Big Mystery - Decide For Yourselves

[PeterT]

I shall now retreat from water too deep for ole Roly-Poly .

Lobs grenade, and runs. Like it!

[Gavin Atkin]

OK I have had a fiddle on my Maccan. I have NO DOUBT that I could reproduce this on it given some serious practice (and might well do but I'm not laying myself open to any challenges). I'd play it in D and it then really flows nicely; there's nothing particularly tricky about it, and I'm not claiming to be anything more than a relative novice. So can we stop all this 'better on a Crane' 'difficult to do on a duet' stuff please? It's simply wrong.

 

I've only got a 57 key available at the moment; it would have been a larger instrument than that to get the low notes I think.

 

NB this is not a comment on whether it really is a duet, simply confirmation that there is absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be, if you see the difference.

 

Heyyy... I didn't say a McCann player couldn't do it - just that I hadn't heard one play quite like this. Maybe it could work in D after all I'm a Jeffries player and the McCann just isn't my patch...

 

Gav

[Chris Timson]

a Jefferies player would have great difficulty achieving that fluidity

Eh?. Of the four Jeffries duet players I can think of offhand at least three of them would be capable of "that fluidity". There's nothing in the logic of the system that I can see that compels staccato playing (depending on the key, of course ).

 

Chris

Edited July 5, 2006 by Chris Timson

[Chris Timson]

Deleted inadvertent duplicate posting. Sorry.

Edited July 5, 2006 by Chris Timson

[Gavin Atkin]

a Jefferies player would have great difficulty achieving that fluidity

Eh?. Where do you get that from? Of the four Jeffries duet players I can think of offhand at least three of them would be capable of "that fluidity". There's nothing in the logic of the system that I can see that compels staccato playing.

 

Chris

 

From three decades of playing a Jeffries, I guess! But we can all be wrong, and heaven knows people regularly learn to do things with instruments that sound magical or impossible to other players of the same instrument.

 

Who are your four Jeffries players btw? I'm always interested to come across new ones as there aren't too many of us...

 

Gav

[Stephen Chambers]

I shall now retreat from water too deep for ole Roly-Poly .

Lobs grenade, and runs. Like it!

Or drops a depth charge and steams away at full speed?

[Mark Evans]

[Or drops a depth charge and steams away at full speed?

 

Ah! I like that one better. Peter's reminds me of Smash the Windows which is one of my favorite gigs. Last week a fiddler at session suggested it as far too politically charged to by played

 

Steaming off at full speed!

 

Corrected for that unfortunate business with the poor dear widows. Where's me manners anyway?

Edited July 5, 2006 by Mark Evans

[Gavin Atkin]

a Jefferies player would have great difficulty achieving that fluidity

Eh?. Where do you get that from? Of the four Jeffries duet players I can think of offhand at least three of them would be capable of "that fluidity". There's nothing in the logic of the system that I can see that compels staccato playing.

 

Chris

 

From three decades of playing a Jeffries, I guess! But we can all be wrong, and heaven knows people regularly learn to do things with instruments that sound magical or impossible to other players of the same instrument.

 

Who are your four Jeffries players btw? I'm always interested to come across new ones as there aren't too many of us...

 

Gav

 

 

I guess I should explain just a little more. With the Jeffries duet, unless you can develop an alternative multi-finger technique that I find a bit tooo scary too contemplate, when playing runs you usually have to hit conseuctive notes with a single finger.

 

That doesn't mean that runs can't be played quickly - but it does mean that there are distinctive gaps between the notes as the finger in question hops from note to note, and that the gaps become more obvious the faster you play.

 

I don't claim to be infalllible on the issue - I play several instruments and it's my observation that for each one of them there are people who can do things I can only dream about!

 

Gav

[Chris Timson]

I guess I should explain just a little more.

Thanks.

 

For anyone puzzling over the diference between my post and Gavin's quote from it. I read what I had written, decided I didn't like it because it was overly forceful, and edited it at the same time as Gavin must have been replying. Oh these multi-user systems...

 

Chris

[Alan Day]

The original decision of posting this tune on the site was the hope that someone would recognise the style of the playing and identify who the player/s is.

There is a possible major breakthrough regarding this , as the possible player has been recognised ,but will depend on listening to further tracks,to verify the answer.I have sent a copy of the CD to this person and the answer is imminent and very exciting.

