Bellows

[david_boveri]

David and Greg, thanks for the few links you posted here. I love the Kitty Lie Over from Noel Hill. I'm not really a big fan of the actual music Noel Hill plays, I mean, just as a matter of taste, but in term of technique I am completely mesmerized by what he's doing. I get the feeling sometimes it's as if he were playing the pipes, but with the concertina. It's just mind blowing.

 

Edel Fox is much closer to what I really love, and gosh, I love her phrasing. Those videos are great, and I actually caught a few tricks by watching her fingers and the buttons she chooses in a couple of tunes, gives me pointers and ideas on how to better phrase some part of some tunes.

 

The Drunken Sailor, isn't a wonderful hornipe? It's a true jewel. I feel it's almost blasphemous to play this tune if you don't totally master it. There's so much to that tune it's a shame to waste it with shaky playing. I'll be practicing that one for months before I ever play it in public :-)

 

i'm sure noel would be happy to hear that you thought it sounded like he was playing the pipes, because that is very much what he is going for. he talks briefly about the influence of willie clancy on him in this program by tg4, canúinti ceoil: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU3ksD0Lnjk . i would recommend to watch all three.

 

from what i can tell, she is fingering very closely (or following exclusively) noel hill's system of fingering. i cannot say for certain whether or not she is, because it would take me a couple days to comb through a video and piece together every finger she is using for every note. does anyone know how closely she follows noel's system?

[LR71]

This is a super old topic, but I thought this was worth bringing up:

 

On 2/28/2009 at 1:22 PM, david_boveri said:

noel hill has the best bellows/reed control of anyone i have ever heard, and he definitely does not fan, and is very strict on maintaining straight bellows: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ3Lt6CaG48

 

try to keep the bellows stable (straight in, straight out), only using your palm or back of hand on the instrument.  or any fingers on button. you will feel the muscles in your lower arm which you will need to use to stabilize the instrument, while your upper arm is applying the force/energy to move in and out.

 

 try to keep the bellows stable (straight in, straight out), only using your palm or back of hand on the instrument. do not stabilize with the heel of your hand, or any fingers on button. you will feel the muscles in your lower arm which you will need to use to stabilize the instrument, while your upper arm is applying the force/energy to move in and out.

 

 

And then there's this comment on the session.org from "CAG" = Chris Ghent =

 

"Fan/lift. If you have the folds together you will find you can fan the concertina open without pulling on the straps by rolling the active end out and down using only the heel (the part directly back from your little finger) of your hand. You can lift it closed the same way with the heel of your hand. The part of the hand under the junction of the index finger and the palm does not do the work. That leads to the flappy thing.

The person who showed me this (Hugh Healey) demonstrated he could play the concertina this way without his hand in the strap. When you do this almost all of your hand is uninvolved in the rhythm process and is free to play in a relaxed fashion. When large parts of your hand are trying to hold a flappy thing steady then you can’t have relaxed fingers for the melody. Incidentally, as another exercise, Hugh made me loosen the straps to the point where they were essentially useless, forcing me to get control of the active end with the heel of my hand and the passive end with the side of my thumb."

 

So you have two great players in the same genre giving wholly contradictory advice.  Hugh is also a "backwards" player - right side on right knee, left in the air.  So much for regimented methodology.

 

If you're unfamiliar with him cue up some footage.  Again - great player.

 

Indeed I think cramming one and only one way of making music on an instrument down students' throats is downright destructive.  I'm giving full time fanning a shot after trying everything else and finding that it helps immensely in keeping the music going.

 

What would be ideal of course would simply be a demonstration of all these ways of getting the reeds to go, who uses what, their pros and cons.  There are plenty more factors in how to just play Irish music - other genres have their own goals and requirements.

 

Edited July 22 by LR71

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

Sounds like me with my well criticised extremely loose fitting style of holding my Anglo concertina -  all fingers inside straps! Hand is very free to move about as result [may be different on English I expect]!😊