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Hi there Kathryn - yes, very nice flawless playing, great piece, good arrangement - one can tell you have a lifetime's experience in making music! The only thing you really have to work on is your concertina face, there's lots of deficiencies there. You CAN NOT smile, you MUST look very tense and absent minded, you HAVE to gaze very concentrated into nothingness, NEVER face the audience or the camera - and if you've reached the master stage, you drool. SCNR, but since there's really nothing to complain about musically, I need to revert to the last frontier

Hi there, SIlverOfSand, and btw welcome to the concertina community! I'm in danger of repeating myself, but at this point, I'd like to issue a small issue of warning: Define "master a tune." If to you it means to be able to play the tune to your own satisfaction in your practice room - fine, but you are very likely in for an unpleasant surprise as soon as you take the tune outside of this environment - you'll find that as soon as someone else listens in (or if you even believe somebody to listen it), you may as well never have played the tune before, it'll be gone. Part

Hello, have you checked here ? Which Microvox are you using, the 310? Best of luck!

I presented my solution here: This mechanism also prevents the instruments from tilting. Works for me...

I just joined - if for no other reason than the one to strengthen the bonds between the UK and continental Europe from the grass roots up against the Brexit idiocy. Thanks for the reminder, Daniel! It'll be interesting to see if the bank system has already been affected by the leave, ie let's see how much the bank system takes out of my wire transfer. I don't care a whole lot about the competition issue; after all, nobody is required or pressured to enter a contest, no?

Great stuff, all four tracks are excellent. A good singer too! Thanks for unearthing, Daniel, this should definitely go onto TCHR! You'd probably be able to get in touch with him via YouTube PM (all the recordings are brand new).

I have an arrangement of The Siege of Delhi in my pipeline - I understand it's one of the first tunes a piper ever learns. Melodeonists have a number of different arrangements. Here's one I like in particular: I'm sure it'll sound great on a tina as well. Edited to add: You should definitely check with Alex Wade, she's got a lot of Northumbrian pipe tunes in her repertoire. I salvaged an arrangement of Herd on the Hill/Winshield's Hornpipe from a session week with her onto my soundcloud presence.

Hi Maarten, have you checked with this older thread? @Christian Husmann : It's interesting that you should suggest lessons from an accordeon teacher. I tried to go down that road as well and inquired with several professional accordeonists; they all refused to take me as a student, arguing that concertina and accordeon were way too different instruments (maybe it was just a polite way to let me know I'm a hopeless case... ☹️) anyways, yes, bellow control still appears to be a "holy grail" of concertina playing. Best of luck!

actually, we had touched this issue before, so just for completeness' sake: link to discussion I always liked the avatar!

Thank you all, in particular Gary for your kind assessment, that's very flattering! As a side note: I just learned very recently that C.L. Johnson - a very productive, creative and successful musician - passed away 70 years minus 3 weeks ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_L._Johnson). This means among other things that for the next three weeks, there are potential copyright infringement issues; afterwards, his compositions in my understanding become public domain. (Not that it would make a big difference as I don't plan on making any money off the recording anyways... it wo

It's probably not a good timing to post yet another ragtime on concertina after George posted his Maple Reaf Rag landmark rendition about a week ago. Yet this is my "lockdown project - " its'taken me about 8 months gross to get to a reasonably presentable state (no idea about net outcome, I don't play every day). Lotsa things to improve, in particular speed, but I started way too old to become a virtuoso. Oh well. Played on my Holden #3 Crane. Thanks as usual for listening! I've got a few more rags in my pipeline (much to the chagrine of my beloved for who every rag sou

Actually, Alan sent me all of the photos via Email some years back, and for a while I had hosted the set on my private home page (which is what Daniel referred to). After a few years I had noticed no further downloads so I asked around if there was still interest (that's also in the old thread), and when no response came, I took them off to clear data space. I too still have the electronic photos. I'll be happy to make a pdf of the pictures and re post it if there is interest.

Hi Maarten, there is nothing wrong with Dutch folklore! Similarly, there is nothing wrong with German Volkstanzmusik by itself, it's only that one certain horror clown has soiled it with blood and hatred (like everything he ever touched), so I could never relate to it. Anyways, if you're located in the north of France, you should have access to a rich bal folk scene (in fact, my session group is mostly playing bal folk which is very popular in Germany as well). I personally relate more to English and Scottish music, but being able to interact with musicians is so valuab

Hi there Maarten, my advice as someone who HAS taken the wrong road: Do not primarily rely on books, that won't get you anywhere. First thing you *should* do (of course not a very valid option in a world under the C spell) is get involved personally with the scene, most of all: DANCE! If dance music is what you are interested in, you should really know the dances (as David rightly pointed out), ideally as a dancer yourself, second best as a member of a ceilidh band. I'm sure there are (under regular circumstances, of course) dance and session gro

I saw this on Reddit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r7MFgsleaQ&t=0s It was published yesterday. A couple of rather nifty ideas for a DIY project. Some crucial elements (such as corner reinforcements splines in the frames) appear to be on the ahead end of the learning curve, but I certainly enjoyed seeing that. I'm still not sure about the missing reed chamber walls, but maybe that just wasn't included in the video. Way to go!