Stefan

Great Stuart!

Musik Boehmer and his Concertina from Hell will be in the Scruffy´s Irish Pub, Karlsruhe, Germany on July 22nd starting 8 p.m.

Big sound, beautiful. How about a picture (for drooling reasons)?

Here is a short clip on German TV, announcing one of the concerts (at minute 23.30) http://www1.wdr.de/mediathek/video/sendungen/lokalzeit-ruhr/video-lokalzeit-ruhr-vom--154.html

Danke Wolf, viele Grüße!

Music Boehmer and his Concertina from Hell will play 24. March Essen-Steele, Kulturzentrum Grend 30. March in Buehl-Weitenung, Linde If you are interested in Rock´n Roll Concertina, drop by.

Brilliant as always Jody, the accompaniment, the feel, nice slow tempo. You nail it.

Hi Bob, what do you mean with rolls? I thought the website could be interesting in general, it doesn´t really help for concertina-playing.

Great site, Steve. Enjoyed it a lot. I´m now also looking forward to your CD!

Hi Gaspar, as a Maccann-Player, I know exactly what you mean. It took me 3 years of playing all on my own until I heard another concertina player live (I had to go to Ireland and took some Anglo lessons!). I´m afraid I can´t really help you. The only thing I can think of are the instruction manuals on the concertina.com site http://www.concertina.com/maccann-duet/index.htm But these have not been very helpful to me, because the musical style is just not where I want to go. The arrangements of David Cornell were helpful though, because he writes out the fingering. It was interesting to learn how his fingers move. I know how frustrating it can be, not to have someone to guide you through the learning, but it also has it´s advantages. You HAVE to develop your own style of playing and you will. Sometimes it is refreshing to me, to see the concertina as the little box with these knobs, that waits for you to bring it to live. I see it as a little organ that has so many possibilities. It only depends on your imagination. And sometimes it can be good to limit yourself. Maybe you could set a smaller aim? For example - be good in certain key that suits your singing. I don´t think that I could teach anyone anything on the concertina, but if you are interested, we could maybe setup a skype connection or something, could be interesting. And: through the years, I tought myself a few instruments, but always only to a certain degree. At some point, I kind of lost interest. A few years ago, I read a post on the internet about becoming frustrated with an instrument. It said that if you become frustrated you should analyze why. That was good advice. It´s always good to remember why you play an instrument anyway and it always should be fun.

Thank you Steve, for the kind words. I hope to hear some of Your music soon.

Very interesting thread here. Like so many times on C-net, I found new and fascinating music. I have almost no knowledge about appalachian music, but I just listened to Joel Bernstein and Marc Graham - wow. Here is a website with documentary films about American roots culture, also about the Appalachians. http://www.folkstreams.net/film,128

Hi Steve, I think you are right regarding contemporary music, there are endless possibilities. And I think Ceemonster is right in a way too, if he thinks that " rock/pop, etc ., etc., sounds asinine on the concertina". That is - if you try to play that music in a "traditional" way. That, many times, sounds only funny. My approach is different. I love the acoustic sound of a concertina of course, but when I play with my equipment I try to think of the instrument as the basic motor of the whole system. Like an electric guitar is nothing without its amplifier. So Highway to Hell doesn´t sound like a concertina? Well - it sounds like a distortion-concertina and that´s ok to me. Actually I´m not happy with the sound on that recording, it´s kind of "plastic". I could do that better now. And maybe I´ll change the sound to a little more natural...

On my gigs, I play Rock/Pop and even songs that have a kind of punksound to them. The reactions are really good. I honestly think that a Concertina is an underestimated Heavy-Rock instrument. That means - if you can solve the feedback problem. On a Concertina you have to use microphones. If you add distortion (like a guitar does) you´ll easily get a feedback that´s deafening. I found ways for me to work around that, it took a long time though. I think of a Duet Concertina (maybe for an English it´s just the same) as an organ with bellows. It can sound like a harmonica. Harmonicas are used in Blues a lot. Often with distortion. I also would compare the sound of a Concertina to an electric guitar. Electric guitars dont have a very rich overtones, Concertinas too. That´s good for adding effects. And you can play with distortion very well as long as you play like a guitarplayer, that means - powerchords (no thirds). Then it´s a lot of fun - you have much more sustain than a guitar. Here is an example, even though I´m not happy with the recording (I´m working on a CD right now): https://soundcloud.com/squeezer-stefan/highway-hell-test1

Hi Bob, I´m not quite sure if you mean this, but I´m playing whole songs in that manner. I play duet, but it should be similar on an EC. It takes a while to get into it but I find it very useful. https://youtu.be/N50jMXWOohk https://youtu.be/k3Asf1a7VEE

Brilliant Stuart, beautiful and innovative accompaniment. Great Sound.

Yes Steve, I use the free version of Lightworks. It´s a fully working professional editor. They cut many Hollywood movies with it (e.g. Pulp Fiction). The limitation is, that you can only export in Youtube quality. If you want more, you have to buy it. It takes some learning time to get into the program but there are many well made tutorials on Youtube. Also there´s an excellent forum.

Thank you Steve, I also always enjoy your videos on youtube a lot. I really edited with Lightworks, how can you tell? And yes, I work on a CD. There is no real idea when it will be finished. I recorded quite a few songs already but the hard thing is to find a suitable "style". I could record the songs like I play them live (like on the video, that´s the stereo output of my mixer), but I´d like to add a few things, a bass or harmony singing for example. I don´t know of any recordings that use these kind of instruments in the way I use them, so I have to experiment a lot. But I´m progressing.

On Saturday14. November I´ll play in the Black Forest: http://www.st-erhard-kapelle.de/veranstaltungskalender Here is a new video: https://youtu.be/N50jMXWOohk If you come, bring your Concertina!

Here is an excerpt of the recordings for my upcoming concertina cd. I play that song live regularly but not with drums and bass, so the mix is not finished, I´m still experimenting. https://soundcloud.com/squeezer-stefan/highway-hell-test1

Oh yes, Wolf playing a wizzard blues solo on English while Adrian provides a pumping rythm on Anglo, I´d find something in between... Only for a session like that it would be worth to go to the German Concertina Meeting. But unfortunately, that weekend in Germany, there´s the "Tanz in den Mai" where people go dancing into the 1st of May. I will almost surely play with my band (as a bassplayer) that night. Thanks for the good wishes.

Yes Wolf, you´re right, when I listen to that song I´m really tempted to give it a try, what a great musician. But right now I concentrate on recording my first CD, like Adrian proposed. All the best - Stefan

Great Adrian, I really like it. And I think you DO know where you´re going, to me the bridge section sounds round too.

Musik Boehmer and his Concertina from Hell will be playing near Flensburg at the Dolleruper Destille http://www.alles-torte.de/events/242/musik-boehmer-and-his-corcertina-from-hell-pop-rock-blues-classics-folk Thursday 16th of July starting at 7 p.m.

I had a gig yesterday and while playing "Roslyn Castle" which is kind of easy but nevertheless a bit horrifying to me because I once messed it up really badly, my mind went wandering.... It went like: " I really should concentrate here"..... "better not think too thoroughly about what I´m doing"... "there was this thread on C-net about wandering while playing !!!".... "What am I doing???... Then I fortunately made only a small mistake and managed to forced myself back to playing.