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RAc

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Everything posted by RAc

  1. What you've done here is (to my mind) part of what TOTM is all about. You felt inspired to add another tune and make it into a set, as long as you appreciate that others may disagree with your choice that's fine. If I were you though I'd probably invest in a heavy duty tin helmet, mixing Irish trad with NE English trad is bad enough but did you have to mix up the time signatures as well? actually, mixing time signatures by itself doesn't appear to be a big deal - one of the cornerstones of my musical library is Hardy's The Caledonian Companion in which there are a number of mixed sets such as Strathspey and Reel or Jig and Reel - of course HERE we're talking all Scottish melodies, and of course you are 100% right that mixing tunes of different cultural backgrounds may stretch it a little bit too much. I wouldn't know. If I were a dancer, I'd probably know which dances can go together and which one's can't, I mixed solely on the grounds of melodical resemblance between the tunes. Again - sincerest apologies if I should have crossed unacceptable boundaries doing so, and if one of the outcomes of that should be that somebody out there can educate me on how to avoid mistakes like that in the future (via PN or in public, doesn't matter), that would already be a significant gain, no?...
  2. well here goes... http://www.ruediger-asche.de/tidbits/fcf_ap_1.mp3 or http://www.ruediger-asche.de/tidbits/fcf_ap_1.wav (higher resolution) Like Spindizzy (whose version I really admire) I whimped out of accompanying myself (I know, Kurt... you tried hard...) There are a few rhythmic hiccups which I am aware of. Other than that - all input welcome. I couldn't resist to tug another tune onto the end - the Armagh polka whose melody to me was so prevelant that tidbits kept creeping into my mind. Apologies if this should be inappropriate - apparently I do not have any knowledge whatsoever about what types of tunes are proper to combine. Again, any input very welcome. This is boatloads of fun. Thanks for putting the TOTM up!!
  3. Hi there Troy, I would expect the price of this instrument to remain constant until about an hour before closing, and then you'll have a bid war that drives the price up to about 890, if not more. Predictable pattern. We had the issue of ebay auctioneering histories before. particularly in the light that you were disappointed once - I'd second (or third?) the recommendation to check out Chris Algar at Barleycorn. You'll never get a bargain from him (he's been in the business way too long), but you'll never be disappointed either; you'll get exactly what you pay for. Not a bad deal in the fickle world of vintage concertinas. I'm sure that Theo's instruments are good value as well.
  4. as far as I can tell, "new content" is everything that has been added within the last 24 hours relative to the time the button "new content" was pressed, regardless of whether one is signed in or not... other forums do this differently.
  5. RAc

    Hehe

    well he did get good ratings from Hobgoblin and Chris Algar, so he can't be that far off...
  6. You may want to check out the Tascam DR-07 mkII. Its batteries last truly forever, and it also has the recordahead feature. Now I understand that you had the predecessor from Tascam, so you may be weary of the name, but when I researched recoders I found a lot of reviews which said that the usability and rebustness of the 07-mkII have been a major improvement over its predecessors. it is also much more affordable than the Sony. I've had the Tascam for about a year now and I'm very satisfied with it.
  7. Well, since your wife plays the (fretless) fiddle, there's probably a good deal more that she could contribute to this discussion... as far as I remember from what my father taught me about music (who played several instruments, among which the violin was one of his favorites), the "note" between G and A would not only be different in a key context but also in a "direction" context - so if I recall correctly, when he would play a scale in A major ending on A, the G# would be closer to the A in pitch to emphasize the guiding note to the root, whereas in a musical phrase (even in A) where the "G#" would be played as a transitional note in a descending scale fragment, he would play it more like an "Ab" (meaning biassed towards the "G" end of the range between G and A) to emphasize the descending character of the phrase... but not always... knowing that there are fretless instruments out there which provide so many more opportunities to vary and shape tone as well as so many more opportunities to make mistakes always remind me just how little I understand about music (and likewise just how much and how intricate of a skill musicianship is).
  8. well, since Ulrich trusted me with his pictures and didn't explicitly object with me putting them up... lucky b******, you! :-) No, seriously, I've seen people put more money on the table for an off the shelf 20 button Lachenal anglo in way worse shape. The least justice you, Ulrich, you can do to this beauty cutie is to learn to play it as well as we all hope we would be able to play our respective instruments... congratulations for this attic find!!
  9. Dunno. I feel sort of attracted to Alan Moore's work which I find pretty sinister, but some of THAT stuff seriously scares the heck out of me...
  10. don't try to lift them out of the pan; take out the entire pan and push them out towards the rim of the pan.
  11. Many many Thanks for composing and playing this very nice piece and sharing it!
  12. Funny that nobody has mentioned Rainer Süßmilch yet - he plays fairly hardcore Jazz on his English Concertina - great stuff. I haven't been able to find a soundclip on the net, but it seems like there are only theoretical boundaries on what he can do... he also plays in various ensembles.
  13. Hi there, we had this before - the person you want to refer to primarily is Mr. Crane, aka Kurt Braun (who also offers excellent Skype lessons for Crane duet) - see here for example, post #3 (please ignore my preceding rubbish in the thread): http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=12765 This here probably is the definite guide to starting fingering on the Crane (also by Kurt): http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=12821 welcome to the Crane community! If you haven't done so, why not check here: http://www.craneconcertina.com/ And yes, fourths are the achilles heel of Crane duet playing - every system has its problems...
  14. RAc

