Johanna
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Posts
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Posts posted by Johanna
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For what it's worth, I played my concertina at an old-time session last night. Nobody said or did anything to remotely suggest that I wasn't welcome, and some people commented that they liked the difference in sound that it added. I fully maintain that there's a place for a concertina wherever you choose to show up with one.
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Not sure I see what the problem is. You know that there's at least one "maverick" in the world who plays Dylan songs on the concertina, so why can't you be another?
I'd argue that strictly speaking, there's no such thing as a "traditional genre of concertina music." The concertina itself is less than 200 years old, and English and Irish traditional music are a lot older than that. Those genres were going strong before the concertina was even an idea in Charles Wheatstone's mind. Then the concertina came along and invited itself in, and now it seems like a welcome part of the tradition that's always been there. And if that happened before, it can happen again with other genres.
I often take my (English) concertina out to rock and pop music jams, and people love it (or at least, they say they do). The concertina can mimic parts for fiddle/strings, harmonica, keyboard, brass/horns, or it can just add a welcome difference of musical texture in a room where everybody else is playing guitars and ukuleles. I also accompany myself at open mics (on all kinds of songs, including country and Americana) all the time, to the same effect. I firmly believe that all music needs more concertina, and all you need is the confidence to show up and play.
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D'oh, sorry. Is it better now?
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In honor of World Concertina Day, I've worked up the courage to film myself on purpose. So here you go:
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I still think it's hilarious that they wanted me to play on that song. But they've been more accommodating than they needed to be of my non-standard instrument elbowing its way into their rock'n'roll jam, and I'm grateful for any opportunity to demonstrate that all music needs more concertina.
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The below video requires some explanation. This is from "Instaband," a community jam session of sorts, where prior to this performance, we all had two weeks to learn our parts (or in my case, wholly invent it), and we did not rehearse together as a group at all. The result, as you might imagine, does not always turn out well.
All that said, get a load of this: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LbGrDR3Qc3X8AyVXjEowd84rjkS-xWP3/view?usp=sharing
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Thanks. I did redo all the pads that were letting any noticeable white light through (as opposed to red light filtering through the wood) when I held a bright LED underneath the action board. Then I briefly put the end plate back in place to line up the buttons, then checked them again with the LED. The tightness is much, much improved after that, although maybe still not quite as good as it used to be before the old pads started falling off. I'll try the blowing-through-the-action-board test if I can figure out a good way to do it. (I vaguely recall doing something similar once before using a bubble tea straw and a wad of poster putty. I'll see if I can retrace my steps.)
I really appreciate the willingness of everyone here to share their expertise.
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Irish tunes in F, you say? It's not traditional, but I can't get enough of this:
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Thanks, both of you - that's really helpful. I'll try tinkering with it some more.
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In the continuing saga of the leaky Aeola...
I continued to have problems with pads coming loose and falling off - even the ones I'd just reglued. Upon closer inspection, the cardboard backing in the pads and the leather (or whatever it is - it looks more like cotton) in the mounting discs were deteriorating, so that each pad was potentially failing in multiple places. So the Aeola has got a new set of pads (purchased from Bob Snope and just installed by me) for a belated 101st birthday present. I've installed new pads one or two at a time before, but never a whole set all at once.
I see in the Maintenance Manual that it says to wait at least a week before expecting the new pads to bed into place and form effective seals. So I will try to be patient and not expect too much right away. Indeed, some of the notes are nicely responsive already, but others are much, much less so - and the less responsive notes correspond to pads that aren't yet sealing well (they let bits of white light through when I try the flashlight test; the light goes away when I push the pad down into place with my fingers, but it comes back when I press and release the key). I take it this is all normal?
Is there anything else I should be on the lookout for while I wait for the new pads to settle in? (E.g., there was quite a lot of debris flying around as a result of removing all the old crumbling pads. I tried to clear it away, especially from around the holes, but it's possible that I could have missed some, and that it could be interfering with the new seals.)
And also...while using the flashlight, I happened to notice that at least one of the holes for the screws that hold the endplates in place goes clear through the pad board. That's a source of air loss, right? I imagine that when the screw is in place, it will block the hole somewhat, but I can't imagine it's forming an airtight seal. Is there a good fix for that?
