Dan Worrall
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Posts posted by Dan Worrall
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My interests have moved on, and I'm not going to renew the charges on my anglo concertina website. If there is anything on there that any of you would wish to download, please feel free to take it before August 5, when I will pull the plug. It was fun and useful for a time, but I haven't updated that site now for ages.
The site is
If you poke around a bit, you'll find some research articles, and some photos of 'concertina trips' to South Africa and Australia a few years ago...those trips were great fun.
Cheers,
Dan
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Kalie de Jager passed away yesterday. Not himself a concertina player, Kalie spent many, many hours collecting and preserving old 78rpm recordings of Boeremusiek, and was a tireless supporter of this music. He was a founding member of both the Traditional Boeremusiek Club of South Africa and the more modernist Boeremusiek Guild. Thanks to him and some others, many of us have had the opportunity to hear some of the classic old recordings of this style of concertina music. Rest in peace, Kalie.
Dan
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I think it is appropriate to make known the circumstances surrounding the decision to launch a new online website for academic research and the issues with the ICA that have lead to us proceeding without ICA involvement. I should make it clear at the outset that I have been a life member of the ICA for over 30 years and support its aims; I was also on the editorial board of PICA and its predecessor ‘The Free Reed Journal’.
PICA 10 was the last. The editor, Allan Atlas, who had been tireless and rigorous in his editorial role, was retiring from his academic post and thought that this was the time to stand down. There were other issues as well; it was proving increasingly difficult to find articles (and people willing and able to write them) which satisfied the research standards and methodology which were required by a major university. Annual publication was increasingly difficult. Furthermore, PICA 10 was submitted for publication nearly 2 years before it was finally printed; the online versions were also slow to reach the ICA website.
At the 2014 AGM, I spoke to the tiny gathering about the plans that Allan, Dan and Randy had for an online ‘Son of PICA’ and asked the ICA if they would like this to continue under their imprimatur and on the ICA website. The committee were interested and said they would get back to us with a decision. For a year nothing happened. The draft minutes were not published so the membership was unaware of our plans. Eventually I wrote to the committee asking for an update and received a reply stating that nothing had been done. Months later I wrote again and got a similar reply. By this time it was over three years since PICA 10 was ready for publication and some good articles had been waiting in the wings. It is not fair on those who have worked hard and written a good article to sit on it for any length of time; we had to make a decision and we decided that the ICA had been given more than enough time to express its opinion on whether or not to host us on their site and under their banner. We were asking for no more than that.
Incidentally, Dan did approach Bob Gaskins but his website is currently resting as has been said in an earlier post.
Sorry this has been dry and dusty, but there was clearly interest in this background.
Best wishes,
Roger
Roger, I think that you misrepresent the ICA position. There have certainly been some problems, many of them my fault, but moving forward the International Concertina Association would be happy to host "son of PICA" on its website.
Will send you an address to reach the committee.
Best wishes, Roger (until recently secretary to the ICA)
Roger,
From my perspective, Roger (Digby) didn't stretch anything. He tried over a two year period to get something to happen - we were asking for almost nothing - and the lack of response from the ICA was deafening. The two or three year lapse in getting out the last completed PICA was also disheartening, especially to the authors. Thanks for the offer now to do something, but we have obtained a website and webmaster and will try our hand, with a first product in coming months. It is probably best that we are in full command of the site.
Like Roger D., I have nothing but the highest regard for the ICA, and especially for Pauline's great work on Concertina World.
To all who responded with offers to help on the new website, many, many thanks! Alex Holden is taking on that work, and we are excited to finally be off to the races.
Cheers,
Dan
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The four of us are planning an on-line website to publish academic articles on issues related to the concertina. We are looking for a fifth colleague to take on the role of Webmaster. If this might be of interest to you please send a pm to Dan Worrall (danworrall"AT"msn.com, or via this Forum's pm facility).
Allan Atlas
Roger Digby
Randall Merris
Dan Worrall
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Congrats for the fifteen minutes of fame, Bob! Imagine how less famous you would have been building banjos.....
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Another great Palestine weekend completed...and here is the photo of most of the attendees and their concertinas. Thanks to all who made it a success, and to Jody for all his efforts and music!
Cheers,
Dan
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Good thought!
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Oh. Right.
So who is the vicar here? I hope they don't charge a tithe!
