2007 Northeast Squeeze-in

[lildogturpy]

As always I had a wonderful time at the squeeze-in. Had a great time in the workshops run by Moche, one on Quebec tunes, the other on Jigs in minor keys. Now I have the Wren's Nest running around in my head. Highlights for me were: listening to Rachel Hall playing solo in the concert, normally she plays in a group but having the chance to listen to her by herself was wonderful; meeting all the wonderful people I run into every year; meeting all kinds of new folks who are new to the concertina. Lovely to catch up with Tony and Lynne again, great job as compare for the concert too Lynne. And Perry, how could you fail to mention your victory in the first ever squeeze-in haiku competition? Who knew that Jody Kruskal could be induced to sing Uncle Tom Cobley's and All after so much inebriation and so early in the morning? Bellowbelle's footbass accompaniment in the singing session was fantastic. I must confess my voice was a little rough for teaching my class today after staying up until getting on for 4-00am for the singing on Saturday night. I must confess I had my mp3 recorder going for most of it but I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet. So much to work on before next year's NESI.

[asdormire]

Beautifully sung songs by Robin and my roomate Bob Beemer, who evidently paid the big price that morning for knocking off the better part of a jug of Tallumore Dew mixed with available stomach rumbling snacks.

Bye,

Perry Werner

 

Tullamore Dew. As this is sacred uisce, it needs to be spelled properly.

 

(yes I know, my spelling isn't always consistent, but this is important.)

 

Alan

[Hit-&-Miss]

Who am I? (I still wonder that)

 

Dave I am the Jim who on sunday morning asked you if you could remember the words to "I use to work in Chicago"

 

Allison, I'm sure you would recognize me but I don't think we talked this weekend.

 

I play english concertina, and recently started on a d/g melodeon.

 

Ill have to add my C.net name to my button next year.

 

All the best. JIm

[Ken_Coles]

I also enjoyed the music and meeting new people ( especially the C-netters). I think the moose song would make a sailor blush! Ken Coles, thank you for making my decision for me. I was going to buy the fiddle at the end of the weekend if no one else did. The way I look at repairs on a fiddle is that the repairs prove that folks in the past have deemed the fiddle worth repairing. That is a good thing. Now you can come to all the Joanie Blanton fiddle weekends in Harpers Ferry. Mike

 

Indeed. I got home today to find two strings had slipped - adjusting to my house. And I need to fit a shoulder rest, and I need to rehair my bow, and.... Gee, this sounds a lot like a concertina! See you in Harper's Ferry when my music budget recovers!

 

Ken

[katepoole]

Hello from the dining room at the NESI!

 

I'm sitting here with David B., and a new shy member, Kate Poole (she'll join in some day after I get done dancing with her), also nearby are the Chocolate Bunny, fiddler's green, bellowbelle and her foot bass (Ken Sweeney was watching enviously - soon three free reeds at once!!!), and lots more folks. We're thinking of all you who couldn't come, we'll play one for you, and do one for us.

 

Ken

Saturday evening

 

It must've been those dances with Ken. Here I am posting. (Ladies beware!) I couldn't remember if I was "Dr. Dart" or Kate Poole, and then I couldn't remember which of my family's pets' names got me in. But I got it figured out.

 

Great Squeeze-In as always. All night music, every room filled with the sounds of free reeds playing totally different things simultaneouly, and a really fun concert. An event not to be missed. I'm already looking forward to next year.

[Perry Werner]

Beautifully sung songs by Robin and my roomate Bob Beemer, who evidently paid the big price that morning for knocking off the better part of a jug of Tallumore Dew mixed with available stomach rumbling snacks.

Bye,

Perry Werner

 

Tullamore Dew. As this is sacred uisce, it needs to be spelled properly.

 

(yes I know, my spelling isn't always consistent, but this is important.)

 

 

 

Excuuuuuuuuuuse me!!!!!!

However you spell it, it worked it's "magic". Personally I could'nt stand the stuff.

 

Bottom's Up!

Perry

[asdormire]

Beautifully sung songs by Robin and my roomate Bob Beemer, who evidently paid the big price that morning for knocking off the better part of a jug of Tallumore Dew mixed with available stomach rumbling snacks.

