Big Mystery - Decide For Yourselves

[Chris Timson]

Personally I think it's a fake, just a battery of samplers driven by a sequencer with the signal subject to some post processing to add noise and downgrade the quality.

 

Chris

[JimLucas]

A new day... time for a new opinion!

 

Bluebell = accordion (just vamping) + concertina

I've gotten the impression that some folks thinks there's a connection between these recordings and the early ICA. Don't I also recall anecdotes regarding an ICA member who played bandonion? Could it be that, rather than an accordion?

[Alan Day]

Personally I think it's a fake, just a battery of samplers driven by a sequencer with the signal subject to some post processing to add noise and downgrade the quality.

 

Chris

 

You promised not to tell anyone Chris.

 

A new day ,time for a new opinion, Danny I think there are three concertinas involved but only one is playing.

 

Seriously the CD has reached its destination and an answer is promised within the next few days.

I thought initially it was the answer we are all waiting for.

Al

[Woody]

I thought initially it was the answer we are all waiting for.

Al

 

Surely it's far more fun to speculate. Maybe when you get the answer you could spin it out for a month or two - drop some clues etc. It could be the start of a (very low budget) whodunnit.

 

- W

[Theodore Kloba]

I've gotten the impression that some folks thinks there's a connection between these recordings and the early ICA. Don't I also recall anecdotes regarding an ICA member who played bandonion? Could it be that, rather than an accordion?

It could be a single-reed bandonion, or even the Wheatstone "bandoneon" you posted about earlier. It would be no more difficult to play that piece on a bandonion than a Chemnitzer. Probably easier, in fact, to do the countermelodies on the left hand.

 

An idea occurred to me earlier today of something I could record and post here... I'm in the process of tuning an old german Chemnitzer I have. The tuning process involves blanking off some of the reedplates (I use freezer paper) to disable the unisons and octaves. I could keep the paper in place and record some tunes with it as a single-reed box.

[Alan Day]

Do you think we should get Miss Marple and Poirot in on this Woody.

Put the names around a big table and we can all gasp at the verdict.

It just may happen.

Al

[PeterT]

Do you think we should get Miss Marple and Poirot in on this Woody.

Put the names around a big table and we can all gasp at the verdict.

It just may happen.

Al

Hi Alan,

 

I still favour the poll.

 

Actually, I think that you already know the answers, and are just stringing us along.

 

Regards,

Peter.

[Stephen Chambers]

... now I'm sure that many of the earlier tracks are of someone playing a large duet, whilst others (especially the last few) seem to be of a group of English concertina players. It's definitely not all one performance.

I've now listened to the CD giving it my full attention, and written down the times the different "tracks" begin (a big problem in analysing the content being that there are no track divisions on the CD), so this is what I think I'm hearing:

 

0.00 March - Duet

2.13 Barn Dance - Duet

4.29 Bluebell Polka - Duet

6.07 Colonel Bogey - Duet

8.45 Classical Overture - English concertina group

13.35 March - Duet

16.19 Waltz - Duet

18.59 French Musette Waltz - Duet

21.25 Folk Selection - Duet

27.35 March - Duet

30.02 March - Duet

33.06 Classical piece - English concertina duet

36.07 Classical piece - English concertina group

39.48 Organ piece - English concertina group

42.53 Waltz - English concertina group

 

FWIW, I think that all the tracks I've described as "Duet" are performed by the same player (could it be Jim's son Maurice?). But I must confess that initially, on the first machine I played it on, the accompaniment sounded confusingly like it was being played on the bass end of a piano accordion, though on other machines it now sounds more like the left hand side of a duet concertina.

 

The quality of the original tape, which sounds like it was probably recorded off (privately made?) 78rpm discs, leaves a lot to be desired.

[Rod Thompson]

They are still around Peter and rehearse over in Lexington. A wild group of people.

 

Sorry about the gig vs. jig thing Jim. I always have to think twice for in my head it is "gigue" a term from one of those other musical lives I live.

 

Slightly off-topic, but how is gigue pronounced? as jig?