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Thanks for the comparison. I'm surprised that the piano bushing cloth is so much thicker - the listings I've seen make it sound like it should be around 1 mm thick, or maybe a tiny bit more.
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Are there any cool Welsh-language songs you can recommend?
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53 minutes ago, Dylan W said:
I'm leaning towards a new instrument for my first because of the difficulty getting repairs, so yeah needing to ship something internationally is a factor to think about.
If there's any chance that you'll ever want to get into the vintage concertina game, you'll want to get comfortable doing basic repairs yourself. Maybe, in parallel with getting your next "real" instrument, you could get a cheaper vintage concertina, like a 20-button Lachenal that's in good-but-not-great shape, and a copy of the Concertina Maintenance Manual, and just practice opening up the ends and doing some basic things like changing a valve or a spring. Then, if you ever do decide to get a nicer Lachenal, Wheatstone, Jeffries, etc., those kinds of tasks won't seem so intimidating.
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More geeking out on what the words mean...
Near the end of the song there's a line that goes (phonetically) "och, nay nay." You might guess that that means "Oh, no no," and according to the English translation, you'd be right.
But Cornish doesn't have words for "yes" and "no" - at least, not according to this, which is just about as much of the language as I've actually studied. You answer yes/no questions by repeating the verb: "Are you a student?" "I am, I am a student."
By that standard, the line would have to go "Shall I wake thee? Oh, I shan't, I shan't." I guess that Richard Gendall, the songwriter, was either employing poetic license to get the line to scan or appealing to higher-level linguistic knowledge that I don't have.
And back to the song that I originally posted...
"Gwrello Glaw" means "Let It Rain." It's a song about getting through the winter together, which is why it's been on my mind now, even though I learned it a few months ago. If you've ever spent a winter in the southwest of Britain, you may know that it doesn't get especially cold, but it's very wet, very gloomy, and very dark. Hence the particular weather metaphor. And hence my third-favorite piece of Cornish-language trivia:
Cornish is a descendant of the Celtic language that was spoken alongside Latin in Roman Britain. So while it's distinctively Celtic, it's also about 30% of the way to being a Romance language. And you can see that in the names for the months of the year. Half of them are cognates of the Latin/English/general Western European names (e.g., April and May are "mis Ebrel" and "mis Me"), and the other half are their own thing. November is "mis Du," which translates as "the dark month." December is "mis Kevardhu," whose meaning is not totally clear but which at least arguably translates as "the even more darker month." It's a language after my seasonal-affective-disordered heart.
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Well, if we're going to get into details...
Although "Dy Sul Vyttin" is described as a "traditional folk song" in various places on the internet, this says that it was written in 1979. I think the latter is far more likely to be true: The subject matter of the lyrics - gazing dreamily at your sleeping lover on a lazy Sunday morning - is not how people typically talked about each other in traditional folk songs. (Especially not Cornish ones. The Cornish language entered its decline around the time of the Protestant Reformation, so for a traditional Cornish-language folk song to have had any sticking power, it would have to have been medieval in origin, which Dy Sul Vyttin is pretty clearly not.)
All of which is to say: Wootton's version (recorded in 1982, according to the link above) basically is the original, and everyone else's arrangements are heavily influenced by hers.
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That's a great song. Tanya Brittain (who wrote all three of the Cornish-language songs that I know) also recorded it:
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1 hour ago, John Wild said:
I don't know the language
Neither does about 99.99996% of the world's population (including me). But learning songs in languages that I don't speak is a fun way to challenge my brain.
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1 hour ago, Matt Heumann said:
Nice, I think one thing that might make it more diverse would be to vary what notes you are playing in the chord or even go up or down the chord to create a more melodic sound. I try to never hold any group of chord notes very long but use split chords going up if the voice is going down or down if the voice is going up.
If you look at the sheet music in my "Queer Bungle Rye" video, there are very few chords, in fact the first 4 measures are all the same chord, but i really break 'em up to create a very melodic experience. I also try to create bridges that are melodic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUtLeBJ_c1w
Thanks, Matt - that's a useful way to think about it. I'm already at the bottom of the range on my treble, so the only way to go is up. I'd dismissed higher voicings as sounding too shrill (on this song - I use them on other songs), but maybe I need to revisit that. Will play around with it some more - I have a week and a half to get this into shape for an open mic.