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The quintessential Oxford Anglo Player was the late William Kimber of Heddington Quarry, Oxford.
Dan Worral, of this parish has written a book about his playing; giving the exact buttons, and bellows direction of the notes he played on both sides of an anglo at the same time, All the tunes, except I think only one, he played originally on a 20 button anglo. He made quite extensive use of harmony, which is all accurately notated in Dan's book. The book also gives examples of other more recent players ways of playing these tunes, including the virtuoso Anglo player and broadcaster John Kirkpatric.
This book should be in every Anglo players library, especially an Oxford Anglo player.
Inventor..
Thanks for the plug, inventor; glad you liked the book. I'm not from that parish however; they speak Texan where I live.
I just logged on and found this thread, so here is my two cents' worth on harmonic playing. Like anything else concertina, there are varied styles and varied levels of difficulties. The reason I like Kimber's style so much for harmonic playing is that he is a minimalist. Once one learns to play a melody in octaves, then it is pretty much just a matter of adding a third note above or below the bass end of the octave pair, making a partial chord. Then drop out some of the bass octaves/partials that are off the beat, while still playing the melody notes on the right hand, and you have instant rhythm and chords.
No need in this style for oompahs. No insistence on the three chord trick...Kimber played what sounded good to him even if it didn't fit that rather rigid system that modern pop music has pounded into our skulls. And hence, much less memory work. When a fancy chord requires one to mess with the bellows direction of the melody in order to play it, that requires muscle memory. Some folks have brains wired for memory, or have lots of time on their hands to practice, or both, and it works beautifully for them. But for my money, talent level and time, Kimber sounds perfectly fine, and old-timey to boot.
Have fun!
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Can anybody make a hotel recommendation?
Is there a hotel that is preferred by festival goers?
Anybody looking to share a hotel room?
My choice of lodging may ultimately depend on what I can get by cashing in frequent flyer points, but some context would be helpful.
Also... I'm planning to rent a car.
Anybody need a ride to Old Pal from Dallas on Thursday afternoon, and back on Sunday?
Cheers,
Tom Rhoads
There may be some information on the festival website, oldpalmusic.com. See the general info section. It is a small town so nothing is too far. Many musicians have stayed at the Best Western but I expect it may be full by now. See you there!
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I think so, Robin. Back in 2004, while preparing my book on William Kimber, I was grappling with how to describe what I saw at the time as four main ways to play the instrument:
along-the-row (eg, many of the old Irish players, and nearly all of the 19th century tutors for the instrument), octave playing (like Scan Tester and Chris Droney, and of course since then I learned of so many others, including Oz's Dooley Chapman), cross-row playing (e.g., Noel Hill etc.), and then what Kimber and so many other English players were doing in Morris music. I called it 'harmonic' playing in that book, and since then was exposed to dozens of brilliantly harmonic South African Boer players, so I am glad I didn't call it "English" style!
If I had to name that categorization again, I might be tempted to call it "duet" style playing, because most harmonic style players play the instrument as if it were a duet. But then, one would have to invent another categorization for some of the South African Boer players, who play in weird keys like Bb and Eb on a CG Anglo, going wildly across the rows without even a tip of the hat to what most of us would call the 'along the row' core of the instrument.
And then, we should add a separate category for the black South Africans, who play rhythmic riffs rather than melody, and who have even been known to reverse the direction of whole rows of keys to aid in this! But that is another story.
Before 2004, in a mostly pre-internet era, it was a different world in terms of shared knowledge of the Anglo concertina - which is why I even tried to categorize the main styles. There were still at that time many Irish players who had never heard of 'English' style playing, and vice versa. And very few from my country (including me at the time) had heard Australians and South Africans play. Not that way any more! Alan Day's Anglo International recording spread knowledge of the great diversity of styles on the Anglo, and by today Youtube has made nearly everything accessible.
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Ora Lee will be the main tune attraction at the 2016 Old Pal workshop when participants will get the chance to premier this ten part old-time concertina band arrangement. Ora Lee is a tune from the playing of Tennessee fiddler Edward Winter via James Bryan and the Canote brothers. C/G and G/D Anglo concertinas are all played here by me. In Texas, there will be parts for all systems of concertina ranging from very easy to extremely difficult with the goal of including everyone in the fun as we play this fine old fiddle tune.
https://soundcloud.com/jodysconcertina/ora-lee-band-master
Nice one, Jody....all ten parts of it!
