shaunw

I'm afraid the cat's out of the bag, Shaun, and you aren't going to be able to put it back in. Unless maybe you can convince Noel Hill to stop holding concertina schools in America. And all those famous Irish musicians from teaching at summer schools all over the world. And the organizers of the Willie Clancy school to reject applications from foreigners. And all those musicians and bands from allowing their records to be sold outside Ireland, or accepting fees for performing abroad. In fact you'd better go back in time to the early 1900s and tell all those Irish emigrants to the US not to bring their instruments with them. And those 1950s labourers in London not to invent the pub session. You might as well pretend that Bach belongs to the Germans and only Germans have a right to an opinion as to how Bach should be played. BTW, Brendan Breathnach opined in one of his books that the concertina was "the only musical instrument invented by an Englishman." Kind of shocking that the Irish should have adopted it, isn't it?

You are 100 percent correct. Anglos only came into Irish music because they were cheap, much cheaper than a fiddle and much much cheaper than an EC. At the time many prominent Irish musicians disapproved of them and deplored their use in ITM. In the 1850s an Anglo could be obtained for 2 shillings and 6 pence while an EC in Dublin still cost 3 guineas. However there always were Irish players of the EC and being Irish they had as much right to play traditional tunes as anyone else. Every Irish person playing traditional tunes on any ordinary instrument has the right to be considered part of ITM. Who are these Anglo players who are attempting to take over ITM with their bizarre and arbitrary fascist definitions. Has the ITM scene been invaded by English folk musicians because these fascist purity type movements are just what is so typical of the English folk scene. ITM is not a genre it is a living music which can still be added to, it is not a dead historical thing like English folk. Irish people should stand firm against all these fascist attempts to exclude people from the music. I know Irish EC players who have been playing ITM for years. Perhaps we are now all expected excommunicate these EC players and to take them outside and stone them to death. This is probably what this narrow minded group of people would like. Irish people should stand firm against this attempted fascist takeover of their music. I would ask all ITM musicians including Irish Anglo players to reject this sort of petty minded fascism. I had always thought that Irish people had avoided the exclusive nastiness that sometimes ruins the English folk music scene, I see now that they have not. ITM belongs to the Irish people not to small unrepresentative groups who think they have the right to say what ITM is and what it is not.

Harmony seems to be a cultural and even a very individual thing. I know folk musicians who are unable to stay in the same room when I put one of my Ornette Coleman Cds on they find his music distressing. Some people still can't accept equal tempered tuning and there are micro-tonal composers who want to be able to use an much larger number of notes in an octave. So I'm not sure how much of this is built in.

It really does not matter what you say to some of the people posting in this thread. Anglo for ITM is a good choice but only if you feel that you are incapable of learning to read music. It seems that you can play ITM on a flute, a piano, a guitar, a violin, a cello, a harp, a diatonic accordion, a chromatic accordion, a blues harmonica, a chromatic harmonica, a penny whistle or even a church organ. However the two instruments you can never play ITM on are an EC and a Duet Concertina. They never tell you why this is so. If you give them a recording of ITM on an EC they will tell you that it is not ITM as though they are really qualified to judge. They have some mystical knowledge of Irish music that enables them to hear the difference. If you tell them you can't really play jazz standards on an Anglo they will tell you about Boer musicians who can play jazz on 40 button Anglos. They will say anything no matter how irrational or bizarre. They will say you are only talking about 'theory' while they are wise people who are talking about 'practice'. This isn't a debate, it started as an innocent attempt to provide an answer to a question. What can I use to play both ITM and jazz standards. Many people made constructive contributions. They pointed out that if you want to go to summer schools you need to have an Anglo, a very good point that everyone accepts. However we then have to deal with the crazies who insist that an EC or a Duet concertina are the only instruments known to man in the whole history of the world which cannot be used to play ITM. I will play ITM on any instrument I choose, even a computer synthesizer, if I want to. There is no Irish Music Council which decides on these things and anyone who thinks they are qualified to make these decisions or can hear the difference needs help. You can't hear the difference because there is no difference. Anyone who thinks there is a difference to hear just doesn't understand Irish Music. My family has played ITM on a strange assortment of instruments for generations and they never felt the need to ask if these were approved instruments and they never heard the difference. They were just Irish people playing Irish tunes. None of them had even heard of the concertina. Still this thread has been fun but some people are very strange. I know I am.

