Neffa New England Folk Festival

[greenferry]

I was looking over the Grid for NEFFA, and wondering if anyone knows where the concertinas are most likely to be (apart from the Button Box in the Craft Room!). Is anyone from C net playing there? I am singing with West Gallery Quire on Saturday; it would be fun to hear some concertinas!

[Mark Evans]

Beautiful Sunday afternoon to you Barbara! I will be there with Acadian Gumbo on the 22nd. I forget the name of the room, I think Lyric? 10:30. Allison will be there again doing the Seanma I forget when.

 

Afterward I have to run off and give a seminar on Tosca up at the jobsite but hope to have the energy to come back and cut loose.

Edited April 2, 2006 by Mark Evans

[JimLucas]

Afterward I have to run off and give a seminar on Tosca up at the jobsite but hope to have the energy to come back and cut loose.

Good luck. Don't let the Tosca ninnies get you down.

[Jim Besser]

I was looking over the Grid for NEFFA, and wondering if anyone knows where the concertinas are most likely to be (apart from the Button Box in the Craft Room!). Is anyone from C net playing there? I am singing with West Gallery Quire on Saturday; it would be fun to hear some concertinas!

 

I'll be there, concertinas at the ready. Originally I had no responsiblities, but now I may be playing with my wife's rapper group.

 

I'm definitely hoping for some good jamming here and there. I know we'd talked earlier about doing some old time, and I'm up for that.

 

Maybe we should schedule a little C.Net meet-up.

[Animaterra]

My Jeffries and I can be heard on Saturday at 10 am with the Harrisville Morris Women and at 8 pm with the duo Seanma.

 

"Jeff" and I will wander the halls in between, looking for a good chance to jam!

[Tom Hall]

I'll certainly be there on Saturday. Just watch for people carryng square cases and you'll most likely find concertina players. That's how I spotted Mark last year while waiting for the shuttle.

 

I'll try to stop in for the West End Quire and will be going to New England Fireside, Sandy and Caroline Paton, and of course, John Roberts who is a definite must for any concertina player.

 

In between meanderings, we usually hang out by the CAMSCO/Folk Legacy booth. Looking forward to seeing some of you, and especially Animaterra, who I haven't seen in all too long a time - Tom

[Jim Besser]

I'll certainly be there on Saturday. Just watch for people carryng square cases and you'll most likely find concertina players. That's how I spotted Mark last year while waiting for the shuttle.

 

Or a pack frame with two concertina-sized camera bags attached!

[Animaterra]

It'll be great to see you, too, Tom! Is Linn coming?

[Jody Kruskal]

Hi there Greenfairy and all,

 

I'll be in the playing with Half Moon Sword on Saturday, 1:00pm in the Courtyard. Plus jamming in the halls. See you there.

[m3838]

"I'll be there, concertinas at the ready. Originally I had no responsiblities, but now I may be playing with my wife's rapper group."

 

Your wife's what group?

[Jim Besser]

"I'll be there, concertinas at the ready. Originally I had no responsiblities, but now I may be playing with my wife's rapper group."

 

Your wife's what group?

 

Rapper sword dancing. Read about it here: rapper

 

THe music is ordinary English/Irish/whatever dance music speeded up beyond all reason.

 

I would be interested in hearing from other Anglo players who play for rapper sides and hearing the tricks people use to play at that speed.

[David Barnert]

I will be there, but Sunday only. Playing concertina (and Pipe & Tabor) for Pokingbrook Morris* in the Courtyard between 1 and 2 PM. I'd love to meet up with others from the forum, but I know I'll also be happy jamming with all sorts of instruments.

 

*Whites with green baldricks, red hats on the men, straw hats on the women.

[JimLucas]

Your wife's what group?

Rapper sword dancing. Read about it here: rapper

On the list of performers I find 7 groups with "rapper" in their name. Which is your wife's group?

 

I would be interested in hearing from other Anglo players who play for rapper sides and hearing the tricks people use to play at that speed.

Not sure I can help you there. When I've played for rapper it was always on the English (or the whistle)... but that was in the days before I started getting serious about the anglo. Still, I'll make a couple of recommendations:

... 1) Pick tunes that you can play with a minimum of bellows reversals, and those preferably on the beats rather than on the subdivisions.

... 2) Consider playing the tune in a different key in order to improve your abilty to follow point 1. E.g., play the jig "Swallowtail" in Dm (on a C/G), rather than the usual Em, or even center it on the G row in Am. Similarly, "Tobin's Favorite" could be played in C or G.