We've got a goodly sized bunch of concertinists coming; in fact it looks like a record-sized group for our workshops. If anyone else wants to take part, you are very welcome. Just email or message me; I've sent the sheet music out to confirmed attendees, and there is still lots of time to join in on the fun. See above posts for links and information.
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The Old Pal festival website (http://www.oldpalmusic.com/Home.html) has just been nicely updated by the festival folks. Please note that we concertina folks now have a subpage, which I'll try to update.
I'll soon be sending out sheet music and mp3s for Jody's workshops, as well as a tune or two for the Compleat Beginner's workshop that I will hold with Katie Meeks and Nancy Bessent. It goes out to confirmed attendees, so if you are coming please let me know via email or PM via this site.
It is going to be a great ride this year; hope to see you there!
Dan
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Lincoln,
There is plenty of crossrowing going on in the harmonic style. Have a look at William Kimber's style for example; he jumped often between the two rows that he played. You might also look at the (few) harmonic tunes in Bertram Levy's original anglo tutor book (Anglo Concertina Demystified), where you'll also get a good idea of it. Finally, check out some of Gary Coover's books. The easy tunes in his books are on the rows, but the more complex ones waltz around the keyboard a bit. There are examples in his work of some of the key British proponents of that style, whose work can get quite complex across the rows. I think it safe to say that many of the more complex British players figure out what row on which to play a particular melody note only after they find the best way to play the chords....so they can bounce around all over the place. And then there are the South Africans, who play lush chords and give little more than a nod to along the row playing.
I don't think Irish cross-rowing will cause you any problems. The anglo is a puzzle-box, with lots of room for memory work!
Dan
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Some on Anglo International Dan.
Al
Yes, and on You tube, if one is looking for some good examples of Boeremusiek. I meant that CDs specific to Boeremusiek don't seem to be available outside of SA.
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I'm not sure whether it is generally known, but if you have a hankering to hear South African Boeremusiek played on the concertina, then this website of Kalie de Jager is full of CDs of that music that can be purchased from him. Have a look at the catalog: the number and variety of them are always surprising. I thought the general forum crowd should be aware.
I'm not sure how easy it will be dealing with purchases from South Africa, but send Kalie a note if you are interested. I don't know of any other general source for them outside of that country.
Cheers,
Dan
CDS: http://kalie.boeremusiek.net/cds.html
General information on Kalie's site: http://kalie.boeremusiek.net/
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It's that time again, time to start thinking about bringing yourself and your concertina to East Texas for the 12th Annual Old Palestine Concertina Weekend (a part of the 15th annual Palestine Old Time Music and Dulcimer Festival). The festival will occur March 31-April 2, 2016, in the small town of Palestine, Texas.
For new folks, the Palestine music festival is an absolute gem, with a charming location in the East Texas Pineywoods, in high springtime. Organized each year by Jerry and Margaret White, there are workshops for every conceivable stringed instrument, from various forms of dulcimers to fiddles to banjos, and shape note singing workshops for singers....for me those shape note sing-ins are among the high points. There are superb lunchtime and evening concerts each day. The performers -- old time genre for the most part, but always some variety too -- are accomplished, and very approachable. And then there are sessions of every sort, 24/7! It is all very laid back.
For the concertina workshop, Jody Kruskal will return for in what is, I think, his sixth appearance at our concertina weekend. Jody is a superb teacher and a superb performer, and focuses his teaching here on an old-time style. Here is what he is planning, similar to that offered last year but with new tunes and skills:
Friday #1 Beginner Anglo + anyone else who wants to join.
Friday #2 Learn the three tunes and work on bellows and old time style.
Saturday #1 Keep working on the tunes, bellows and old time style.
Saturday #2 Show and Tell masterclass where everyone brings their stuff to the session and we work on it.On other concertina items, we always have a number of duet players attending who get together. I’ll offer a session for complete beginners on Irish playing, where we’ll talk about old style playing and learn a tune or two. Sean Minnie, our South African new Texan, will be there along with a number of us who will form and demonstrate a Boer ‘orchestra’. Should be fun!
There is lots for non-musical spouses to do in town (an old steam train; dogwood festival that week, azaleas in bloom if our timing is right, etc.), and there are the great festival concerts every lunchtime and every evening, in an old auditorium seemingly right out of a Faulkner novel.
