Kesh Jig Fingering?

[david dufficy]

Hello! I am the proud owner of a lightly used Hohner from the HMT and am having a great time so far. (thank you Wendy!) I have mastered the Saints Go Marching In and am trying to move up to the Kesh Jig. I have the music in G and am wondering if there is a preferable fingering method? I am using both rows and it seems to work but would love some advice.

Also, on a related note, is there anywhere I could find online recordings of some of the simpler tunes played slowly? Or is that a job for the computer software programs?

thanks a lot and I am very happy to have joined the concertina family.

David

[Daniel Bradbury]

Welcome David,

 

The first place I would direct you to would be Alan Day's tutor which is available on-line. Alan is a frequent contributor to this web site. He has a wonderful tutor with many very interesting tunes played in the English style of Anglo Concertina. There is downloads of sheet music and he can provide a CD of the tunes. And he may not even charge you for it! It will help to greatly improve your skills.

 

I was going to direct you to the BBC acoustic club session recordings, but it doesn't seem to exist any more. (If someone knows where it might be, please post a link).

 

Another thing I would highly recommend is to download "The Amazing SlowDowner" It is a great program that allows you to slow down music from CD's or music files on your computer. It really works well and is very inexpensive. Search for it on the web.

 

Henk van Aalten has a database of concertina music links on the web. If you search through the postings, I'm sure you will find it. There are many very nice tunes available there.

 

If you have a midi player on your computer, you should use the Tune o Tron on Concertina.net. Can download midi files and play them at any speed you desire.

 

You can also search other .abc data bases such as:

www.thesession.org/index.php

 

or ABC tunefinder at:

http://ecf-guest.mit.edu/~jc/gci/abc/findtune?

 

I'm sure there is more and C-netters will add them to the list.

 

Have fun!!

 

 

Edited to correst spelling of Henk Van Aalten name

Edited July 23, 2004 by Daniel Bradbury

[Henk van Aalten]

Henk van Alten has a database of concertina music links on the web. If you search through the postings, I'm sure you will find it. There are many very nice tunes available there.

It's on http://home.planet.nl/~aalte099/links.htm

[Guest]

The BBC Virtual Session has moved and can now be found at:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/r2music/folk/sessions/

 

Cheers

Morgana

[Sandy Winters]

Get a copy of John Williams' video. The Kesh is one of the tunes he teaches on the video, using the 2-row fingerings system. Find it on ebay, always available.

[Daniel Bradbury]

David,

 

I second Sandy's suggestion. The video is an excellent way to acquire the basic concepts of the two row style of Irish playing!

 

Morgana,

 

Thank you for the updated URL. I haven't logged onto the session in a long time, but just yesterday thought of doing so for a quick play. It was not until I was replying to David's post that I tried the old URL and, to my surprise, discovered it was no longer good.

[Guest Guest_David dufficy]

Thanks for the advice. I had wondered about the Williams video and will have to look for a copy. I hope to get a lesson or two once I have gotten familiar enough with the instrument.

[Guest Ava]

A friend of mine let me film her playing Kesh Jig when I was trying to learn it. If there is interest and I can find the video file I'd be happy to upload it so people can see *one* way of playing Kesh. The vid focuses on the left hand of an Anglo C/G.

[david dufficy]

Ava, I for one would love to see the video of the Kesh fingering. Never too much information, especilly for a slow learner like me!

David