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So I am not the only one who finds it hard to smile while playing, even though feeling happy.

 

A question of being relaxed I suppose, which I still find especially difficult with Anglo (less so with English or Melodeon).

 

Looking afresh at our photos and videos of groups local to here, there really are an awful lot of frowning squeezers, including yours truly.

 

Perhaps we should start a "Go on, smile darn you" campaign.

 

Rob

 

PS BTW smashing sketch, Wolf

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 12/16/2019 at 4:23 PM, SusanW said:

I wish I could look relaxed/happy like Caitlín Nic Gabhann......alas

Ah, but Susan, the smile that breaks out on your face after you’ve played a tune  lights up the room for the rest of us.
 

  I find that I can do whatever I’d like with my  expression when playing, but find its impossible to talk ( a blessing to many you’ll likely agree). Can’t even say; “thank you” to a passerby without being derailed. I’ve  always felt it’s the conscious “breathing” and “voice management” that my brain is already responsible for. I wonder if others have this same issue as a substitute for, or in tandem with, concertina face?

Edited by JD Leedham
Clarity’s sake
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Regarding 'Concertina face', my wife keeps instructing me to "Cultivate an intelligent expression when in repose", as I go blank or drool under stress.

 

Regarding talking and playing, the only workaround I've found is to say what I need to say using the rhythm of the music - effectively sing it.

 

Tonight I'll be leading our regular slow session of Greenshoots, and I need to say things like "one more", or "faster", or "out next time". This used to be impossible, but by singing them, it's now merely hard!

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12 hours ago, Paul_Hardy said:

(1) Regarding 'Concertina face', my wife keeps instructing me to "Cultivate an intelligent expression when

in repose", as I go blank or drool under stress.

(2) Tonight I'll be leading our regular slow session of Greenshoots, and I need to say things like "one more",

or "faster", or "out next time". This used to be impossible, but by singing them, it's now merely hard!

(1) Clearly I have concertina-itis badly - I often find it very difficult to stop a big (??? ) grin creeping across

my face while playing...

(2) Off-topic, but the obergruppenführer of the <mumble> band is in the habit of calling out instructions such as

"play as written", "out next time" , "change", etc. I have heard this practice criticised as being pretty naff (that's

the cleaned up version!). Seems pretty reasonable to me when the troops are a mixed bag, many of whom are

ear players who don't know much about staff notation?

The <mumble> band also use printed music, which from the website appears to be the practice of the Greenshoots

band. I have also heard this practice much criticised, but my take on it is that by using a printed score, all those

'ear-ole' players will pick up some of the basics of staff notation, which can't be a bad thing, can it? I'm not a

sight-reader, but I do have some ability to (slowly) read and understand a printed score...

Edited by lachenal74693
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13 hours ago, Paul_Hardy said:

Regarding talking and playing, the only workaround I've found is to say what I need to say using the rhythm of the music - effectively sing it.

 

exactly what I'm doing myself Paul ?

 

best wishes - ?

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18 hours ago, JD Leedham said:

I find ... its impossible to talk ( a blessing to many you’ll likely agree). Can’t even say; “thank you” to a passerby without being derailed.

Same here! 

Just recently, I gave a friend a couple of tunes on the concertina as a birthday serenade. There were a group of eight of us sitting round a table in a restaurant in which a works Christmas dinner was taking place just round the corner. Right in the middle of a difficult passage in one of the tunes, the lady sitting next to me asked, "Doesn't the chattering at the other table put you off?" Fortunately, I had to concentrate very hard on the concertina to keep on playing, otherwise I might have been rather impolite and told her that background chatter was no problem - but addressing me directly was!

I've also had the experience of playing on the street and people coming up to me and trying to start a conversation in the middle of a tune. Why can't they wait until the tune is finished? Do they think I'll dissolve into thin air after the last note, depriving them of the opportunity to speak to me? ?

 

Cheers,

John

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  • 2 weeks later...

It could be worse:

Quote

I was once told by some men of learning that the goddess Athene used to enjoy playing the bagpipes and had quite mastered the art. It happened that one day as she was playing them for pleasure beside a spring she saw her reflection in the water, and when she saw how she had to distort her face to blow the pipes, she was abashed and threw them away. She did well to do this, because the bagpipes are not an instrument for women, and, in fact, are equally unsuitable for men, except for those poor wretches who are paid to play them and make a trade of it.

Giovanni della Casa, Galateo (1558)

 

(I figured a good way to make myself welcome on a concertina forum is to slag off bagpipe players...)

  • Haha 1
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15 hours ago, Moll Peatly said:

It could be worse:

 

(I figured a good way to make myself welcome on a concertina forum is to slag off bagpipe players...)


....this is why I choose to play bellows operated bagpipes??

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16 hours ago, Moll Peatly said:

It could be worse:

 

(I figured a good way to make myself welcome on a concertina forum is to slag off bagpipe players...)

So I would guess from your name that you Play early English dance music, usually at a Ford?

 

Great quote! Thank you.

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