To confirm and get on the mailing list, send me a PM via this site, and we’ll email you Jody’s tunes plus other information goodies. The Old Pal festival cost for participating musicians (in workshops and concerts) is $80 for the three day weekend or $40 per day (last year’s numbers), with non-musician spouses charged much less. On top of this, we charge an extra $30 for the concertina workshops, to defray travel expenses of our workshop leader and performer, Jody. Send me a message, and we’ll get you in on the action.
Here is a link to the review on this site of last year’s concertina weekend, and here is the link to the overall Old Pal Festival site.
Hope to see you there!
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... it was said in the 1870s that the German concertina was at the height of its popularity in the 1860s and that the German accordion/melodeon took over from it in the '70s ...
I'm not sure who Stephen is referring to on his referred notion of 1860s popularity.
I can't remember the source of that myself, offhand, Dan - though I think it was probably from the introduction to an 1870's tutor for the German accordion/melodeon. But it is something that I've mentioned several times before - I'll have a hunt and see if I can track it down...
No matter, Stephen. If they were writing only in the 1870s they could have little idea that the golden age was still ahead of them. I don't think even the duets came around until the 1880s (except for Wheatstone's failed experiment).
Just a random thought, but if one were to count all the handmade concertinas being built today, it is probably on the order of magnitude of say a couple of hundred per year. That number is very likely dwarfed by all the Scholas and Rochelles and Jacks and Jackies and Klingendahls and such from the small factories in China, Italy, and until recently East Germany. One can go to maybe a fifth of the music shops in the USA and find a cheap two row concertina for sale, to this day...so there is a fairly large number of cheap instruments on the market. That may -- perhaps -- be somewhat similar to the comparison of the 400,000 cheap factory made German concertinas to the 5000 English made concertinas per year in 1876.
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That is extremely interesting, and would seem to contradict some previous assertions - like it was said in the 1870s that the German concertina was at the height of its popularity in the 1860s and that the German accordion/melodeon took over from it in the '70s, but that evidently was far from the case with regard to Lachenal's production of Anglo-German concertinas. And though, as has been asserted before, there was evidently a very serious decline in the Anglo's popularity in the 1920s, your figures show not only that "sales went down by almost 50 percent during WWI", but also that they'd already declined by 75% in the period 1899 to 1914, before it even started.
It's very much a tale of The Rise and Fall of the Anglo Concertina...
Hi Stephen and Randy, good to hear from you both!
I'm not sure who Stephen is referring to on his referred notion of 1860s popularity. In Volume 1 of my concertina history books (link here) I showed that 'sightings' of the instrument in English books and Journals strongly peaked in the 1890s, and dropped off to nearly nothing after WWI (see Figure 52, p. 35). Seven years ago, when I was doing my research for that book, Randy kindly gave me access to his early Lachenal numbers, which I combined with Wheatstone ledger numbers to produce a combined Wheatstone-Lachenal production chart from data known at that time. It shows that the two largest decades were the 1880s and 1890s. My interpretation of Randy's early data (Figure 43, p. 27) showed a Lachenal peak in the 1880s, but I now see that Randy's latest data shows it peaking in the 1890s -- evidence that his decade wait was well spent! At any rate, it was clear to me back then that the last two decades of the nineteenth century were the glory days for the concertina, and that that popularity was driven by the popularity of the Anglo-German keyboard.
Regarding the 400,000 number for German concertinas that Randy mentions, I quoted that number on page 29, and made a pie chart of it in Figure 44, p. 30. The German concertina overwhelmed its Anglo-German cousin in popularity everywhere, including England. Figure 45, p. 30, shows why....the vast numbers of English buying public were working class poor. The fellow playing concertina in a workman's cottage in the countryside --or in East London -- hadn't the money for a handmade English-made instrument, unless he was a musician dependent upon it for some of his livelihood (street musician or rural musician playing for dances, for example). Those cheap German instruments wore out, however, and when WWI came, the vast supply of German instruments was cut off, never to really return. This hurt not only the sales of German concertinas, but Anglo-Germans as well. It was at that time that "Anglo-German" concertinas became "Anglo" concertinas, as I showed in the chart in Figure 55, p. 39....there was a German stigma after the war.