    Lachenal Anglo

    you may want to check here: http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=13180 It's the standard "off the shelf" (pun optional) type they're offering here... nothing left to add on top of what's been written before. Happy New Year to Everybody!
  15. I completly agree with above suggestions - in particular with the one that says don't force anything - the music must seep it, and that takes as long as it takes... One thing you may want to consider is splitting the learning the tune from playing the instrument. I've mentioned this before, but one thing that works for me is use idle periods (such as the time in bed before dozing off or periods at work where I wait for a compilation run to finish) to "mentally play the tune" to memorize it - you may even move your fingers over a virtual concertina to aid the process. In many tunes, there will be sections that you can memorize easily but individual places where you simply can't remember what note comes next - these transitions can well be mentally trained as outlined above. Go over the critical places again and again, initially with the sheet music in sight, but force your eyes away when it comes to those sections, and by and by you'll iron out the hiccups. May not work for everybody, but it does for me...
  16. why, it's our very own Jody playing here, so why not ask him?...
  17. why, those are very insightful and highly interesting observations - lots of food for thought!! If it's true that music can be defined and classified via attachment to the body of the musician, then we could probably "rank" musical instruments by the degree of the attachment, with the voice being the closest and, say, MIDI recorded on a touchscreen (where there is not even a physical relationship between the source of the sound and the tactile senses as opposed to for example the keys of a concertina via the levers and the pads) the farthest. Interesting. The question is then whether any valuation can or should be tagged on to the scale - folkies would respond, "why, of course - I'd dump any electronic music for a good ol' fiddle and dulcimer any day," but a lot of musicians from other walks of life would probably argue along the lines of "rubbish. Music is music. It's important what you hear, not how it is produced and what the attachment to the physical limitations of something as imperfect as the human body are." So we're in religion land now which is all about beliefs... Don't get me wrong, I'm as much of a folk nut as you (and fortunately many on this forum) are, and I don't really relate to modern electronic music - just like you (I think), I want to experience the human behind the music (with his/her limitations, shortcomings, anxieties, emotions and the whole spiel) as much as the music itself when I listen to it. But in the digital age, we seem to be a species on the verge of extinction. I've never liked the music industry with its approach of looking at music as a sellable product and the musician behind it as a cost factor to be cut down on to increase revenue - however, the more detached music gets from the musician (iow, the "farther away" on the voicetomidiscale outlined above - the more interesting it appears to become to the bean counters for obvious reasons. But I don't care a whole lot - as long as there still is music alive in the sense that you can see the sweat on the musicians forehand and feel the trembling of his hands while listening to his music, I'll take it any day, and I'm willing to pay for it, even though lots of people these days belive in free art (brainwashed by Napster, YouTube etc). I can see your point about the closeness of the accordina to the human bellows, but the argument could also be turned around: Isn't it at the end HARDER to be as expressive on the concertina than on the accordina because OF the detachment? Or, put the other way around, won't a player of the "same level" (I know, this is getting into very murky waters here) on the concertina by definition be less expressive than a comparable accordina player because the latter has the advantage of directly translating his innermost to the instrument? I don't have an answer to or a position about this question, this is just something that came to my mind. Well, now I've written a letter to myself in turn to yours and carbon copied half the world. Apologies, but I felt like it...
  18. where are you located? chris algar will give you a good estimate for little money, but you'll need to factor in the shipment to him...
  19. Great, thanks for the info! I remember working with Hylomar very many years ago, and it did the job it was supposed to do back then perfectly - but obviously I never got to the reversal part. Sounds like a piece of overpromising marketing to me...
  20. Interesting that this comes up... I have for a long time pondered with trying this here one: http://www.hylomar.com/ Hylomar Universal Blue reads like it was designed to do the job; has anyone ever tried it? Well, it's certainly far from traditional, but that shouldn't necessarily be a reason for or against it...
  21. well congrats and welcome to our secret society. Naturally, Crane players assemble hooded in unpublished places (normally moist cellars in deserted houses in remote areas) at unpublished times (normally after midnight) and identify each other by unconspicuous tattoos whose design is (naturally) secret but derives from African voodoo mythology. No, just kidding (am I? ). You may want to stop by here every once in a while: http://www.craneconcertina.com/ and if you are looking for good and qualified instructions, I can recommend Mr. Crane aka Kurt Braun (also on this forum) whom you'll undoubtdly have come across already.
  22. ... on second thought... The captain, still smiling, stands still, realizing a sound to be heard rather vaguely - as the next raft he's seizing his eyes meet appeasing stares of yet another young lady etc. But still I believe we should leave this variation for "The Portsmouth Stowaway" v 2.0... (is that the agreed upon title, btw)?
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