... 3) Abandon the idea of always playing the same note in the same direction or on the same button. E.g., if you play "Tobin's Favorite" in G, do the final four notes with the triplet a-g-f# all on the pull, but the final g on the push. (In D it would be the reverse: e-d-c# on push and the final d on pull.) I would do the a-b-c' run all on the pull, and the same with c'-b-c' , but for the b-a-b I would keep my finger on the same button and use a bellows reversal.

... 4) If you're not a solo musician, changing the key might cause problems for the others, but in the two examples I just mentioned, using a G/D anglo instead of the C/G can solve them. On a G/D the C/G fingerings for "Swallowtail" in Am and "Tobin's Favorite" in G will give you the original keys of Em and D.

 

Edited to add: I forgot to say that for the repeated A's and G's in playing "Swallotail" in Am, I would alternate the G-row and C-row buttons. I.e., notated as buttons(rows) the first four measures would be:

... cAA(GCG) eAA(GGC) | cAc(GGG) edc(GCG) |

... BGG(GCG) dGG(GGC) | BGB(GGG) dcB(GCG) |

Note that this even uses exactly the same fingers for measures 1-2 as for 3-4, except for the single crossover into the right-hand C row. Then to end that phrase, I would do:

... gf#g(GGG) dcB(GCG) | cAA(GGC) A--(G)

Edited April 5, 2006 by JimLucas

[PeterT]

I would be interested in hearing from other Anglo players who play for rapper sides and hearing the tricks people use to play at that speed.

Hi Jim,

 

I've watched some Rapper Sword dancing over the years, and can't help feeling that English concertina is better suited than Anglo. Still, we play whatever system we have for the music!

 

I've played for a few Rapper performances. The trick is (maybe) to pick tunes with fewer notes, so that, when speeded up, there are relatively few notes to worry about. Alternatively, I used to play "New Rigged Ship", which, as written, has quite a few triplets. The important thing is the rhythm (i.e. where the beat falls); as I speeded up, I dropped the middle note of some triplets, but doubled the length of the first note. I'm sure that only another musician would have noticed this. If really fast playing was needed, I'd turn the triplet into a single note of almost equal value to the triplet; this works, as the beat falls on the note following the triplet (using the first bar as an example).

 

The above is a "fudge", but the dancing is the most important thing, and the music has to support this, not get in the way.

 

Regards,

Peter.

 

http://www.thesession.org/tunes/sheetmusic...riggedship1.gif

[Chris Timson]

Have a good time, everyone. The one time Anne and I appeared on the NEFFA grid we had a whale of a time, once we'd get past the culture shock (and it was a big one) of a totally dry folk festival ...

 

Chris

[JimLucas]

Among the performers are also some concertina players who don't only play for Morris:

___ on English: Mike Agranoff, Jeff Warner, Jerry Epstein, Ken Sweeney, Rachel Hall,...

___ on anglo: Jody Kruskal, John Roberts,...

I'm sure there are many more. Even if I had time to go through the full list of performers, there are so many names I don't know, so I can't know what they do or don't play.

[Jim Besser]

... 4) If you're not a solo musician, changing the key might cause problems for the others, but in the two examples I just mentioned, using a G/D anglo instead of the C/G can solve them. On a G/D the C/G fingerings for "Swallowtail" in Am and "Tobin's Favorite" in G will give you the original keys of Em and D.

 

Thanks, Jim, that's all helpful. SOme of it is what I figured out myself, some makes things clearer.

 

My problem is that I'm playing with another muso, medleys already set for the convenience of the fiddler. I already made the switch to the G/D for Swallowtail, but as you suggested, it would be easier, for speed, to play it in Dm.

 

None of the tunes is a particular problem; it's just achieving that final bit of speed when you get in the range of 160 beats, and working out medleys that weren't keyed with an Anglo in mind!

[Jim Besser]

I've watched some Rapper Sword dancing over the years, and can't help feeling that English concertina is better suited than Anglo. Still, we play whatever system we have for the music!

 

So true. An English or Duet makes more sense at near light speed, but that's not an option.

 

I've played for a few Rapper performances. The trick is (maybe) to pick tunes with fewer notes, so that, when speeded up, there are relatively few notes to worry about. Alternatively, I used to play "New Rigged Ship", which, as written, has quite a few triplets. The important thing is the rhythm (i.e. where the beat falls); as I speeded up, I dropped the middle note of some triplets, but doubled the length of the first note. I'm sure that only another musician would have noticed this. If really fast playing was needed, I'd turn the triplet into a single note of almost equal value to the triplet; this works, as the beat falls on the note following the triplet (using the first bar as an example).

 

That's more or less what I've been doing, but it detracts a lot from the music to strip it down to the bare bones to achieve the necessary speed.

 

And I have no choice of tunes/keys, since I'm just filling in. Fudges are definitely in order!