[Dan Worrall]

Well, I can see I'm coming in late for this party! For what it is worth, I think Bluebell is played on a single instrument, and like Theodore I think it could be easily played on a Chemnitzer. If a Chemnitzer keyboard was made in an English-style instrument (perhaps like the one in the post mentioned above), I think you'd have it.

 

For evidence, have a listen to a little eleven-year old boy in Wisconsin play "The Concertina Hoedown". This tune is in a very nice article about polka culture in Wisconsin (Theodore, check out that the teacher there thinks that concertina playing is actually on the upswing with kids, though the dancing is dying out). A nice video is marred by a piano accordion player, however. The Hoedown tune is one of the audio clips. http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=330842

 

But back to the kid. The Hoedown number is very, very similar stylistically to the Bluebell piece...you get a very fluid right hand (so fluid as to sound like a two-handed English player), with a precise oom-pah arrangement on the left. So easy that an 11 year old can do it. Clearly, the Chemnitzer keyboard has a lot going for it. I'd like to play that Wheatstone Chemnitzer...anyone know where it ended up?

 

I tried playing the 'Hoedown' on my anglo, with an oompah. My hat is off to anyone who can get even close to that smooth right hand.

 

I don't know the various duet types well enough to say which could do this and which couldn't. Suffice it to say that a Chemnitzer 'duet' keyboard could do it, and could do the Bogey tune as well. BTW, I listened to Gordon Cutty playing this; there would be no problem picking out that he is using an English.

 

Cheers,

Dan

 

Edit:

Wait...stop the press!...it is ten minutes later and I think I got the A part of Hoedown...you just have to dip into the left side a bit to smoothen the melody run. Same in the B part. It is actually quite simple. Guess I can keep my hat on after all.

Edited July 7, 2006 by Dan Worrall

[m3838]

Uh, what CD is it, once again?

And is it available?

Thanks.

[malcolm clapp]

A new day... time for a new opinion!

 

Bluebell = accordion (just vamping) + concertina

I've gotten the impression that some folks thinks there's a connection between these recordings and the early ICA. Don't I also recall anecdotes regarding an ICA member who played bandonion? Could it be that, rather than an accordion?

 

 

I assume you are referring to the late Pat Robson.

However I don't think he was an ICA member until a little after these recordings were made.

 

(ICA Membership Sec/former Membership Sec, can you confirm this?)

 

 

MC

[JimLucas]

Slightly off-topic, but how is gigue pronounced? as jig?

I think that in romance languages generally, "g" before a soft vowel ("e" or "i") is pronounced like "j", but before other vowels it's a hard "g". That's why many English words which are derived from French have a "gui" combination instead of just "gi". The "hard" vowel "u" is inserted before the "i" simply to make the "g" hard, and isn't itself pronounced. Words like "girl" and "get" didn't come from French. But I believe that "guide" and "intrigue" did.

[JimLucas]

Maybe when you get the answer you could spin it out for a month or two - drop some clues etc. It could be the start of a (very low budget) whodunnit.

Or a board game? I think the one I played as a kid was sold at a yard sale, leaving me Clue-less.

[JimLucas]

I'm in the process of tuning an old german Chemnitzer I have. The tuning process involves blanking off some of the reedplates (I use freezer paper) to disable the unisons and octaves. I could keep the paper in place and record some tunes with it as a single-reed box.

I'd like to hear that.

[JimLucas]

A new day ,time for a new opinion, Danny I think there are three concertinas involved but only one is playing.

The other two are being very serious.

 

Seriously the CD has reached its destination and an answer is promised within the next few days.

I thought initially it was the answer we are all waiting for.

Language!

 

When I first read that, I thought you meant that you already had a hint that this wasn't going to produce the answer, after all. Now I think that you meant only that we are more interested in the answer than in speculation.

[JimLucas]

It could be a single-reed bandonion, or even the Wheatstone "bandoneon" you posted about earlier.

Almost certainly not that particular instrument (really a Chemnitzer layout), if the recording is English, since that instrument was found in America. I think it's most probable that its original owner -- the person who ordered it made -- was American.

[Woody]

Do you think we should get Miss Marple and Poirot in on this Woody.

Put the names around a big table and we can all gasp at the verdict.

It just may happen.

Al

 

Do we know of any players called Butler?????

 

- W