Regarding the rise of the accordion, in Volume 2 I showed that the accordion became more and more popular in the 1880s to 1900s decades, eclipsing the concertina in the 1890s (Figure 11, p. 171 of Volume 2). Then both got whacked by the rise of the guitar, in the 2000s decade (Figure 12). I used New Zealand newspaper data for those Figures when writing in 2008, because NZ had complete digital data for all its newspapers then (still waiting for that in the UK and US!). Nonetheless, sales of all musical instruments fell precipitously with the rise of the gramophone.
BTW, for interest of cnet readers, both books are available for free on Google Books, or for sale at Amazon.
Cheers,
Dan
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Very sad news. I had the pleasure of meeting her in Clare on two occasions, and she was gracious enough to play Mrs. O'Dwyer's old German concertina for the CD that I helped produce for the OAC in Milltown Malbay two years ago, Tripping to the Well. A lovely player and a lovely person.
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Janet Dows emailed me out of the blue a few years ago. She was visiting New York and stopped by for some tunes. What a delightful person and we had a very pleasant afternoon chatting and playing anglo together. She impressed me as a very talented and tasteful musician. I've been sampling the Percolators CD... it sounds great!
Glad you liked the CD, Jody. Of course, I remember you speaking to just such an issue -- of sensitively blending in with stringed instruments -- in one of your workshops, or maybe at a pub. I think Janet's playing approached that ideal very nicely.
And Daniel, I figured you must have heard of Janet, being a Californian.
Dan
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I know the seller...the Stagi is in excellent shape. A good buy for an entry level to intermediate level player.
Dan
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I must confess that I don’t buy a lot of new concertina CDs these days, as there is a certain sameness to them. Every now and then, one stands out as unique, however. Certainly Roger Digby’s CD last year was one, and Dapper’s Delight another; I penned brief reviews of each on this site. Last month I came across another group, much closer to home, which sports an Anglo concertina in a refreshingly different context. The group is from California, the Santa Cruz Percolators. The concertina player is Janet Dows. I’ve never met any of them, although I have exchanged emails with Janet about our Palestine concertina weekend every March.
They are a group of three (fiddle, concertina and guitar) who play a very California-esque mix of all sorts of dance music. Old time American music; Quebecois fiddle tunes; Tex-Mex polkas; Caribbean. Normally, I recoil from that sort of eclectic mix, preferring to get my music direct from the source. But in California, that sort of thing is perfectly normal, and they pull off that diverse mix without a hitch. Great foot tapping tunes.
The thing that captured me, however, was the concertina playing. Usually, a CD employing a concertina will have it be a concertina-dominant recording, with everyone else taking a back seat. Nothing wrong with that at all, and some of my favorites players are like that – think Noel Hill or John Kirkpatrick or Alistair Anderson or Jody Kruskal or….go fill in the blank. What is different here is that the concertina player – Janet Dows – is on most tracks playing a second fiddle-type role to the also excellent fiddle playing of Laurie Rivan. Doing that well requires great sensitivity and the ability to effortlessly blend in with string instruments, never trying to steal the show with the pyrotechnics for which we concertinists are often noted, not always favorably. It is a great display of how that can be done.
My wife and I took a trip out west a few weeks ago, and that CD – called Step Out – found its way back to the dashboard player more than once.
Here is their website http://www.santacruzpercolators.com/ ; the CD is available at cdbaby. I thought that Forum folks might find it interesting.
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I just noticed that the Salvation Army celebrated its 150th anniversary with a massive parade in London on July 5th, with timbrelists and brass bands. This forum didn't note that event. Given the very strong history of concertina playing in the Army, were any of you UK folks there with your concertinas to help mark the event?
Square Herrington Anglo For Sale
in Buy & Sell
Posted
Harold and I were good friends, and he helped me to build my first (of two) concertinas. I remember that instrument and his other square ones fondly. Not to complicate your sale, but I would be willing to even-swap my hexagonal Herrington with whoever buys your instrument, and pay for all the shipping for the swap. I just obtained mine a few months ago from Frank Edgley, who just retuned it. CG 30 button, metal ends with hard case. Frank wrote about it on his blog, and advertised it on this forum; I paid $1800 for it. Happy to send pics to anyone interested.
The hex is probably a better instrument for most general purposes; the square ones are, as someone said, somewhat boisterous but endearing to some of us who knew Harold.
Cheers,
Dan