I have already admitted in previous posts that someone who wants to go to ITM summer schools will need an Anglo. However when people say things like an Anglo with 30 buttons is chromatic and can play all chords then I just wonder what planet they are on. As to ITM being easier on an Anglo none of the ITM EC session players I know think that this is true, but what do they know since they don't own an Anglo. I don't have to prove that an EC is as good as an Anglo when playing ITM any more than you have to prove that an Anglo is as good as an EC. We already know from experience and from recordings that both can equally be used for ITM. So theory doesn't represent reality. Tell that to all the professors of Quantum physics and remember that the next time you use a computer that a computer is your reality and that it came from their theory. Wheatstone, a professor of physics, who was well used to theory, made and sold both Anglos and English Concertinas. He invented the English concertina because he wanted to make an instrument that was fully chromatic and suitable for playing all sorts of music in any key. He knew that Anglos are diatonic instruments no matter how many buttons they have. When someone advertises an Anglo for sale they often tell you which two keys it is tuned to. Nobody selling an English mentions which keys it is tuned to because it can play it in any key. I prefer to go with Wheatstone on this. I think he and his former partner Louis Lachenal really knew about concertinas and what they were suitable for. The only point I have ever tried to make in my posts is that if the original questioner wants to play jazz standards then he needs an English Concertina. If he is prepared to give up the idea of playing jazz and just concentrate on ITM then any sort of concertina will do. I own both sorts of concertina and I don't care what he buys but I don't want him to be misled. With regard to speed, ITM is not a speed contest although you wouldn't know that from many of the amateur musicians who play it. They play it as though they can't wait to get to the end of the tune. They play at the same relentless volume all the way through. They play like culchies digging a ditch.

Yes, but not all that restricted. An anglo with 30 or more buttons is fully chromatic, although I would agree that some keys are pretty unfriendly to play in. Again, that's only partly true. Many of the notes are duplicated so you actually have a choice whether to play them on the pull or the push I'm sorry, but that's just wrong. The anglo is just as capable of playing these as an EC, although I accept that some keys are more difficult. ??? This will come as a surprise to John Kirkpatrick, Brian Peters, Jody Kruskal and hundreds of other players who routinely play chords. It is true that you can't play every chord in every key, but the anglo is very suited to chordal playing, perhaps more so than the English. Certainly in the circles I move in, I'm far more likely to hear chords played on an anglo than on an EC. Whilst I would not deny that the anglo has some restrictions, and it is certainly at its best in its home keys and closely related keys, I do feel you are portraying it as being more limited than is actually the case. And it certainly has some strengths, which while possible to emulate on other systems are perhaps more difficult on these. The truth is that all three systems have their advantages and disadvantages, and the choice of which to play is a difficult one. It is partly determined by the type of music you wish to play, but also on whether you read music or prefer to play by ear, and how comfortable you are with the different fingering systems (which you can only discover by trying them). In my own case, it was simply a question of availability - the first concertina I bought turned out to be an anglo. When people say you can't play chords on an anglo what they mean is that you can't play any arbitrary chord on it at any time. The fact that you can play some chords really doesn't matter. You can play some chords on a violin but that doesn't make the violin suitable for playing chords. Nor can you play in any arbitrary key on an anglo nor can you use any arbitrary phrasing. When I meet someone who can play a violin concerto on any anglo complete with all the phrasing marks in the original score then I will accept that an anglo is as versatile as an EC. Please try to be fair to the original questioner. He just wants to know which concertina would be bests for playing both JAZZ STANDARDS and ITM. Forget your own preferences or which instrument you play. Do you play a wide range of jazz standards on your Anglo? Have you ever heard of anybody who does? You are not really trying to help the questioner, you are just misleading him. To play jazz standards you need to be able to play every chord in every key and you have already admitted that that isn't possible. The questioner didn't ask which concertina is 'best' or which has the easiest fingering and if you don't have the money then you can't try all the different types to find out. If everyone insists on trying to persuade him to buy what they have, then he is going to make an expensive mistake.

Yes that was a really big miss but some people like ideas and other people just like money.

