Wm. Kimber

[michael sam wild]

Fair point Dirge, Kimber Kords come pretty easily, as does the three chord trick on guitar. Iit's how you use them though and Kimber was a great dancer and player for dancers and learned as his dad told him it should be done at the start.'These are the notes Williams etc' so not just a grabber of all the adjacent notes

[Mike Franch]

I didn't realise Kimber was seen as an innovator. I had the idea that he was exactly the opposite, someone keeping old traditions that had almost gone alive, famous mostly because it was HIM that Cec' tripped over and subsequently worked with.

 

Thanks to Dave Rogers' link above to Dan Worrall's essay, "The Anglo Concertina Music of William Kimber," he was both a traditionalist and an innovator.

 

First, the Kimbers senior and junior were innovators in introducing (quoting from Worrall) "fully harmonic playing on the Anglo concertina to music for Morris dancing, which hitherto had been played in a mainly melodic style on fiddles and pipe and tabor."

 

Secondly, while he kept the melody line "essentially without change . . . his lefthand chording accompaniment was constantly and subtly inventive . . . "

 

So Kimber Jr. really was both innovative and conservative. Furthermore, he played other types of music, not just Morris tunes. To quote Worrall again, "Kimber, rigidity appeared to apply only to the melodies and overall style of the Morris tunes learned from his father."

 

Thanks, all, for this learning experience. Even though (maybe especially because) though I play EC, I've found this excursion into the Anglo world fascinating.

[michael sam wild]

yes but you can escape back to EC , we are trapped!