Steve Mansfield

I'd actually already started abc-ing this up for my own usage & amusement, so if anyone would like a copy as the file progresses, please PM me.

If anyone would like to buy me a Parnassus, I'll happily write a review of it for Geoff

That listing has now been removed.

I liked the appendix so much, I finally got around to buying the book. It only arrived today so I've only had a preliminary skim and played a couple of tunes on the flute (including a nice version of one of my favourite tunes, Jack The Hare Courser): but first impressions are excellent. It's a really well produced and laid-out book with very readable dots, the annotations look informative, and it looks like there's some really cracking unusual tunes in there.

Ooh looks very nice Chris, I shall look forward to seeing that one somewhere soon ...

That's a really interesting article Mike, thanks. What's the context of the article, it reads like an introduction to a book from the comment about three collections of 145 tunes in the opening paragraph? [Edited for grammar]

You mean Anglo Dammit you're quite right. Time to get my glasses changed I think ...

After an article in The Guardian newspaper about the sub-genre of English folk called 'weirdlore', I came the band ...

Now there's a band I'd love to hear, pre-1930s Auvergnais on that instrumental line-up sounds right up my street. Any audio / YooToobs? I hope you all dress in slightly shabby black suits just to complete the image ...

If they sound half as good as they look they're going to be amazing ...

Ah, 'twas ever thus. At least with us there's several starting formations, so I can sometimes take a guess (5 people in a cross? Twiglet. Lines of four across the set? Brimfield. Completely empty space? Either Hey Up Joe, or we've finished our spot and nobody's told us that either). Two parallel lines of dancers facing up looking expectant, though? Give us a clue ...

Jim I'd not seen that great document before, thanks for that. It pretty much covers everything I'd say on the subject and a whole bunch more, a great piece of writing on the subject. I shall read it more throughly and maybe come back with some more comments when I've had time to digest it and mull it over. Personally, although I play EC a lot, I don't use it for the Morris - because I'm lead musician I stick to fife and rauschpfeife, both of which 'sit on top of' our particular blend of instruments, and make it easier for everyone, dancers and other musicians both, to hear and follow. My EC, in contrast, tends to disappear into the sound of the other reeds. There are great EC players with Border, Cotswod and North-West sides here in England, though, so I'm not for a moment saying it can't be done: just doesn't work for me/us. Probably the most effective use of EC in the English morris is the Bacup Coconutters, who dance to ECs when the brass band isn't available.

Here's my baby, Wheatstone #5892 from 1852 ... [Edit: you'd had thought I'd have learnt to spell 'Wheatstone' by now ... ]

That's great stuff, thanks for posting the link. I feel a CD purchase coming on ...

Ooh, go on, diverge! Maybe take it into a new thread, but I'd certainly like to know Harry Dunn's solution to this perennial EC problem

Here's my current self-improvement piece - yet another gorgeous schottische from French band La Chavannee, this one by Dominique Forges. A real tongue-twister at first, but what a tune once you've got it ... X: 1 T:Sansonette T:Son sonette M:4/4 L:1/8 R:Schottische C:Dominique Forges Z:Steve Mansfield K:Dm A2^GA =G2F2 | EGFE D2FE | DEFG A2GA | c2=B2 A4 | A2^GA =G2F2 | EGFE D2FE | DEFG A2GF |1 EFGA D4:|2 EFGA DEFG |: A2FA BFAB | A2FA BFAB| E2EA BEAB | E2EA BEAB | A2FA BFAB | A2FA BFAB | ABAG FGFE |1 DEFE DEFG :|2 DEFE D4:|

When I started playing English with a Jackie, I personally found that the single most helpful tutor book was the one that Concertina Connection supply with the Jackie! I've picked up really good tips from all the ones mentioned so far, but don't discount the one that comes in the package.

Maybe - or if the concertina became as globally significant as the electric guitar, the production and manufacturing methods would be refined: whilst there would be all manner of cheap cack around, there would also be instruments that were previously of a quality that would cost thousands of pounds to be be produced, made available for hundreds of pounds. But actually I agree with everything Geoff said. There's certainly another potential order for the coffee table book here ...