Don't you think it's strange that England is the only country not to have a real national anthem. Instead we sing a song to the queen. Other countries have patriotic anthems,we don't. Happy Independence Day!

Geoff I don't really understand your post, the EC is a chromatic instrument and if properly tuned can play in all keys and can play all chords. The EC has the same range as the violin and I have never heard anyone suggest that the violin can't play in any key you care to mention. In what way is the EC bizarre compared to a violin for example? A concertina tuned to mean temperament is the same as any other chromatic instrument. Oh dear me!! This is going to take a deep breath (after a long night on the Segas)....... Geoff thanks for the reply, I do know all this stuff about different temperaments and tunings. However think about this. The chromatic xylophone and the piano are generally tuned to modern orchestral pitch and they are chromatic instruments, mean temperament instruments. I have never heard anyone suggest that the standard piano for example cannot be used to play jazz, blues or even ITM. Now I understand that some people might might find equal temperament grating, in fact there is an interesting book called 'How equal temperament ruined music'. However I think it is a bit much to expect the original questioner to get into such complications. This will just confuse him even more. Most of the EC and duet players players I have met are happy to play ITM with concertinas tuned to concert pitch in an equal temperament setting. Equal temperament was devised to allow players to modulate from one key to another. This isn't really required for ITM or folk music although it can be and is used in jazz and who knows maybe at some time in the future someone will write an ITM tune that modulates from one key to another. Of course he or she will probably be stoned to death for their trouble.

Aristotle always said that Plato was a follower of Pythagoras but up until now there was no real evidence for this. Pythagoras claimed that mathematics ruled the universe rather than the Gods and this idea could certainly get you accused of impiety and executed so you would have to keep it secret. I just hope that Dan Brown isn't going to inflict another boring novel about this on us all.

I think that would be appropriate only in the month of December. In a more serious vein, I don't think your choice parallels the "folk music" quote (which I first heard attributed to Leadbelly). Instead, it has the flavor of taking sides. Noel Hill most definitely has been heard to play concertina. I don't think that sort of "solution" will be very useful here. I think the situation is quite different. In spite of strongly differing opinions, we here are already pretty respectful in our discussions. But if we did get into heated discussions, it would as likely be over the need or usefulness of a "Horse!" equivalent, or over the breed of horse, as over the breed of concertina. Our equivalent of the "What is folk music?" debate is "What is a concertina?" The "anglo or English" (who said "duet"?!) question is of a completely different class. It's generally from new members who are sincerely seeking advice on a potentially life-altering decision, something which can significantly affect both their musical and financial futures. It's not enough nor even appropriate that we agree to disagree and then stop there. If somebody were to shout "Noel!" (or "Leon!", or whatever), with all members then refraining from expressing opinions or giving advice, it would be a gross disservice to the questioner. If someone asks what folk music is than a 'horse' reply is probably appropriate. If someone asks which concertina is best then your 'noel' suggestion is as good as any. But if someone asks which concertina could be used to play ITM and jazz standards then he is probably hoping for a more informative and honest factual answer. Sometimes people don't read the original question and the discussion get changed into something else.

I see that the H4 can record at 44.1KHz, 48KHz or 96KHz depending on how it is set up. My thought at the moment is that if the batteries aren't flat then it is likely that it will keep to the set recording frequency (in fact since it runs on a crystal clock it will probably keep to the exact frequency even if the batteries are flat). However if you record an mp3 at 48KHz then some mp3 playback programs may fail to play it back at the correct speed, they may play it back at 44.1KHz. This would make everything sound flat. Does everything sound flat? Is your H4 set to record at 48KHz, if so try changing it to 44.1KHz. All this is just guesswork of course based on problems I have encountered in the past. It might turn out to be some other weird H4 problem.

Geoff I don't really understand your post, the EC is a chromatic instrument and if properly tuned can play in all keys and can play all chords. The EC has the same range as the violin and I have never heard anyone suggest that the violin can't play in any key you care to mention. In what way is the EC bizarre compared to a violin for example? A concertina tuned to mean temperament is the same as any other chromatic instrument.

In case no one has sent you this yet, here is the key layout of the English concertina which also shows how the keys fit on the musical stave. The EC has the same range as the violin.

