Mary B
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Posts posted by Mary B
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The San Diego concertina group will meet on Sunday, June 24, from 1 to 4 pm.
The location is the home of Mary B near the Del Mar Heights exit off the I-5 freeway.
Players of all styles of music are welcome.
Please contact Mary B by personal message or e-mail for her address.
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Due to personal reasons, Mary B has had to cancel the San Diego concertina meeting at her home.
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The San Diego concertina club will meet on Sunday, May 20, from 1 to 4 pm.
The location is the home of Mary B near the Del Mar Heights exit off the I-5 freeway.
Players of all styles of music are welcome.
Please contact Mary B by personal message or e-mail for the address.
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The San Diego concertina club will meet on Sunday, April 22, from 1 to 4 pm.
The location is the home of Mary B near the Del Mar Heights exit off the I-5 freeway.
Players of all styles of music are welcome to attend.
Please contact Mary B by personal message or e-mail for the address.
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Russell,
Sorry to contradict you, but there were actually eight players: 3 anglo, 4 EC, and 1 Crane.
I hope everyone will join us at future meetings.
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Russell, I am glad you will be able to attend.
I have received inquiries from some others who may join, too. It would be wonderful for the club to grow larger.
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Mr Tree,
I have sent you a PM with my address and the information about the meeting.
Thanks to everyone who told him about our group.
Saguaro-squeezer is correct. I have played the English concertina for 16 months and the Crane duet for 3 months.
I like both of them, depending on the type of music I wish to play.
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The San Diego Concertina club will meet on Sunday, March 25, from 1 to 3 pm.
The location is the home of Mary B near the Del Mar Heights exit off the I-5 freeway.
Players of all styles of music and all levels of experience are welcome.
Please contact Mary B by personal message or email for her address.
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I like the Paul Hardy session tune book which is available free on his website. It has about 360 tunes with a variety of styles.
Another free online source for the English concertina is tangosite.com/concertina. It includes many styles too.
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I had several years of piano lessons as a child, and played it again as an adult about twenty-five years ago to accompany Sunday school music. I now use the piano to practice the alto parts for choir songs. After college I learned to play recorder and autoharp. I can still play recorder with a bit of practice, but I do not do it often. I played guitar for about four years in the late 80's to accompany myself singing folk songs. I relearned how to play guitar three years ago, and was at the intermediate level but my guitar playing has regressed because I bought an English concertina 14 months ago. I play folk song tunes and simple classical pieces fairly well on the EC. I dabbled with a borrowed anglo concertina for two months playing carols and Irish slow airs on it. I bought a Crane duet four weeks ago. I feel as though I will be a beginner on it for a long time.
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The 48 key Lachenal Crane which I received early this month from Chris Algar has the number 378 printed on the little opening on the left side. It has the number C&S 6978 stamped into the right hand bar. I have never opened the instrument to find the internal number. Chris told me it has steel reeds, but there is no stamp with those words on the bar. I am not sure I would be able tell if the reeds are steel or brass by looking at them when I do open the concertina. The buttons for the C's are red, and the accidentals are black. I assume that means it is a "tutor" model, which is fine since I am just learning to play it.
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The San Diego concertina club will meet on Sunday, January 22, from 1 to 3 pm.
The location is the home of Mary B near the Del Mar Heights exit off the I-5 freeway.
Players from beginner to expert are welcome to play any style of music.
Please contact Mary B by personal message or e-mail to get the address.
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Daniel, thanks for letting me know that this tone difference might be due to a replacement reed which is not something I could fix.
Geoff, I really appreciate your advice to play the problem notes to "wake them up" because my inclination was to avoid playing them, which would be the wrong thing to do! From the musty smell of the instrument, it probably was not played for a long time before I bought it.
Jody, I have not tried recording myself, but I will play for a friend and see if she can hear the difference from a distance. Thanks for your encouragement to enjoy the instrument and the thrill of making music in spite of a few imperfections. This is my first vintage concertina, and I love its tone on most of the notes. It sure is an improvement over my Jackie EC. I think the duet will inspire more creativity because I like trying to play harmonies with a song melody, which I found difficult on the EC. I borrowed an anglo, and discovered that I could play carols on it, but could not sing with it due to the need for too much concentration on whether to push or pull. I hope the duet will work better for song accompaniment. Playing concertina is a grand adventure.
