Swsi 2006

[Rhomylly]

I'm not sure how I got nominated to be the official storyteller for SWSI 2006, but here I am and here it goes:

 

Got to the museum/school on Thursday afternoon right when everyone else in the concertina contingent was starting to arrive. I paid my entry fee, and of course someone was already playing a concertina somewhere (you have no idea how well concertina music, especially when amplified by 18-foot classroom ceilings, cuts through measly dulcimer strumming). Pretty soon we were all assembled in an empty classroom upstairs and started the traditional instrument swap (here, try my Dipper. Here, this is my Edgley. Wow, is that a duet?)

 

We had eight attendees: Dan Worrall, Mark Gilston, Jim Bayliss, Gary Coover, Jack Mullen, Roy Janek, Stephen Mills, and yours truly, although we weren't all there that first night. Harold Herrington also came on Saturday and gave a very interesting demonstration of reed tuning. What a character he is!

 

By my rough count, we had anglos from all the classic and current makers: Wheatstone, Lachenal, Dipper, Edgley, Carroll, Tedrow -- and Worrall-in-progress I think there were 7 or 8 anglos total.

 

English was largely represented by Wheatstone, with Gary's Lachenal Contrabass (ca. 1910-1920) by far everyone's favorite, and immediately dubbed "The Fartophone." Seriously, that thing went so low we could feel the vibrations.

 

 

There were also 3 duets.

 

Total concertinas: 16-20 (I lost the exact count, with the student models and all).

 

 

Eventually everyone concertina-related found each other and we started practicing our performance pieces.

 

After dinner we headed back to watch the dulcimer and old-timey festival headliners perform, and then found another empty classroom and jammed until about 10.

 

9:00 Friday morning, band practice!! Two tunes were starting to shape up better, so we chose them: Magnolia Waltz and my favorite shapenote, Evening Shade.

 

We generally spent all day Friday into the evening hanging out together and jamming/practicing/yapping about minutia of concertinas.

 

Saturday morning at band practice we found out that we could perform Magnolia Waltz at the end of the lunchtime concert, and that we could showcase the shapenote tune at the end of the shapenote class.

 

Mark also gave a GREAT song accompaniment class, mostly aimed at dulcimer players, but I learned a lot. In the basement of the school, in what was probably the original gym, there is an honest-to-gods *old* log cabin. Reminds me of the dog-trot cabin near where I grew up. So here I was, sitting on the front porch of a log cabin playing concertina. The world is a funny place.

 

Our performances went well, and seemed to be genuinely appreciated by the old-timey and dulcimer folks.

 

Oh, and the Fartophone made our shapenote sound like a funeral dirge (which that one actually IS), and more to the point, like some New Orleans funeral parade. We had a hard time playing, we were laughing so hard.

 

And Magnolia Waltz sounded like a carousel band. But we kicked ASS!

 

I think everyone got what they wanted to get out of the event. I know the duet folks made sure to get some quality time with just them. The more advanced players got to shine at some concertina jam sessions, and us beginners were definitely made to feel like a welcome part of the "tribe."

 

What I personally got out of the weekend:

*Some solid advice on how to start ornamentation of tunes on the anglo.

*The baritone English is too big for me to play.

*However, English is the way to go for song accompaniment.

 

And, finally, that if you live long enough, eventually you get to play in the band.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Animaterra]

What fun, Rhomylly! It sounds like a fulfilling, rewarding time!

[Dan Worrall]

Thanks for the report, Rhomylly...nicely done!

 

Just a little postscript on some of the other activities. One of the musicians, Sheila Kay Adams of Sodom North Carolina, learned all her ballads from both her grandmother and her grand-aunt, who was Mary Sands. Mary Sands was one of Cecil Sharp's best sources when he visited Appalachia in 1918, looking for English ballads. The ones Sheila sang left England 250 years ago, and they were wonderful. Cecil Sharp, as most anglo players know, was 'turned on' to traditional music 19 years earlier, when he heard and saw William Kimber on concertina with a band of Morris dancers, out in the snow.

 

This is a really nice festival for old time fiddle and banjo music...not nearly as crowded as some of the eastern ones, but still with some fine teachers from the North Carolina-Tennessee-Virginia heartland of that music. A few of us angloers took away some OT music to work on for next year....nice, welcoming tune sessions.