[/quote)PPS Lots of people fail to play Irish music convincingly on Anglos, too. Choosing the more suitable instrument will not automatically confer a sufficient understanding of the music in question, or the skill needed, to do it justice I fully agree with this and that is the point I was trying to make. Some people seem to want to say that some instruments are more suitable than others, e.g. that only an Anglo can give ITM music the proper bounce and that this can't be done on an EC or a duet. ITM can be played without concertinas on a wide range of instruments. Any type of concertina can be used to play ITM and it does not need any added bounce that can only be provided by one sort of concertina. The original question was 'What sort of concertina should I buy in order to be able to play ITM and jazz standards. Some people seem to have lost sight of this. You can't play all jazz standards on an Anglo and that is a fact of life.

We can sort this out really quickly if you like. Just record a single note, an A for 20 seconds. Then convert it to an mp3 and if it is out of tune post it here and we will be able to tell you exactly what is happening.

Are you sure that the recording frequency on record and playback is the same. Sometimes people record at 48kHz and this get played back at CD standard 44.1kHZ which will sound out of tune.

The only reason that the Anglo became the most common concertina in Irish, English and Scottish folk music is the fact that it was cheap. It had fewer reeds, pads and buttons so it was cheap to make and cheap to buy. The fact that it can't play in every key or play all the chords didn't really matter to poor musicians, they couldn't afford anything better. If you are really serious about playing jazz then you won't be able to do this on an Anglo. However as some people have pointed out if you want to go to ITM workshops you will find that the Anglo is the common instrument. On the other hand if you can read music you don't need to go to these workshops and it you want to play jazz standards then you will have to read music because there are no jazz workshops and on the whole good jazz musicians all read music. What I have really enjoyed about this discussion is the fact that people are now starting to make really silly statements such as 'I have never heard a convincing rendition of ITM on an EC or Duet concertina. To those people I would like to put this question. Have you ever heard a convincing rendition of ITM on an English violin or a French violin? Do you need an Irish violin to get the right sound? Can you play ITM on a Russian piano or must it be an Irish piano. Are Irish violin players just trying to emulate the sound of an Anglo concertina and failing to do so. Of course ITM on an Anglo will sound different to ITM on an EC or ITM on a Duet but they are all playing ITM and one is not more valid than the other. Just because you are used to the sound of ITM on an Anglo don't fool yourself into thinking that it is more Irish. If anything ITM played on an Anglo sounds too German, too oompa-oompa, to my ears and I long for the more lyrical sound of the violin or the EC. I feel the same way about English folk music played on an Anglo. But this is a matter of taste and I am sure that some players can play ITM sensitively on an Anglo. I wonder what O'Carolyn would think about all this. Of course he never got to hear the 'Irish concertina with its characteristic bounce' and I'll bet he didn't miss it either. Now the Anglo is no longer cheap, in fact a good Anglo can cost more than a good EC. If you can afford it you could buy both. If you can't then buying the wrong one could be an expensive mistake. Now I know that logic and real life are not the same but lets try to keep just a little bit of logic in our real lives.

Well thank you for your reply, however I was just trying to help the questioner who maybe wants to play more than just ITM. I am sure the two young women I listened to last weekend who both play sessions of ITM using their EC or Duet concertinas would be insulted by your suggestion that their way of playing ITM is not just as valid as yours. I am not trying to tell anyone what they should play, I am just trying to explain the difference between the instruments. Irish music is played on a wide variety of instruments which all have a different sound but none of them are superior to another. The Anglo concertina is just a 19th century German invention, a way of making a cheap reed folk instrument. The fact is that anything that can be played on an Anglo can be played on an EC even including the same bellows movement. This doesn't mean that an EC is superior to an Anglo but it is more versatile (the word I used). You need to remember that ITM is much, much older than the Anglo concertina and that the Anglo concertina is not a traditional Irish instrument unless you have a very short view of tradition. It is just an instrument used by many modern players of ITM who also use the German melodion (played by some members of my own family) and the German accordion. Thank you for saying that my post was logical, I am in fact a logician (yes we do exist) who loves the concertina and music.

What are mini XLR plugs? I thought there were only XLR plugs, I have never come across the mini variety. Sorry I know this doesn't answer your query but I'm just curious.

