Searching For Skype Lessons Ec Itm

[Eddy]

Hi

 

I'm searching for an "on line" teacher for Irish Traditional Music on english concertina

I live in Milan, Italy (GMT +1) and my availability is for evening time

 

Thanks in advance for your attention

 

Ed

[Gluggy]

Hi Eddy, have you looked at the On line Academy of Irish Music http://www.oaim.ie/ . Its not real time teachers but I've found it very good for beginners like me.

[JimLucas]

I'm searching for an "on line" teacher for Irish Traditional Music on english concertina

I live in Milan, Italy (GMT +1) and my availability is for evening time

 

I've sent you a personal message.

 

(We're in the same time zone.)

[Geoff Wooff]

Eddy,

as there are so very few who play actual Irish Music on the English concertina ( as opposed to playing Irish tunes on the English)... I would suggest Learning to play and understand Irish Music , then put it on your English Concertina.

[JimLucas]

as there are so very few who play actual Irish Music on the English concertina ( as opposed to playing Irish tunes on the English)... I would suggest Learning to play and understand Irish Music , then put it on your English Concertina.

 

Geoff, what makes you think that's not what he's already doing?

 

Turns out he already plays the harp. Also other instruments? I don't know, yet.

 

Who, if anyone, has a right to define a difference between "Irish Music" (interesting that you capitalized that) and "Irish tunes" is a can of worms that we've managed to keep a lid on for quite a while now, and I for one would like to see it stay that way. Besides, I didn't think you were one of the dogmatic bunch, especially since you yourself play English. Surely, you don't feel that your own playing of Irish tunes isn't really "Irish Music", do you?

[Geoff Wooff]

 

as there are so very few who play actual Irish Music on the English concertina ( as opposed to playing Irish tunes on the English)... I would suggest Learning to play and understand Irish Music , then put it on your English Concertina.

 

Geoff, what makes you think that's not what he's already doing?

 

Turns out he already plays the harp. Also other instruments? I don't know, yet.

 

Who, if anyone, has a right to define a difference between "Irish Music" (interesting that you capitalized that) and "Irish tunes" is a can of worms that we've managed to keep a lid on for quite a while now, and I for one would like to see it stay that way. Besides, I didn't think you were one of the dogmatic bunch, especially since you yourself play English. Surely, you don't feel that your own playing of Irish tunes isn't really "Irish Music", do you?

 

Jim,

I was not meaning to be dogmatic, and I am sorry if that is the way it came across, but i'm just trying to give advice from my own expériences.

 

When I first started playing the English, back in 72 I played some Irish tunes , Scottish tunes,English tunes... they were all tunes that I fancied to play... without any real attention to the styles and pronounciation différences. In 74 when I made my first trip to Ireland, and thought I had some handle on the music, I found myself sitting next to Packie Russell and being dumfounded by his playing. I just did not understand the language of that music.

I stumbled on in this way for some years untill I took to playing the Uilleann pipes in 78... now I had a genre specific instrument and spent years studying the playing of the best players and trying to emulate it... in fact I put down the EC and did not pick it up again untill I moved to Ireland in 89.

By that time I was begining to understand Irish Music. My wife and I then spent the next 16 years playing, sometimes as much as 5 nights a week, with the old players in County Clare. We played with just about all the old concertina players along with the fluters and fiddlers.

All this time I was using an EC as my session instrument and I learned a huge amount from those old players as I tried to interprete their music .

 

It would be far easier to learn to play Irish Music on the Penny Whistle first, for which their are plenty of tutors and Skypes, I am sure, and then apply what has been absorbed to whatever instrument you wish.

 

 

 

So, what I am trying to say is that IF one understands a music one can play it on anything and does not need lessions... however, I am willing to help Eddy, or anyone else... for, of all the subjects we discuss here, this one I know well.

 

Best regards ,

Geoff.

[Defra]

Apologies to Eddy and anyone else for this thread drift, but I was reluctant to start an entirely new thread on a topic that has probably been done to death and seems to get a lot of people hot under the collar.

However, this is a topic that interests me greatly, not from a purists' point of view, but just from wanting to play ITM (amongst other styles) to the best of my ability. I'm not a stranger to ITM after a good few years of playing it on mandolin and tenor banjo and I've heard enough good examples of ITM on the EC to be convinced that it can be played well, although I wish I could find examples of entire albums rather than isolated tracks on albums, Youtube or websites like this one. Anyone know of any?

Secondly, I realise that there are mechanical limitations to the EC which make the famous "bounce" harder to achieve than on an Anglo concertina. Would it be safe to assume that bellows with more folds facilitate this lift or bounce? After dithering about changing to a different style of concertina, I'm now committed to sticking with the EC and am encouraged by recent progress, but I find the 4-fold bellows on my old Lachenal student model to be quite limiting, or maybe that's just because I'm still a beginner.

Thanks in advance.

 

Dean

[Geoff Wooff]

The problem with a Lachenal Student model is perhaps lack of dynamic range. Although people play ITM with not much attention to loud ans soft, from passage to passage, it will be effective in the 'bounce' department. In this I mean changing of volume during a note, as a fiddle player will by adjusting the pressure and speed of the bow.

 

A good Bellows will help with this; one that is airtight and not stiff. The Anglo players in ITM mostly perfer to play with the bellows as closed as possible to reduce the elastic effect of the bellows when neatly changing direction. On the other hand a more open Bellows will allow one to squeeze a note by changing the amount of effort applied but in a less rapid way to create a gentle swelling or bounce to a note. Therefore more folds will be more elastic and a new bellows, when played in ,will be more flexible than a 100 year old original.

 

On the EC ( and of course any concertina) much of the internal rhythm comes from the fingering and this creates a lot of the measure and pulse but combining bellows changes (and not necessarily direction changes) with the right note lengths provides one with a lot of control.

 

I spent many years searching for my Ideal EC for playing Irish Music ( at least of the session/Band variety) and may I suggest that a Lachenal Tutor model is perhaps not ideal.

 

Geoff.

Edited July 14, 2013 by Geoff Wooff

[Defra]

Thanks a lot Geoff - very useful information and confirmation of what I've been feeling.

 

Dean

[Eddy]

Hi

 

I came from Irish "piks world" too. I thought it was easy to transfer the "irish swing" from string to bellow, but the experience with my Lachenal Tutor Brass Reeds was not so happy...

After a lot of years I decided in a new purchase. Now I have a Edeophone. I discover another world!

The steel reeds and a new springs permit a very beatiful expression. Edeo has a five fold bellow, but it seems no dubt superior then a seven fold mounted on Lachenal. I searched on youtube too Irish player with EC and I noticed that there isn't only one style. Someone prefer a "total open bellow" style with a lot of cuts and rools, other prefer the bellows "pulse". As this topic say, a good Concertina can permit a fine experimentation to find own style (I suppose that anyone say that there is only one, correct, absolute style). The very basic approach is to have in the hands the feeling of ITM "rhythm" (yes Geoff, neverthless from the instrument ;-) ). The aim of my request was effectively to permit myself to meet experienced player for a constructive improvement (in Italy the Concertina player are very few and none plays EC).

[Eddy]

Hi

 

I've just finished a Skype lesson with Jim Lucas as a teacher...

I heartily recommend Jim for lessons. It isn't easy to learn with Skype but with few lessons He setted up my fingering approach to EC in the correct way because, before his advices, I played in a very wrong way.

The people that haven't a "live" teacher nearby, can learn the basics and, with the educational material that He send, can improve themself...

Thanks Jim!