 

The shape note singing was really fine; all the squeezers joined in that activity. Amazing how they could take a group that included so many novices, and by the end of an hour have everyone singing several hymns in perfect four part harmony. And what harmonies....very old sounding stuff. We were in an upstairs room in an old turn-of-the-century schoolhouse with no AC, and it was a bit warm; nearly all were fanning themselves with their music sheets. A passing thunderbolt shut off the power, and we sang on...and for a moment it felt like times long past.

[Stephen Mills]

This year’s SWSI was better than the inaugural event on general organization and things to do, as might be expected. We missed Crane player Kurt Braun and English player Nancy Bessent from last year– both had unavoidable conflicts. On the other hand, we had first-time attendees Jack Mullen, who has gone through the Noel Hill course a time or two, and the indefatigable Rhomylly, who made the 600 mile drive from Portales, New Mexico. Highlights included the shape note workshop to which Dan alluded and playing some excellent Anglos: Dan's Dipper, Roy Janik’s new Carroll, Jack’s Tedrow and Rhomylly’s 24 button Edgley.

 

This was supposed to be the Year of the Haydens, but only 2 of the projected 4-5 actually showed. My new Tedrow model was well received. In the duet workshop, I heard Jim Bayliss “toss off” some tunes like “Blue Moon” on his Dickinson Hayden with deceptive ease and Gary Coover play a number of nice English-style tunes of his Jeffries duet. A good time.

 

We worked up 2 out of the 5 or so prospective band tunes, settling on “Magnolia Waltz” and “Evening Shade”. Unlike last year, where there was a moment on stage for the concertina band, this year was reserved for headliners. The organizer suggested we sit off to the side and play “Magnolia Waltz” as people left after one afternoon’s concert. The headliners finished, we brought out our concertinas, and then he brought the 2 performers back for an impromptu encore. They finished, rather abruptly, and the organizer suddenly turned and pointed at us, Dan shouted, “Let’s go, 1-2-3“ and off we went, at somewhere between 1.2 and 1.4 times normal tempo. All I can say is that it sounded like a calliope, in the francticness of the moment, I hit twice as many bum notes as all the rehearsals combined, and I’m glad there’s no extant recording, or if there is, I hope the mike was well away from me. Still, it was generally well received.

 

The rather maudlin shape note tune “Evening Shade” went very well and drew the organizer in to hear it more closely. The high?light was when Harold Herrington entered midway through our last rehearsal. “My God”, he said, “This tune makes me want to open a vein!” Then he proceeded to extemporize a narration to go with it. “THEY SET OUT ON THE SEA WITH 75 ABLE-BODIED MEN. THEY WENT DOWN OFF THE COAST OF THE AZORES, WITH NO MAN SURVIVING…” or somesuch. By the end, I could hardly play for laughing.

 

Since Rhomylly has delivered the scoop, I will confirm that Dan Worrall arrived in possession of Worrall 0.86, which I appropriated for most of the weekend. His first 30 button Anglo was unfinished, but had many fine attributes. Dan has a particular niche in mind, but I’ll leave the rest to him for his own time and place.

 

Mark Gilston, an Austin concertina player who goes by Tradman on this site, was again a performer and teacher. I remember his Balkan tunes fondly from last year, and as I left this year I bought his Troll Road cd, which contains 22 Swedish and Norwegian tunes, 15 of which feature concertina. I played it all the way home. Five tunes are concertina+fiddle, 4 are solo (English) concertina, 7 are dulcimer, and 6 are concertina duets (not duet concertina (sadly, the fiddle player died during the course of recording the albums and Mark double-tracked the fiddle part on concertina to accompany his previous concertina tracks, if I have the story right.)

 

Whether the renditions are "authentically" Swedish/Norwegian, I cannot judge, nor do I really care. I find the music quite enjoyable. If you’re interested, you can hear extended samples at the cdbaby website. The ones you can sample that contain concertina are:

4. Polska efter Back Far - dbl English

5. Skänklåt Från Dalarna - w/fiddle

7. Barkbrödslåter (Bark Bread Tune) - solo English

8. Troll Road - dbl English

17. Vandringen I Världen - w/fiddle

19. Polska Från Föllinge (Gammelvänster) - solo English

 

I also bought a cd by Sheila Kay Adams, who Dan mentioned. At one of the concerts, she sang “Young Edwin in the Low Lands Low”, which I occasionally play in a setting from England. The accompanying notes suggest that this tune was collected in Hampshire in about 1910. It was interesting to compare it with her Appalachian version, which Cecil Sharp may have also encountered collecting in North Carolina some years later.