Apologies if you knew the following already but ... The English system (often referred to on here as EC) sounds the same note on both push and pull. The scale alternates from hand to hand, with the central two rows of buttons the scale of C major and the sharps and flats in the outer two rows in the nearest position to their natural note. The duet system (MacCanns and Jeffries are names for two of the most common keyboard layouts for duet concertinas) does the same, but with a totally different keyboard layout. The anglo system plays a different note on pull than it does on push. I would have thought that if you really wanted to instantly transfer your piano skills directly onto an accordion, the piano accordion would indeed be the way to go. However as you asked on a concertina forum, and every time a potential concertina player buys a piano accordion instead Tinkerbell dies: so I'd suggest that either English or duet would be best, even if just purely on the basis of the in-out thing. I'm an English system player so am duty-bound to recommend English. Duet and indeed anglo advocates will be along in a minute to tell you why their system is better. Your choice will also need to be influenced by the type of music you want to play, which feels right when you get the chance to play one, and just how your brain works ...

Veering the discussion off at a minor tangent, we went along to a French dance and music evening last night - it's a regular event but the first time we've managed to haul ourselves over there. The focus of the evening is both on the dancing and on the music, so it's not a case where dancers were co-opting a music session for their own ends or vice versa. Most of the musicians were inexperienced in playing for French dance, and the vast majority were reading the tunes from sheet music. The results were, quite frankly, pretty poor on the whole! Now I can go on till the cows come home (and go to bed, and get up the next morning ... ) about how playing for dancing is very different from playing for concerts and / or playing for your own pleasure, and that's definitely not the topic here. But I thought it was relevant to this thread because it's another interesting example of the way that being over-reliant on the dots often takes you away from the feel, the underlying pulse, and (in trad / folk circles) the sensation of playing together rather than as a group of individuals who are in their own worlds in the same physical space. Just another spoon stuck in the mix ...

I came to English Concertina comparatively recently, having spent many years playing flute and fife, after I first picked up tin whistle seriously aged about 15. Anyway. Along the way I also acquired a bouzouki which I play with great love and enthusiasm, but have never really progressed beyond chordal accompaniment - the melody skills of great bouzoukists like Donal & Manus Lunny, Niall Callanain and Ed Boyd etc. have always eluded me. I'm also a great lover of Renaissance instruments, and (as a friend said about me just the other day) I own a rauschpfeife and am not afraid to use it. As I play fife and rauschpfeife for the Morris, they're probably the instruments that get the most public playing time and are my 'work horses'. The concertina is probably the instrument I'm most fascinated by, because I feel I'm still getting to grips with it compared with the winds - as I've said on here before, whenever I'm feeling smug about progress on the EC I whip through a few Handel sonatas on flute, then try them on EC just to remind myself how far I have to go just to catch up with myself! But the Desert Island instrument, the one I'd always plump for if Kirsty Young would only let me take one, would be the low whistle. I bought my first one in 1984 pretty much purely because I used to live very close to the maker Brian Howard in Sheffield, saw one in a local music shop, and immediately bought it. So I suppose, entirely fortuitously, that makes me quite an 'early adopter' ... Oh, and mouth organ. But they drive the dogs absolutely mad (down several generations), and with everything else I can cope with having lurchers rather than harmonicas!

Anything by Rob Harbron is always inspirational - try the two Dr Faustus CDs, or the 'Station house' CD by Kett, Fagan & Harbron for example.

Kate Rusby did a good version of the 'Village Green Preservation Society' a few years ago as the theme tune for a BBC TV programme, and that seems to have given that song a bit of life outside of The Kinks. Other that that I'm just very impressed that we've survived nearly 24 hours on a web forum after asking any question of the 'what actually is the Irish tradition' variety without a 200-post punch-up breaking out. Try that on Mudcat or thesession and it would last about 10 minutes before there was blood all over the carpet and Godwin's Law had been invoked. What a civil bunch we are on Cnet, and all the better for it!

I've got my heart set on an Albion baritone, and play them and the treble version at every opportunity - in all the hours I've spent hanging around festival stalls and the like playing these beauties, I've never run into a problem with the range or found 'only' having 37 keys limiting. I dare say there's some classical pieces that would skitter off the end of the fingerboard, but for ECM and Scandinavian you'll be absolutely fine. [edited for spelling]

The wonderful Sam Sweeney was born in 1989? I feel really old ....