Bye,

Perry Werner

 

Tullamore Dew. As this is sacred uisce, it needs to be spelled properly.

 

(yes I know, my spelling isn't always consistent, but this is important.)

 

 

 

Excuuuuuuuuuuse me!!!!!!

However you spell it, it worked it's "magic". Personally I could'nt stand the stuff.

 

Bottom's Up!

Perry

 

 

Now that's just sacrilage.

 

Alan

 

P.S. Maybe next year I can make it out there again

[David Barnert]

Well, we can't put it off any longer. It's about time someone mentioned the elephant in the room, what was undoubtedly the talk of the event. Bob Snope's Frankentina.

As I understand it, just a day before the weekend Bob had finished putting it together from reeds and bellows from an old Italian accordion, end plates from a Lachenal concertina and an action that he made himself. It is a bass instrument, with a low E equivalent to the open low E string on a string bass. Bone-chilling, but a big hit in the concertina band.

[Richard Morse]

It is a bass instrument, with a low E equivalent to the open low E string on a string bass.

Actually, it's the E an octave below that... the lowest E on a piano. My understanding of English concertinas is that they go down from a treble in 5ths:

• Treble........... G below MC
  
• Tenor............ C below that
  
• Baritone.........G below that
  
• Cello..............C below that
  
• Bass.............. G below that (bottom line of the bass staff)
  
• Contrabass....C below that
  
• Frankentina... E below that
  

So this goes down an *octave* below a string bass! You can just about count the beats out.

 

-- Rich --

Edited September 19, 2007 by Richard Morse

[David Barnert]

It is a bass instrument, with a low E equivalent to the open low E string on a string bass.

Actually, it's the E an octave below that... the lowest E on a piano...

Sorry. That's not right. The lowest E on a piano is the low E string on a string bass. The piano keyboard goes a fifth below that to A, but not down to another E.

 

I found this diagram of a piano keyboard here.

 

The low notes are at the top of the image, as if the piano bench were at the left. C4 is middle C. C3 is the low note on a viola. C2 is the low note on a cello. E1 is the low note on a string bass, and also the lowest E on the piano. A0 is the lowest note on the piano. E below a string bass would be E0, but it's not on the piano.

 

The frequency of E1 is 41.203 hz. An octave lower would be half that, 20.6 hz. The limit of human hearing is usually given as 16 hz. It's possible that the Frankentina has E0, but I suspect it's E1.

[Richard Morse]

It is a bass instrument, with a low E equivalent to the open low E string on a string bass.

Actually, it's the E an octave below that... the lowest E on a piano...

Sorry. That's not right. The lowest E on a piano is the low E string on a string bass. The piano keyboard goes a fifth below that to A, but not down to another E.

I stand corrected! Thanks for clearing that up, David. I didn't know what range a bass was so I Googled it and went by the diagram I found on this site which shows it to be an octave higher than you're calling it out to be. Now that I look at the site more closely I see that that was a diagram for a bass guitar. Sorry about that!

 

-- Rich --

[David Barnert]

Now that I look at the site more closely I see that that was a diagram for a bass guitar.

Bass guitar and string ("upright," "double") bass both have the same range. The strings of each are tuned an octave below the lowest 4 strings of a guitar. What's confusing is that all three of those instruments (bass guitar, string bass, regular guitar) play an octave below where the music is notated, so that if a middle C (C4) is written, they're actually playing C3, etc. The guitar actually has approximately the same range as the cello but the cello plays as writen in the bass clef while the guitar reads the treble clef. In 18th & 19th century orchestral music, basses and cellos often read from the same parts but play in parallel octaves.

[Richard Morse]

For all who'd like to see who made it to NESI, check out our placeholder page (click through for a full-res version) until we get our review of this years event together. And with that in mind, I'd appreciate any photos sent my way!

 

-- Rich --

[allan atlas]

FOLKS: moreover, it's the baritone on which the lowest note sounds the G on the bottom line of the bass staff, although music for the instrument is generally written an octave higher in the treble clef. . . . ..Allan

[Jody Kruskal]

Relive a highlight of the NESI evening concert.

