guilty of this myself, so I'm not throwing stones from a glass house ) Even if you're not playing jazz it can be instructive to listen to what some of the really great jazz pianists (e.g. McCoy Tyner, Bill Evans) do when 'comping (accompanying), either in the left hand while soloing with the right, or with both hands while filling in the sandwich between the bass and soloist. Unless you're aiming specifically for thickness of texture from duplicated parts, less is emphatically more, especially if there are rhythm instruments whacking out the pulse alongside you.

As the most famous of the dead Kennedys once proclaimed that he was a doughnut to the assembled German audience, I shall play Southwark where I shall stop in at the local doughnut shop and cover myself in custard. Edit: Samantha reminded me that I had named the wrong Kennedy. That comes from eating too much jelly (or jell-o).

Is this what you are thinking of? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwBBFJ-3Xo0 That's the chap -- Dave Bargeron -- although the video is showing as unavailable for me at the moment. I haven't heard it for a very long time but it made quite an impact on me as a younger tuba player!

Good call Robert -- you're right, his playing is extraordinary.

The name of the player escapes me but there is a spectacular tuba version of Coltrane's "Giant Steps" in which the entire opening is played in full chords using multiphonic techniques. It _is_ possible, just hard.

Fair enough Jim -- perhaps I'm not interpreting the brief literally enough.

Honourable mention has to go to Jaco Pastorius's "Portrait of Tracy" for solo electric bass -- a most extraordinary piece of playing, well beyond my technical capabilities on the instrument. It's a beautiful and sophisticated arrangement and makes mind-boggling use of harmonics on a fretless 4-string Fender Jazz Bass.

No, Ruediger, not a bad move at all. A very good one, as demonstrated by the long pause that has followed it. You've demonstrated a keen understanding of the supplementary codex to the Wrekin Rules in your deployment of the Wenlock Edge manoeuvre, developed by poet A. E. Housman after a winter gale blew his bird table over. It's a bit like castling in chess, with more trees. With all this in mind, I shall play Holland Park where Les Barker no doubt once purchased a meat pie. (Incidentally, Samantha says that she once had a gentleman friend from Shropshire, but she had to put a stop to it as he wanted to move North, and she didn't want any little arrivals being born out of Wenlock).

Nicely put, Alex.

Actually, I really like relentless repetition in general -- it's the execution of it here that's not to my taste. But just as One Direction are not of my generation, neither is Mr. Amini. And his response to this thread might be (quite justifiably) to paraphrase Pete Townshend in "My Generation" --- "why don't you all just f-f-f-f-fade away..." I'm 40, so to a 20-something I'm a total dinosaur. I don't think this music is aimed at me. And that's fine. While I think there's a lot in what you say about what can sometimes seem like "tradition in aspic" I also see a kind of new orthodoxy forming around what I lovingly call "melodeon jazz chords", which might expand the harmonic vocabulary of the instrument a bit, but once I've heard the piled up minor 7th chords a few times the novelty wears off and I find myself wishing for cleaner, starker harmony. Again, that's just my taste. Stephen -- point taken re: meantone tuning but for Arabic music you're going to need more than just G#/Ab and D#/Eb -- for playing maqqam scales based on C you'd certainly want D half-flat and F half-sharp as well. (Has anyone ever built a microtonal concertina with a full set of quarter-tones?)

That will be a difficult move to follow.

Forgive me if I'm just a little jealous of the above

We are witnessing some very creative play, redefining the very notion of the London Underground, which I applaud. I will play Neasden where I shall be stopping in at Sid and Doris Hill's greasy spoon for a swift half of fried bread.

From a totally different area, Agathe Max is an interesting French solo violinist who uses live looping and processing to great effect. https://agathemax.bandcamp.com/album/this-silver-string

(Edit: I know the request was for solo instrumental performances but I think the same approach applies here...) For my taste, Nic Jones is the consummate accompanist -- here's his classic version of Canadee-i-o which I'm sure a lot of you folks will know already. To my ears, any other instrumentation would be completely redundant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlFKwY_YgZ4 Pretty much anything recorded by Nic Jones is a masterclass in "band in a single instrument" playing in the context of traditional song -- I like his recordings less when other musicians are involved, apart from the songs with Tony Hall on melodeon. Nick Dow is also very good at this sort of guitar playing, but he has very little online presence.

The pork kind of scratchings, Don: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_rind

I am indeed honoured to be laying the foundations of this year's game; many thanks for your kind words, Chris. The late Harold Trousers, the Black Country industrial magnate who founded the world's first knee factory, once said to his wife "Way've bin all rowernd the Wraykin and ar still ent got mi scratchins". These words came towards the end of a spectacular shopping trip which saw them depart Halesowen and its environs to purchase said delicacy from the local butchers, taking in Shropshire, the Rhondda valley, Mandalay, and pockets of the as-yet undiscovered North Korea. This was no small feat considering they were travelling by tram. In honour of that momentous journey, this game will employ the Wrekin Rules, which can be simply expressed thus: Yo con goo where yo want, speshly if yo con get bosti fittle If it's black owver Bill's muthers, gerrout the overgrowernd stashuns * I will, as is customary, make the first move to EARL'S COURT Where I once observed closely as Mrs. Trellis was attacked by an oyster. Samantha will be keeping score, as ever, although she may have to leave early to see her gentleman friend, who she says hasn't taken her round the Wrekin in some time. * Translation: all usual moves are permitted, but preference is given to stations where it is possible to purchase fine comestibles in the near vicinity. If it's threatening rain, keep out of the overground tube stations.

The challenge with Arabic music is that many of the maqqam scales involve quarter-tones and other microtonal intervals. I was singing with a Pakistani harmonium player the other day and the semi-classical songs we were working on sounded equal tempered to me, though I could be mistaken. Jody, agreed, what might be loosely termed the Indian classical traditions are generally equally tempered, especially when a harmonium is involved. There are in theory 22 steps to the scale but my understanding is that these are mostly expressed through inflections of bent strings, and the average sitar or sarod player thinks in terms of the same 12 chromatic steps that we do. Arabic music is rather different -- there are quarter tones all over the place. Here's an example in maqqam Jiharkah on this page, where the upper part of the scale has 3/4 tone intervals: http://www.maqamworld.com/maqamat/ajam.html#jiharkah Some time back I had the pleasure of playing with Iraqi oud player Khyam Allami (I was on tuba) and achieving the correct intonation was extremely problematic and involved all manner of crazy fingering. Those adjustments just aren't possible on box of course.

The challenge with Arabic music is that many of the maqqam scales involve quarter-tones and other microtonal intervals.

"The Degrees of Glumness" is surely the title of a slow air waiting to be written