"I definitely will benefit from making some dietary changes. Probably a worse contributor to arthritis, for me, is OVEReating -- not so much WHAT I'm eating. One book I've been looking over lately is 'Fasting and Eating for Health,' by Joel Fuhrman, MD. (Really, I don't need a book... just need to eat more wisely!)" It is said that food craving is often a sign of food intolerance. You need to think about which foods you really like to overeat and think about whether they are the cause of the problem. You may not be intolerant of nicotine/belladonna type foods there are many other foods including things like seafood, dairy products or celery that can cause problems. The foods that I started to crave and to overeat were bread, potatoes, pasta and beans. I have no problems with sweet potatoes or products made from buckwheat flour. You might find that trying a high tolerance diet for a few months can cure your overeating problems as well. Making dietary changes can be a hit and miss affair since it can be really difficult to identify the foods causing a problems and that is why the idea of a high tolerance diet, i.e. just eating foods that are not known to cause problems for a few months can be valuable. You can then start to add back into your diet foods like tomatoes to see if they do cause a problem. Of course you might find that your arthritis is not food related, its just one more thing to investigate but it is worth taking the idea seriously simply because arthritis is progressive, it damages your joints and the damage and the pain cannot be undone. I was always sceptical about the idea of food intolerance, it just seemed like another quack medicine notion until my NHS doctor mentioned it to me as something I should investigate. And in the end you have to judge by results. The reduction in my arthritic pain was dramatic. I just wish I had known about the idea that diet and arthritis might be connected ten years ago.

I think probably anyone can develop an intolerance to a food. I once worked with an Indian who was intolerant of all spices. This made life rather difficult for him but he had learned to cope with it. I never had any problems with any food until I reached middle age.

Last weekend I went to a birthday party in a garden. There were two young women there and both of them played concertina. One had a top of the range Lachenal English concertina. The other one had a beautiful Crane Duet. Both of them could play ITM on these instruments, even fast tunes were no problem. The Anglo is the most restricted instrument and I think traditional players use it simply because it is a tradition. It is said to be easier for people who don't read music to learn. An Anglo is like a blues harmonica, different note on push and pull (blow and suck) so you can't play Beethoven symphonies or violin pieces or jazz on it (the phrasing would be wrong) and you can't usually play chords on it. The English is potentially the fastest and more versatile as a solo instrument because it can play in any key and the notes of the scale are played by alternating between both hands. It is suitable for playing any type of music and can play both melody and chords. The duet concertinas are the most versatile because you can play two melodies at the same time, one with the left hand and a different one with the right hand (good for counterpoint). A duet is like a small piano (with a much smaller range than the piano). Of course you can't bend notes on a concertina but then you can't bend notes on a jazz piano either. The things to remember are that anything that can be played on an Anglo can be played on an English and there are many things that can be played on an English that you could never play on an Anglo. Anything that can be played on an Anglo or an English can be played on a Duet and there and many things that can be played on a duet that could never, ever be played on an Anglo or an English.

'I seem to have allergies, at least as part of my package deal of troubles. I never used to, when I was younger, but as of ten years ago or so, I've noticed that all I have to do is step outside my door and my arms will magically sprout red dots. I've always just said, 'poison sumac,' but I dunno. Anyway, the red dots have gotten meaner, though it's likely some other thing.' There is some evidence that certain forms of arthritis are related to food intolerance which often seems to occur in middle age. Food intolerance is not the same as food allergy. In the 1970s the FDA (federal drugs administration in the U.S.A) published a research paper on the connection between diet and arthritis although this research doesn't seem to have been followed up since. However these other symptoms you describe would seem to make this something you need to investigate. The only way you can investigate this is to change your diet to a 'High Tolerance Diet', don't worry it doesn't mean you have to eat lentils all the time. You can find a good high tolerance diet on the BBC website. You have to follow it religiously for three months and see if it helps. I know its a big pain to have to this but the pain of arthritis can be even worse. After you have followed the diet for three months you can start to re-introduce other foods one by one to see if your symptoms re-occur. If the diet is going to help then you should find an improvement quite quickly. Not all forms of arthritis are related to diet so I can't offer this as a certain cure. One of the food groups that many people develop intolerance to is the nicotine/belladonna family of plants. This includes potatoes, tomatoes and peppers of all sorts including chilli peppers.