 

David Cornell has kindly allowed me to include an MP3 of his live concert performance of Arnold the Armadillo on my new Player Profiles web site page.

 

Rachel Hall's Swedish set that she played at the concert is also featured, though we recorded it before hand to avoid the sound of the bartender stirring whisky sours.

[fiddlerjoebob]

Thanks Jody and David.

 

I love the Armadillo song...and all the others David played...and the ones you played too Jody.

 

Randy L.

 

the bass player at the squeeze-in

[Jody Kruskal]

Thanks Jody and David.

 

I love the Armadillo song...and all the others David played...and the ones you played too Jody.

 

Randy L.

 

the bass player at the squeeze-in

 

Randy,

 

Nice to see you at NESI and get to play tunes with you. Thanks for bringing the bass. It's been a few years since I heard one there and it added a lot.

[JimLucas]

My understanding of English concertinas is that they go down from a treble in 5ths:

• Treble........... G below MC
  
• Tenor............ C below that
  
• Baritone.........G below that
  
• Cello..............C below that
  
• Bass.............. G below that (bottom line of the bass staff)
  
• Contrabass....C below that
  
• Frankentina... E below that
  

Partly right.

My first correction is that G is a fourth below C, not a fifth below. (C is a fifth below G, though, so those are alternating fifth and fourth intervals... until you get to Frank.)

 

The "standard" terminology, i.e., that found in my old Wheatstone price lists, and I believe used by Chris Algar and many others, classifies English concertinas by their lowest note (as you have done). Those with compound names (e.g., "baritone-treble") have been discussed elsewhere (see the link in the last paragraph below), and I'll omit them here.

• Piccolo............. G above middle C
  
• [No name #1].. middle C
  
• Treble.............. G below middle C ("violin low G")
  
• Tenor.............. C below that ("viola" C)
  
• Baritone.......... G below that (this is the bottom line of the bass staff)
  
• Bass................ C below that (this is "cello" C, but "cello" isn't a standard concertina name)
  
• [No name #2].. G below that (an octave below the bass staff)
  
• Contrabass*... C below that (88-key piano's lowest C)
  
• [No name #3].. E below that
  

* The "contrabass" is also called "double bass" in my Wheatstone price lists. Both terms are used together. But in the last few decades I've heard the term "contrabass" frequently, and the term "double bass" almost never.

 

"No name #1" is, has not been a standard model since the 48-button treble became standard, though it seems that the very earliest English concertinas had middle C as a lowest note, the same as most "concert" flutes.

 

"No name #3" is, of course, the Frankentina. I list it as "no name" because there's no standard ("traditional"?) name.

 

I've heard "no name #2" referred to both as "bass" and as "contrabass", but more often the latter. Concertinas with that particular low note don't appear in my Wheatstone price lists, and my own instrument with that range is a Lachenal. I don't remember whether Don Nichols' "contrabass" (pictured on his web site) is this range or the lower "contrabass" listed above. Both are uncommon enough that the question of terminology is rarely encountered, and easily sidestepped by simply describing the range. Dave Elliott refers to this as a "G bass" and calls Wheatstone's "bass" a "C bass". His terminology is reasonable, but far from universal.

 

It has just occurred to me that it might be reasonable to describe this range as a "contrabaritone", as it's an octave below the "baritone", just as the "contrabass" is an octave below the "bass". I simply throw this out as a possibility; as far as I know it's a newly invented word. I'll wait to see whether it catches on.

 

Finally, to be fair to the differences of opinion regarding such terminology, I refer you all to this previous discussion. Interestingly enough, it contains several posts that I haven't previously seen. (I think I must have been away for several days, and when I returned some things fell off the bottom of "New Posts".) In particular, there's this post by Geoff Crabb, which includes a link to diagram illustrating ranges with "original descriptions", several of which seem to be at odds with my own sources, including my Wheatstone price lists. I'll probably want to discuss that further, but I (and I hope others) won't do that here, but in the above-linked Topic.

 

Edited to correct a formatting error.

Edited September 27, 2007 by JimLucas