Concertina Choice For American "old-time" Music

[Mark Evans]

Now you're talking. I'll be there, hanging out with no responsiblities. Maybe we could agree on a few tunes in advance, and show them what multiple concertinas can do.

 

Okay! I'll just make a few suggestions:

 

St. Anne's Reel Flying Cloud Cotillion Red Haired Boy

Liberty Red Wing Devils Dream

Bonaparte's Retreat (old time version) Teatotaler's Reel Bill Cheetham

Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine The Girl I left behind Me

Arkansaws Traveler Gary Owen (G or D)

Ragtime Annie Blackberry Blossom

Staten Island Hornpipe

Fisher's Hornpipe

Over the Waterfall

Cuckoo's Nest (old time version)

 

I know I've put way too much down here (double expresso...sorry). There is enough lead time and I can learn stuff not here, and might even know it. I suggest Midnight on the Water as something we could all play slowly as a warm-up or the Ashogan (sp) Fairwell.

 

I would like to hear someone's version of Bonaparte's Retreat simply because every fiddler I encounter has a different combination of when the A, B, and C parts of the tune happen and each of course claims to play the diffenitive version.

[Jim Besser]

I know I've put way too much down here (double expresso...sorry). There is enough lead time and I can learn stuff not here, and might even know it. I suggest Midnight on the Water as something we could all play slowly as a warm-up or the Ashogan (sp) Fairwell.

 

I would like to hear someone's version of Bonaparte's Retreat simply because every fiddler I encounter has a different combination of when the A, B, and C parts of the tune happen and each of course claims to play the diffenitive version.

 

Great list, this will be fun.

 

BUt you won't hear my Bonaparte's Retreat; it's the only one of the Bonapartes I don't know. I just listened to a version I have on a CD and realized I've never heard anybody play it around here. Go figure.

[Ken_Coles]

What I would really like to have is an opportunity for a serious dance music session with an anglo player (s) and enjoy the mountains and valleys that would create.

 

Well, it is a shame about that snowstorm last March that stranded me in Littleton, Mass. the night of your session, Mark! (What a week that was - no more "Spring Break" trips to New England!) We could have gotten a start on this. I learned many of the tunes everyone has been listing on this thread back in the 1990s when I was around a lot of Old time and contra dance musicians. Where I live now is much quieter musically than you-all on the U.S. East Coast; count your blessings!

[fiddlersgreen]

I have not played OTM in enough sessions to have been caught in a group were they were all tuned to themselves and not to a reed instrument, but I will always have the fiddle or mandolin with me so, HA HA, I can still play with them. At the Catskills though, I came upon a small session were the fiddles were tuned down a step or so and very few folks joined either because they couldn't (reeds) or were two shy to stop everyone so they could tune to them.

 

I learned the EC playing Irish tunes by ear from Anglo players on CD so I do a lot of bellows action with my tunes. To add to the bellows action I will play the EC at chest level with the tina moving somewhat with the music along with allowing the bellows to move with the finger action. A good example would be some of the bellows triplets in "Lark in the Morning". I still have a long way to go to improve the bellows action though.

[Henk van Aalten]

I'm not sure if it is OTM, but I'm fascinated by this tune I found about a week ago. It is a tune played by Henry Reed and it's called "Texas". Later I found a recording of Henry Reed himself. He plays the tune much faster.

I can play it over nad over again and it's "playable" on my C/G Anglo.

 

 

Edited to get the link right (posting from a Mac in Schotland is new for me )

Edited January 26, 2006 by Henk van Aalten

[Dan Worrall]

I'm not sure if it is OTM, but I'm fascinated by this tune I found about a week ago. It is a tune played by Henry Reed and it's called "Texas". Later I found a recording of Henry Reed himself. He plays the tune much faster.

I can play it over nad over again and it's "playable" on my C/G Anglo.

 

 

Edited to get the link right (posting from a Mac in Schotland is new for me )

It is indeed a nice tune. Bertram Levy recorded a very thoughtful and almost dream-like version of that tune on the anglo on his 'Sageflower Suite' some decades back. If you can find that out-of-print LP, it is worth a listen.

Henry Reed is definitely OT, from Kentucky. There is a great website for him where you can hear scratchy recordings made when he was an old man. Alan Jabbour, a fiddle player and scholar, made the recordings and started a band called the Hollow Rock String Band in the late sixties, which many people thought was the first to start popularizing this style (which had been all but flattened by the bluegrass express). Bertram Levy played banjo in that group, and when he later moved to anglo he took many of these tunes with him to that instrument.

[Mark Evans]

OTM sho' nuff' Henk....however that recording is really on the slow side. There should be a good bounce to it so's the ladies in gingham dresses can show off a bit . A good fast walking tempo.