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Hey, I finally re-figured out how to make audio recordings that don't sound like I'm inside a tin can, so I might as well share them with the whole world, right?
https://soundcloud.com/johannam17/gwrello-glaw
I welcome suggestions on the arrangement. It's a bit samey, and I know it could do with some variation of...something...between verses, choruses, and bridge, but I'm not sure what.
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From where I sit, no, a concertina is not an accordion. But "a concertina is like an accordion" is close enough to being true, and goes a long enough way toward satisfying curious passersby who want to know what this thing is that I'm playing, that that's what I'll reach for as a first-level explanation.
If they ask what the differences are, I'll explain that each one of the buttons plays only one note, unlike on (most) accordions, where at least some of the buttons play chords. I can play chords, but I have to build them up from the individual notes.
If they still want to know more, I'll get into the EC's left-right alternating pitch layout that only an English physicist could have come up with. That's usually enough for them to conclude that I'm actually crazy, and they let me get back to playing.
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Liberty Bellows has several concertinas in stock that are listed as new (i.e., not used) Stagis. (They're also extremely expensive compared to what I remember Stagis used to go for.) I guess they know something the rest of the world doesn't?
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In discussions here about sources of bushing felt, it's often lamented that many places have minimum order quantities that are huge compared to the amount needed for concertina purposes. So I thought I'd share this:
https://www.maharam.com/knoll-textiles/products/knoll-felt/colors/009-rouge
They'll send you a free 8-inch-square sample (up to four of them at a time, I think) of whatever you ask for. It says this stuff is 100% wool and felted, and I can confirm that it's woven. I just used it to rebush a button on my Aeola whose cross-hole bushing had fallen out. I guess it's a little thicker than ideal - it took me several tries of packing it down with a toothpick before the lever arm would move freely, but it does seem to be working now.
In the past, I've used free samples of their other products to make baffles for some cheap-and-cheerful but loud concertinas. It's a good source for small quantities of material.
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23 hours ago, Roger Hare said:
Drifting a little...
I have an acquaintance who recently acquired an old D/A Scholer Anglo, and he's looking for 'simple' tunes in D and A to use as a basis for learning to play the thing. I'm currently wading through the tunes in my 'master tune book' to find a few for him, but haven't yet come up with anything outstanding. Any simple tunes to suggest - in D or A? He's musical (piano), so I think he's actually looking for (I think) 'English' tunes usually played in D and A, rather than transposed tunes (if you see what I mean)...
Ta.
These might not meet the "simple" requirement, but for English tunes in D, I like Off She Goes, (The Moon and) Seven Stars, and Random Notes (also called The Random Jig).
Tunes in A are harder to come by, but if Irish tunes are of any interest, I can offer The Handsome Young Maidens, Health to the Ladies, and The Mouse in the Kitchen. Bill Sullivan's Polka might even meet the "simple" criterion. Bye A While, by Padraig Rynne, is another one I've been enjoying lately, mostly for its excellent use of the high C# in the B part.
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I'm interested. But can you confirm the diameter of the brass inserts? I'm not sure if there's a standard size for these, but I need to make sure they fit where they need to.
How to improve airtightness?
in Instrument Construction & Repair
Posted
An update on this story, in case anyone's still interested (and for the sake of posterity):
After I replaced all the pads and was reasonably confident that they were aligned as well as I could get them, I left them alone for a while, and they seem to have settled into place nicely. But the instrument's responsiveness was still temperamental.
At first I thought it was a dry-air issue, so I started taking more care with humidification. That seemed to help somewhat, but not completely.
Then, a week or two ago, the spring tension on one of the keys suddenly got very soft. I opened up the action box, and the spring was mostly sheared through. I replaced the spring, and that seems (knock on wood) to have resolved everything.
I don't know how long the spring was in the process of failing before I noticed it, or how much a single weak spring can contribute to a feeling of leakiness, or how many other broken springs I can look forward to in the near future. When Bob Snope serviced the instrument last year, he noted that the pads and springs were all the originals from 1924, but that they seemed at that time to be in good condition, so he opted not to replace them. It took only a few months after that for the pads to start failing in rapid succession, so I guess the springs might now be doing the same. I suspect that this poor lovely instrument just hadn't been played that much in her lifetime before she got to me, so she's not used to the stresses I've been putting her through.