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What impact has the internet and WWW had on our concertina community?


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There must be others like me who bought the instrument with no prior knowledge of the instrument, the most popular genres and styles. For me, at least, this site and the other information on the web have been the only information available to guide me on my journey. Heck, Iv'e never even seen another concertina except my own. I like ITM but don't play it that much; French, English, Americana, it's all one bag(to me) but C.net et al,, and by extention, you folks, have literally taught me everything I know about concertina technique, stylings, material, and anything else imaginable about playing concertina.

 

So,thank you all,and yes,Jody, you can buy me a pint. I'll be very happy to buy you one first.

Robert

Edited by Robert Booth
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All positive so far apart from the higher price of instruments as everyone gets savvy ( the free market rules but I've not seen many being offloaded due to recession, it's still a seller's market) and the possible homogenisation of style and tunes.

 

The down side may be when people get to know what we've got and when we are out of the house, because of facebook etcwink.gif But we've found out who people think are good insurers from this forum.

I'll be interested to see whether 'music making' becomes dominated by samplings andcomputers inthe bedroom or whether a generation of short attention spanners can be bothered to put in the graft of practcie. howver I have met a lot of youngsters who are brilliant technically at a very young age and just need to play with more musicians, and that may be facilitated by social sites and well publicised events and venues, if they are not lucky enough to have it in thefmily or local community.

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The internet and more specifically, Concertina.net and Concertina.com have had a very good influence on me personally.

 

First, Geoff Crabb's appeal on Concertina.net to contact him about Crabb ownership started a relationship with him that resulted in me putting up a web page and got me to record myself and practice.

 

That in turn led me to Concertina.Com and participating in the Concertina.net forum.

 

Then I went to the North East Squeeze In, because of all of the excitement it generated on the forum. There I met Geoff Lakeman, who inspired me quite a bit.

 

Soon afterword, through Dan Worrall, I got involved with the Palestine Old Time Music and Dulcimer festivals. There have been lots of influences there including, but by no means limited to Betram Levy, Jody Kruskal, Mark Gilston and lot's and lot's of other fine musicians who don't know a concertina from ...

 

All of that got me playing concertina in public and involved with Sacred Harp, open mike and other singing, rediscovering the saxophone and autoharp and on it goes.

 

Now, to be sure, I had to "harvest" all of this and the internet only introduced me to Palestine, etc. Still, it has been important to me and I don't think it is over yet.

 

Kurt

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For me if it wasn't for the internet I never would have picked up a concertina or even known what one was. The internet has enabled me to learn an instrument...actually several and I don't think I would have even contemplated learning to play folk music if I hadn't seen all those youtube videos of players. I would have been stuck still disilusioned by 'pop music' and thinking I would always be a spectator.

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For me if it wasn't for the internet I never would have picked up a concertina or even known what one was. The internet has enabled me to learn an instrument...actually several and I don't think I would have even contemplated learning to play folk music if I hadn't seen all those youtube videos of players. I would have been stuck still disilusioned by 'pop music' and thinking I would always be a spectator.

The darkside: first LDT has openly admitted that she is being drawn more and more to melnet...... so not good for cnetters who may also be drawn away to melnet to hear her expanding reportoore (as they say in Namerrica)

 

The lighterside: without cnet melnet I would never have been able to spot MSW... now I can avoid him wherever we both turn up at the same place!! :D :D

 

The bottom row: the Web vastly increases communication at low costs between "minds" and, with a little care, is all pluses for global music-making and friendship and mutual assistance, especially for beginners. :)

 

This, from 1983, is about proliferation and reduction in cost of hi-tech and while the Web is implied** and the focus is health, the principle of access and sharing by everyone at affordable cost applies to the mutual benefits of music including of course our own inventors of apps such as the englitina!

 

"Advanced technology for the people

Some say that the possible future use of modern miniaturized electronic equipment in the home to deal with health problems originally tackled in the high-technology hospital will raise an even greater barrier between the rich and poor parts of the Region. This is an assumption which may spring too easily from an industrialized lifestyle which arrogantly assumes that others cannot afford, could not use, or do not need technology, high or low. However, we are talking about cost-effective technology. The battery-operated transistor radio can be found in the most remote nomadic encampments within the Arctic Circle or in the deserts of the Sahara. The transistor revolutionized mass communications worldwide and made that dangerous commodity, information, available to all, even in the poorest village. Now that miniaturized electronic equipment has become cheap, there is no reason why a primary health care worker should not be able to carry with him a microchip-based, low cost, mass-produced blood analysis machine for malaria or a digital display blood-pressure gauge. High technology does not have to be expensive -- it needs to be appropriate. Designers of high-technology equipment should start thinking about everyday use by the people, not just the hospital market."