The copies of the CDs were sent to players involved with ICA as this is the source from which it came and I was hoping that one of these members may have the answer.Also to those players I knew had substantial archive collections. Just at the point of thinking we would never solve this one,along comes the Email and the answer.

Please be patient to give the person a chance to hear the recordings.In the meanwhile I have asked Chris to post a more spectacular bit of playing as a thank you to you all for a great discussion and answer to the mystery.

 

Al

[PeterT]

I guess I should explain just a little more. With the Jeffries duet, unless you can develop an alternative multi-finger technique that I find a bit tooo scary too contemplate, when playing runs you usually have to hit conseuctive notes with a single finger.

 

That doesn't mean that runs can't be played quickly - but it does mean that there are distinctive gaps between the notes as the finger in question hops from note to note, and that the gaps become more obvious the faster you play.

Oh good; thought it was just me!

 

I happened to buy the one which Marcus had, at Chippenham. Couldn't really afford it (he's been very good regarding payment), but thought that I couldn't pass up the opportunity.

 

Regards,

Peter.

[PeterT]

There is a possible major breakthrough regarding this , as the possible player has been recognised ,but will depend on listening to further tracks,to verify the answer.I have sent a copy of the CD to this person and the answer is imminent and very exciting.

Great news, Alan, as we all stand by to be potentially proved wrong.

 

Regards,

Peter.

[PeterT]

Would you be happy for me to respond off Forum?

Absolutely.

Alan's latest posting might well render my response redundant, but I'll do it anyway.

 

Regards,

Peter.

[Gavin Atkin]

There is a possible major breakthrough regarding this , as the possible player has been recognised ,but will depend on listening to further tracks,to verify the answer.I have sent a copy of the CD to this person and the answer is imminent and very exciting.

Great news, Alan, as we all stand by to be potentially proved wrong.

 

Regards,

Peter.

 

Heck, man - I'd LIKE to be wrong! Gav

[Chris Timson]

I happened to buy the one which Marcus had, at Chippenham. Couldn't really afford it (he's been very good regarding payment), but thought that I couldn't pass up the opportunity.

Ah, you bought it. I had an overnight wrestle with my conscience over that pretty box. It was a very close run thing. Nice to know it went to a good home.

 

Alan has asked me to put up Colonel Bogey from the CD, which I will do tonight. I would love to tell you all who the player(s) might be, but I have signed a disclosure agreement that condemns my concertinas to be consumed by termites if I should breathe a word before Alan is ready to announce it. If it's right, it is exciting, though.

 

Chris

[PeterT]

Alan has asked me to put up Colonel Bogey from the CD, which I will do tonight. I would love to tell you all who the player(s) might be, but I have signed a disclosure agreement that condemns my concertinas to be consumed by termites if I should breathe a word before Alan is ready to announce it. If it's right, it is exciting, though.

I had to do something similar for my recent BBC recording. They didn't threaten that nasty things would happen to my concertina, though!

 

Regards,

Peter.

[PeterT]

Heck, man - I'd LIKE to be wrong! Gav

I just want to know who it is. I can't imagine how Alan's been feeling since he first got hold of the recordings.

 

Peter.

[Theodore Kloba]

Questions and comments from an "outside" reader:

 

Of course I have no idea who the player might be, or really what instrument is being played.

 

First of all, why was the possibility of a >30 button Anglo (G/D?) playing across-the-rows ruled out? (Assuming the tape speed was off by a semitone and it starts in G.) Is it the low bass notes?

 

If it weren't for the tone of the melody being obviously an English-construction instrument, it sounds like a pretty ordinary Chemnitzer arrangement. In fact, here's one now that wouldn't strain a mediocre player to accomplish technically (taken from Ken Yagielski's concertinamusic.com):

 

 

 

FWIW, and not really relating to the song at hand: The differences in tone and voicing between left and right as well as between the low bass notes (C, G, D, A, E) and the left-hand chord tones are included by design in most Chemnitzers.

 

Not that it's a likely solution to the mystery, but: Is it known whether any of the English makers ever constructed a "special-order" instrument to the 38-button Chemnitzer layout? This whole piece as notated above would fit within that keyboard with only a few missing notes in the accompaniment, all of which could easily be worked around.