[Mark Evans]

Sounds wonderful.

 

I wonder Rhomylly, could those pictures be thumbnailed? I would so love to see the faces. From what my one functioning eye can see it looks as if the venue was wonderful.

 

From some reason just thinking about this has me remembering rabbit sausage and Shiner beer. Aiyee!

[Rhomylly]

Mark,

 

maybe someone with more computer photo savvy than I (i.e. just about anyone) can repost the photos as thumbnails. Dan?

 

I'm glad Stephen mentioned Mark's Troll Road CD. I have reviewed it for CDBaby and for the music page here. A fascinating "outside the English/Irish box" if you ask me. Definitely kept my toes tapping on the drive home (which may or may not have been a good thing)!

 

I'm glad folks who were there are adding their perspective to the event

[Rhomylly]

A couple more things:

 

First of all, major public kudos to Dan for organizing the squeezer part of the event. Sometimes it was like herding cats, and sometimes it was like we were one body with 18 hands (and not enough feet keeping rhythm), but it always worked out. And quite well, too!

 

Also, an announcement of a new arrival! I am in the process of buying Mark Gilston's (Tradman's) 1850's-ish student Wheatstone English. My hands are just too small for a baritone. It needs a little TLC, and a horizontal-lay case, and I will need a tutorial that focuses on song accompaniment, but this is all quite doable. And I am very excited!

[m3838]

"Also, an announcement of a new arrival! I am in the process of buying Mark Gilston's (Tradman's) 1850's-ish student Wheatstone English."

 

Have you tried it? I hope you did. Extencively. Or buying with a return period of some sort.

I had both George Case and Wheatstone from 1850es and fully understood the simple fact that concertina makers were not sitting idly, but indeed IMPROVED their instruments over time.

And if your hands are too small for a baritone, you probably not holding it correctly. What's the keyboard size differences between a baritone and a trebble? I also found that, at least in the beginning, you are better off to play sitting, with an instrument firmly planted on your knee. In which case it doesn't matter how much it weighs.

[JimLucas]

Also, an announcement of a new arrival! I am in the process of buying Mark Gilston's (Tradman's) 1850's-ish student Wheatstone English.

Have you tried it? I hope you did. Extencively. Or buying with a return period of some sort.

It's not a 1910 Æola, but it should be more than adequate for Rhomylly starting out. Maybe later she'll move to something better. I suspect she's a bit more tolerant than you, Michael, just in general. But I also know Mark (been many years; Hi, Tradman), and know that he would not give her something that wasn't a good playable instrument.

 

And if your hands are too small for a baritone, you probably not holding it correctly. What's the keyboard size differences between a baritone and a trebble?

I'm not sure what her difficulty is, but she didn't say that it was the weight. What she has is a baritone "Jack", which -- like the Jackie -- has ends that at 7" are larger than the traditional treble English, though the size and spacing of the buttons and relative locations of the thumb loop and finger plate are the same as on the traditional instruments.

Edited April 6, 2006 by JimLucas

[m3838]

Mine were good instrumetns. The problem was they behaved like a good concertina should have in 1850es - quiet, slow to respond and with very small dynamic range. Depends on what people want.

[Larry Stout]

Sometimes quiet is not a bad thing. The 1850's era concertinas can be quite sweet. With a gentle hand one can use them for lullabies, something you can't do with a 1913 metal ended one with steel reeds (which I view as the opposite extreme).

[Rhomylly]

Yes, I did try the Wheatstone. I'm buying it solely for song accompaniment. My voice, though mostly in the alto range, is also rather light. I think it will be a good match for my voice.

 

If I want to be heard in a session, I'll take the Edgley Or buy a chemnitzer

 

My issue with the Jack, as Jim already noted, was not the weight, but rather the size in general. The buttons are so far under the thumbstraps (toward the body) that I was having to play the lowest notes with the tops of my fingernails. Neither pretty-sounding nor particularly comfortable. The Wheatstone's buttons were much further "out". "Away." However you want to look at it.

 

And the tone really is exactly what I want for song accompaniment. I am not (thankfully or no) Maddy Prior.