 

[** Before someone leaps in and says URLs and HTML only came into being after 1989, Arpanet was already long established, and multi-address global message switching (early email services) was fully operational commercially in 1965]

the caption for photo referring to the above is of a Bedouin on his camel in the desert and reads:

Photo

"Microchips for everyone. The marvels of the microchip can be used to bring health to all the different peoples of the European Region of WHO, from Reykjavik in Iceland to Vladivostok in the USSR and from the wastes of the Arctic to the deserts of the Sahara. Because the microchip allows us to make many devices small and cheap, it will not only serve those in our cities who have immediate access to high-technology hospitals but reach also those in the most remote of rural communities." [That would include Dirge :) :) ]

Edited by Kautilya
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When I was young I used to go into libraries and feel both excited and overpowered by the information available then I learned how to be selective and find my way through to what I needed or wanted. I am once more faced with the potential overload and am trying to learn how to search and process the abundance of iformation.

 

I still like browsing though, as serendipity has led me to some marvellous finds.

 

 

What I find disturbing is when things are out of my control and others may have access to my processors etc. If it all becomes too controlling I'll just opt out.smile.gif

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I think the Web has contributed to the excessive prices some people are prepared to pay for instruments.

 

I would disagree to some extent. The web has made the accessibility of instruments to a world wide market and so demand is greater than supply. Especially for a good Jeffrey, Wheatstone, or Lachanel. However demand will always make the asking price higher. I am glad we have such a demand.

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TB, I accept we are discussing this because of the technology. I did ask where is might all be going and what the impact might be long term.

Reminds me of the story about the manager who told his engineers that from each of them he expected (on his desk, by Monday morning) a complete list of all the unanticipated problems they would encounter within the next year.

 

It's great fun to speculate about possible directions the future might take, but it's delusional to believe that anyone can accurately predict either details or significant changes of the future -- even in the medium term -- with even a spec of certainty.

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TB, I accept we are discussing this because of the technology. I did ask where is might all be going and what the impact might be long term.

Reminds me of the story about the manager who told his engineers that from each of them he expected (on his desk, by Monday morning) a complete list of all the unanticipated problems they would encounter within the next year.

 

It's great fun to speculate about possible directions the future might take, but it's delusional to believe that anyone can accurately predict either details or significant changes of the future -- even in the medium term -- with even a spec of certainty.

 

Well, I am certain that, God willing, come next year I will still be playing the concertina and learning new stuff that the Anglo can do and new tunes that open my chosen system to further advances in musical possibilities.

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It's great fun to speculate about possible directions the future might take, but it's delusional to believe that anyone can accurately predict either details or significant changes of the future -- even in the medium term -- with even a spec of certainty.

Well, I am certain that, God willing, come next year I will still be playing the concertina and learning new stuff that the Anglo can do and new tunes that open my chosen system to further advances in musical possibilities.

Aye, Jody, but will that be a significant change?

How about telling us what as-yet-unannounced new technology will appear in the next year and how you'll use it? That seems to be the sort of thing Michael is requesting.

 

I did ask where is might all be going and what the impact might be long term.

My opinion of the article toward which Michael has directed our attention, is that the author has taken a few facts and mixed them up with a truckload of unstated assumptions, meanwhile ignoring a mountain of equally relevant facts. But even he gives examples of major developments, both technical and social, that no one anticipated, yet which occurred in timespans of only a few years.

 

And let's not forget that the internet is only one factor, out of uncountably many.

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Fascinating topic!

 

My generation - I've just turned 64 - is a privileged one. We grew up in the analogue world, and grew into the digital world.

We're a bit like the seafaring generation of Joseph Conrad, who grew up in the world of sail and grew into the world of steam. What tales he had to tell!

