Wolf Molkentin

Hi John, thank you so much for taking the time for your in-depth commenting and advising. Your contrasting ornamentation and harmonisation is new to me but appears to be quite suggestive, all the more with reference to a harpist. I will certainly experiment with the choice of either the one or the other, with possible stages in-between and probably some allowances as well. My true responding will of course have to be an improved recording which I'm eager to prepare and execute as soon as the workload both jobwise and private shall let me do that. Your other points are well made too; I have been inclined to diversify running through a piece many-times but seem to fall back to the enthusiasm of immersing myself in the sweet sounds of the fully-developed version. With the second tune - which I primarily wanted to play and record - I have a "thinner" version included, not just in the treble range but even less spreaded. I really like this interposed reduction of volume and saturation... As to the shortness of grace notes - IMO there's at least one exeption: an ornamentation which we - at least in the playing of Alistair Anderson - often come across in Northumbrian tunes (and maybe Irish as well), in endings like E - C - C there is a trill (Triller in German, I'm not sure about the proper name in any Anglo-Irish-American tradition) on the E, which seems to be waisted if played too rapidly. Re Fanny Power I absolutely agree with you and previous posters. I'm glad over your words about the sound of my Tenor Treble Aeola - in fact I started my recordings with the Excelsior back in 2013 without any equalisation and later on added just a touch of that. The three recordings with the model 24 however seemed to need to be corrected to a higher degree in order not to, well, hurt... But with the Aeola, everything was lovely and perfect. I just added some digital reverb, but the sound was basically the same without. So thank you again, and I will come back to the subjec(s) after some checking out and practising... Best wishes - 🐺

adding: bar 7 of section A, start with A-min (or, again, F-maj), bar 3 of section B, replace E-min with A-min. Of course, just suggestions, but I was trying to keep things within your concept, as far as I get it. In my own playing Greensleeves F-maj is rather prominent I guess... Best wishes - 🐺

Having listened to the video once I seem to hear Amin as suggested in the seventh bar...

Hi Robin, as the A section avoids the sixth entirely you could very well change the key signature to one sharp = A Dorian for the entire tune. I can't listen to your recording or play from the sheet at the moment, but re the harmonies I would at least suggest to have C Maj in the first and fifth bar of section B, maybe adjust some more bars, possibly first half of the seventh bar of the B section to A min or F Maj. Hope that makes sense and I'm not mistaken just reading everything from the screen. Best wishes - 🐺

Thanks a lot, Chris and Alex, first I have to say that albeit mostly playing with lots of bounce (as anyone who has listened to my playing will be able to confirm) I never experienced a "choking" reed (or anything even near to that), not even with the Excelsior which appears to be a parlour instrument per excellence. The same is true for both instruments I'm playing these days. Reversely, with the TT Aeola I'm for the first time experiencing a certain unevenness of multiple reeds beginning to speak at low pressure, or - as Chris has put it - a lack of control over note starts. Also a slight delay as mentioned is felt, even with moderate pressure, and the quiet sounding at low pressure is a bit breathy, so maybe the phenomena are closer to what Chris has outlined than my inaccurate description suggested. OTOH the extra "cut" is a certain if not stunning "clearness" of the tone, combined with some kind of staccato or rather portato when playing scales rapidly. This is what I really like, an added distinctiveness to my playing resp. sounds - which is so very different from the (very fat and "present", with the risk of involuntarily "slurring" consecutive notes) sound of the model 24 that Alex' suggestion might be on the right track. Amazing...- no real issue at all, all that just puzzles me... Best wishes - 🐺

Excerpt from another thread - think I might make another try under a specific headline: With my new Aeola TT I get the impression that the reeds are in a way set to maximum volume and "cut" (apparently rather high) which causes them to speak rather quiet under low pressure with a "leap" to a much higher volume with the bellows pressed or pulled more boldly. May this be a desired feature as it leads to a very distinct attack with I came to like very much? I just played the instrument again against the „screaming“ model 24, which is indeed much louder but raises its voice continuously from the moderate to the extreme, which is of course nice as well but a different thing (both are ME Wheatstone instruments). Any thoughts? Thanks in advance for the attention! Best wishes - 🐺

I'm not sure if it's adequate to add my own question here (and I hope the OP won't mind me doing so), but here it is: With my new Aeola TT I get the impression that the reeds are in a way set to maximum volume and "cut" (apparently rather high) which causes them to speak rather quiet under low pressure with a "leap" to a much higher volume with the bellows pressed or pulled more boldly. May this be a desired feature as it leads to a very distinct attack with I came to like very much? Best wishes - 🐺 P.S.: just as a precaution, I guess I can rule out the valves as determining factor in this case... Edit: see separate thread now...

At least this doesn't really apply to JSB, as he did not write his music for any instrument A or B or whatever; au contraire there are - as I'm sure you will already know - pieces which can best be let shine by, say, a brass ensemble instead of a keyboard - it's particularly the "Art of Fugue" I have in mind here; similarly the as famous as beautiful Trio Sonatas, written out as pieces for the organ, can gain so much being played by multiple instruments, be it woodwind or bowed or whatever, one for each voice/part, and the experience can then be reintroduced in one's keyboard playing. So I would very much welcome every fellow concertinist (Anglo, English, Duet - whatever) playing Baroque pieces and thereby hopefully expanding the vision of this wonderful music. Some of us are doing this already, starting with rather basic scores or arrangements (and then there are the likes of Adrian Brown and Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne of course...). If one is setting his or her sights high, including complete keyboard scores, I'm eager to listen to the results.

Alex, by increasing you mean widening the gap through bending the reed „upward“, don‘t you? Best wishes - 🐺

John, I guess next to no one will make such a claim. It's all just about expanding the options IMO... (and I'm saying that contre-coeur here if you will, as I'm always including plenty of harmony myself - or stick to my various recorders...) Best wishes - Wolf

I strongly agree. This kind of knowledge (or perhaps even imagination) can be of help in certain given circumstances (of course I like the idea of the EC being designed as replacement of the fiddle, inspiring me to rely very much on open fifths and copy some fiddle techniques f.i.), but I would not let it get in my way of developing an individual approach to the instrument. The EC has "pinky rests" on each end, meant for the little (and probably as well ring) finger to hold the instrument in combination with the thumb and thus leaving only two or at the maximum three fingers left and right for pushing the buttons. The idea of "freeing" the pinkies came later, and therewith the chance of playing full-fledged harmonies, even with an extra "bass" note on a tenor treble, thus taking avantage of all the 96 resp. 112 reeds, with up to 48 resp. 56 reeds being ready to sound simultaneously. Maybe the original intent was even a "single-melody" instrument, just as it is used today by many. Anyway, it is perfectly capable of so much more... Best wishes - Wolf

...and what I had been presuming meanwhile...

Thanks a lot John - it's a great LP which I however only have listened to on Spotify where they wouldn't give you any liner notes... 😎 (nice Autograph BTW) Best wishes - Wolf

At this place I'd rather consider the reed organ... 🤗

good to be able to read his notes on „Old French“ as well, John - so thank you for taking the time to scan and post the cover from my side as well! Best wishes - 🐺