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I started playing my Crane duet 4 days ago. Today when I was playing a tune that needed a melody note on the left side of the concertina, I noticed that the texture of the note B sounded different from the notes on the right side. It seemed "honkier" than the others. I then compared the overlapping notes, and the ones on the left had a very different sound from the ones of the same pitch on the right side. Since I have never seen or heard another Crane duet, I do not know if this normal. The instrument is an early (serial #378) 48 key Lachenal with steel reeds which was recently restored and tuned to concert pitch by Chris Algar. Has anyone else noticed something similar in his/her instrument?
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Ruediger, thanks for the links to Kurt's answers. I forgot to do a search to see if the topic had been covered before.
Saguaro-sqeezer, I have not tried to play chords yet. I am starting with melodies, and trying to play them with the right or left hand, and then in octaves with both hands together (I haven't managed the octaves yet).
Jim, I was playing Amazing Grace in G, but I noticed that C uses the same location of notes just one row higher. I used my right pinky on the low D at the beginning of the tune, and my ring finger on the G that follows. I think my problem may be that my pinky is much shorter than my other fingers like yours is. I appreciate your advice about the high B flat. I have not tried any tune in F yet. I should try Amazing Grace in that key since there is no B flat in it, and it would start with an index/middle sequence. I was playing Aura Lee and Shenandoah in G today, and realized that they start with the same fourth interval jump of D to G. I hope I will get better at the pinky/ring combination with more practice, since it happens quite often. Thanks for telling me that fourths need planning ahead. I do not have any problems playing index/middle and middle/ring sequences because my fingers are used to those from the EC. I had no idea that hand rests could be moved. I haven't tried to play anything on the really high notes, so I do not know how well my fingers reach them. Thanks for all your suggestions.
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I just got a 48 button Lachenal Crane duet yesterday. I have downloaded the Wilton-Bulstrode and Salvation Army tutors, but have not studied them much. After practicing the C scale, I tried playing some of my favorite tunes. When I played "Amazing Grace" I used the fingering method I learned for 5th's on my English concertina (tucking a different finger under or over) whenever there was a 4th interval. I was dismayed at how difficult it was, especially with my short pinky finger. Today I started working through the exercises in the tutors. I noticed that both authors say to jump the same finger up or down to play a 4th interval. I was wondering how the experienced Crane players do this. I really prefer the legato sound one gets by tucking fingers. Is it possible to do this on a Crane?
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dshep,
Can you tell me how many bellow folds there are? I cannot count them very well in the photo.
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There is an online anglo tutor by Simon Wells at the website, concertutor.wordpress.com, which has a section on cross-row playing. He describes a couple ways to play a D scale. There is also a link to an article by David Levine that describes the cross-row style of Noel Hill. Unfortunately, the C# which David mentions does not exist on the Rochelle. Thus, you should use the LH push B on the G row before the push C# on the first button of the RH accidental row. Good luck with learning the anglo. I am new to it, too, but I am more interested in playing folk songs than ITM.
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The Paul Hardy Session tune book has chords (letters) written above the melody line of the tunes. You could then write in one or two of the notes belonging to the chord below the melody notes to give the harmony you want. The tune book can be found on Paul Hardy's website and downloaded for free. It has more than 300 tunes with several O'Carolan ones.
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I play one part (and a pianist friend plays the other two parts) of recorder trios composed by Corelli, Hayden, and Mozart. It would be fun to play with three concertinas. I will have to ask the members of the San Diego concertina club if they want to try this classical music. At our last meeting we played two Irish slow airs with three part harmony. That was a wonderful experience.
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The San Diego concertina club will meet on Sunday, September 25, from 1 to 3 pm.
The location is the home of Mary B near the Del Mar Heights exit off the I-5 freeway.
Players of all ability levels are welcome.
Please contact Mary B by personal message or e-mail for her address.
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Leo,
Thank you for explaining how to link to a post. I will make a note of your explanation.
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This post is in response to StephenTx asking for help with locating the buttons on an EC.
I found that following the suggestions of Jim Lucas was very helpful for me.
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Jim Lucas wrote on the topic of "Concertina Orienteering" several years ago. Unfortunately I do not know how to post a link to it. I will find it again with the search function and bump it up to the present time.
Concertina player wins Cowboy Idol contest in Kenton OH
in General Concertina Discussion
Posted
Congratulations, Alan.
The only one of those songs I know is Red River Valley; it is one of my favorites.