 

We learned our music from elders and contemporaries, from what the radio offered and the gramophone records that we could find. We got our scores from the library, bought our first cheap, GDR concertinas in the local music shop, or perhaps inherited a vintage instrument from our grand-dads, who were no longer alive to teach us.

 

We only learned the songs and tunes that percolated down to us. That is, songs and tunes that were good enough to be frequently played in the circles we moved in. A genuine aural tradition, augmented by the few recordings we had available.

 

And we had to find our own way to realise these on our instrument.

 

Our resources were limited, but this very limitation gave each of us a unique style and repertoire, and the work we had to put into learning it strengthened us.

 

Today, we download our recordings and sheet music from a sheer endless source, buy tutorial CD-ROMs and order our Lachenals and Wheatstones from Chris Algar via e-mail.

 

For us oldies, the Internet is a wonderful aid to music-making. There are many songs that I heard and liked as a youngster, but I've never been able to sing them, because I didn't hear them often enough to remember all the words. Now, I just google them, print the lyrics out, and sing them. I use the Internet to stop gaps in my basically aural repertoire – and to replace the inadequate instruments that were all I had when I started off.

 

For the youngsters – and here I see the risk of the Internet – I see the danger of "homogenisation". In this world of individualism (where athletics clubs are losing members to fitness centres, where you buy the product "fitness" with no social strings attached), young musicians are able to choose their music worldwide. The American plumps for Irish traditional, the German plumps for Bluegrass. But what they get from the Web is not something natural, not a local tradition with its subtle individuality. It's a homogenised product fit for worldwide consumption, and often has a "police force" behind it to discourage the very individuality that the Net appears to offer.

 

Back to Joseph Conrad: in the 1920s, when he had retired as a Merchant Navy captain and begun his career as a writer, he strongly supported the introduction of sail training ships for trainee sea officers. Although or rather because steam had become universal in high-sea shipping. The more high-tech ships have become, the more countries have taken up this idea. A diesel engine, RADAR and GPS are a great help in dealing with the sea – but they do not teach you about the sea, the wind and leading men under exceptional circumstances.

 

I would recommend that young musicians start out with the music of their surroundings – whatever it is – with the instruments available to them. When they have become musicians, they can learn a whole lot more from the Internet. But they will know by that time that the essence of music-making is not playing in a genre with techniques taught by a couple of recognised teachers of that genre. If they do decide for a genre, they will be able to contribute something of their own to it, and the instruction of the teachers will be regarded as what it should be – development of a capability that is already there!

 

IT was, is and will always be a meta-reality, a realm of metaphors. The realities that these metaphors refer back to are often unknown to the digital natives: file, printer, directory …

 

Music is an art, and as such needs to keep in touch with reality. And reality is the body of music that your real community, whether geographical or social, has put together for its own edification.

 

End of sermon!

 

Cheers,

 

John

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TB, I accept we are discussing this because of the technology. I did ask where is might all be going and what the impact might be long term.

Reminds me of the story about the manager who told his engineers that from each of them he expected (on his desk, by Monday morning) a complete list of all the unanticipated problems they would encounter within the next year.

 

It's great fun to speculate about possible directions the future might take, but it's delusional to believe that anyone can accurately predict either details or significant changes of the future -- even in the medium term -- with even a spec of certainty.

 

 

That's what Naughton wrote in his original article , then invited us to attempt it!

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TB, I accept we are discussing this because of the technology. I did ask where is might all be going and what the impact might be long term.

 

 

Hhmmm... more concertina players! biggrin.gif

I would still be a beginnerunsure.gif on the concertina if it wasn't for Concertina.net.

 

The reason for the impact in the long run being more concertina players is how many of us get around with the ol' concertina on our back, on our cup and the odd busking trip around the closest town.wink.gif

 

Along with those 'non-computerized' factors, there's still the concertina players who will Google for concertina info, help, forums, etc. and more than likely, Concertina.net will be on the 1st page.smile.gif

 

Talk soon everyone!

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John, the point about learning young and communally, locally or in the family is interesting. Before kids are old enough to think of music as a product that is ubiquitous, but more as a process they coud try for themeslves.

 

I do worry that the plethora of downloads and headphones makes it too easy to access and it may lead to a confusion of possession with skill which takes some effort.. Music can become like wallpaper

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John, the point about learning young and communally, locally or in the family is interesting.

One thing the web has done is expand the possible types of "community". The boundaries of a community -- musical or otherwise -- no longer need to be purely geographic. E.g., I would say that the way in which we here on Concertina.net interact with each other resembles a traditional village community, while in my experience the residents of a modern suburban neighborhood or city block often associate with each other little, if at all.

 

But it's not just the internet. Fast, efficient transportation (automobiles, and urban mass transit) has made it easy for individuals with a common interest but living far more than walking distance from each other to gather at a common location for a session, a dance, a workshop, or whatever. So you can get distinct traditional styles which derive from individual teachers or originally from particular geographic areas (e.g., Noel Hill, Mary McNamara, East Clare, etc.) but which have become geographically diffuse. It's now possible for such "traditions" to overlap geographically, yet lack any significant interaction with each other.

 

One advantage of learning "locally" was/is the ability to learn from a "tradition bearer" through frequent interaction in a person-to-person, face-to-face context. But even that no longer requires physical proximity. Thanks to Skype, one can now get "face-to-face" interactive instruction at virtually any time from someone even half a world away.

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Thanks to Skype, one can now get "face-to-face" interactive instruction at virtually any time from someone even half a world away.

 

This is true, Jim. My Skype students are from all over and that is rather amazing. Still, Skype or live, what I am asking my students to do is rather difficult and takes a level of dedication and persistence to accomplish. Despite the ease of high tech access, hours of old-fashioned patient practice on one's own is still required to actually learn to play any instrument and make music.

 

I think I'm probably like everyone else, to do that work I need to be motivated and it's hard to keep it up in isolation. Web interaction on email, schedule listings, C.net, Skype lessons, youtube postings, ABC tune archives and all the rest are great as far as they go and they go a long way, especially for those who play alone. Some cool new way to join together and communicate via the WWW might develop and I'm all for it... but as I said before, after the solo practicing, nothing beats actual playing in a room with like minded folks. The pleasure of live music making is the reward that makes it all worthwhile for me. Whatever great tools the web might yet offer, I don't think it will ever beat an experience as rich as that.

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  • 2 months later...

This is still rumbling round in my noddle.

 

On Mudcat there are several discussions on the nature of traditional music and song.

 

 

I maintain you can only be considered a traditional musician if you have grown up in a communal tradition and had the status conferred by others as expressing their identity and aspirations and shared memory.

 

Some have said we could be called traditionalists or tradition bearers. ( the latter I find pretentious)

 

 

All this seems to have come about now that 'folk musician' seems to be associated with a revivalist identity or a 'file under folk' genre .

 

I am a person who grew up with some genuinely tarditional musicians but moved out of that community ( which was urban and fairly recently coherent). I love traditional music and play and sing in the idiom but even thiough I learned a lot orally from two generations before me I won't claim to be a traditional musician.

 

 

The web just allows me access to lots more people , but the process began with books, records and radio and TV.

 

 

 

I don't think we , on the web , can be thought of as a community.

Edited by michael sam wild
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A short (true) story:

 

My Grandmother was the last of her generation in my family, and somewhat of a hoarder. So when it came time to go through her estate, one of the things we came across was an old instrument beloved of one of her brothers.

 

When I was a young kid, my parents made me take guitar lessons, but I abandoned them as soon as I could. A decision I've regretted for many years. So, when we came across my great uncles "concertina" I rashly asked to have it, promising to learn how to play.

 

I take this instrument home -- I have no idea what it is, or how to play it. How do I learn what it is? The internet! How do I find an instructor? The internet! It turns out what my great uncle played is called a cajun accordion today.

 

So why am I posting on concertina.net? Because I couldn't find ANY support, ANY community for the cajun accordion, but I COULD find a community for a very similar instrument -- the anglo concertina. Where did I find this community? The internet of course. And where did I find an instructor? An instructor 3600 MILES away? The internet.

 

Now the question -- Is this story GOOD for the concertina? Like any instrument that is very thinly accepted, the more people playing it the better. In order for concertina playing to survive, communities of players have to flourish, and new communities have to spring up. The internet, by allowing players to come together over long distances allows that to happen.

 

There is no way I'd own a concertina -- no way I'd be learning to play a concertina -- without the internet. Is that good? Well, if you ask anyone who's ever heard me play, the answer would be an emphatic "NO!"

 

B

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