This video features the late polka king, Li’l Wally, playing Chemnitzer concertina on the Lawrence Welk show. I may have posted this one once before. I really love this clip. That man was a walking party.
comments 2
The Pattern
Since there was some discussion on my previous post about the chromatic button accordion vs the piano accordion, here is a diagram I grabbed from wikipedia that shows the basic C-system pattern, which repeats up and down the button board. On many chromatics, the buttons that are sharps or flats are black, but on some other models all the buttons are the same. Some models add texture to the “C” buttons to help the player explore the button board. The notes are grouped in a repeated pattern, and in some cases you have multiple choices to grab individual notes, which I think is going to be a handy feature for some songs.
I only started messing with this last night. It’s going to take me a while to get used to the pattern without getting lost, but on the whole I think this instrument will be easier to learn than the diatonic button accordion, because it is unisonoric – push or pull the bellows and the one button equals a single note. On diatonic boxes, you have to cope with two sets of fingering. When I started learning the GCF diatonic, I had a hard time keeping the two sets of fingering straight for a while, although with practice I got the hang of it.
What’s old is new…
Some time back I decided to attempt to learn to play the chromatic button accordion. Like the piano accordion, it has all the notes in the chromatic scale available, but it has buttons instead of a keyboard. In North America, not so many people play these, but they are quite popular in Europe and in Russia. There are two types, called B-griff and C-griff and the button layouts on the right side of these instruments are mirror images of one another. In some countries one or the other layout dominates.
I sold off two piano accordions and a little one-row diatonic box and with that money I got one of my diatonics tuned up and put the rest of the money aside for a chromatic accordion. Today I bought the one pictured above. It’s an old C-griff accordion. There is some normal wear on the outside, but the bellows are in good shape and the reeds look fine. The five rows take full advantage of this system, which makes it simple to switch keys by moving up or down the button board. This accordion was likely built in the 60s. It still sounds good.
Now to turn my attention to learning the fingering and trying out some tunes.
How to teach folk music?
I’ve mentioned on this blog my intention of taking on a student or two for triple-row button accordion lessons. To prepare for this, I’ve been putting together some materials and thinking about the best way to go about the problem of teaching what is essentially a folk instrument. It’s a simple instrument in many ways, but there is a sharp learning curve caused by having to learn two sets of fingering (one for pushing air and one for pulling air through the reeds), and by having the limitations inherent in an instrument that isn’t fully chromatic.
My own button accordion teacher played piano accordion. He had a system to get me going on my instrument, and along the way, he would demonstrate tunes on the piano accordion so I could understand the way they should be played. Of course, the button accordion offers different challenges, and the structure of the instrument informs the way you need to attack it.
In many cultures, the diatonic accordion in its various forms is an instrument learned by ear exclusively, sometimes with the aid of a teacher and sometimes without. Players who learn this way often learn the music of one culture only, and become very strong players with limited range. Outside of those traditions, though, we live in a world museum. We have the benefit of written music. Should we throw that to the wind? Some would say, yes, to the wind with it. I think it is good to make use of all the tools we have available to us, and so I’m incorporating written music in my approach. Of course, teaching how a tune should feel is a different thing altogether. How do you bring a song to life, embellish it? A lot of folk music is simple music played to sound complicated. The structure is often very simple, often two chords, occasionally only one chord. Yet the same music can be embellished with grace notes, triplets, and a variety of bellows work.
My goal will be to provide the student with a solid foundation from which to build. That will include an introduction to several specific musical forms, from polka to corridinhos to reels to waltzes and to a broad repetoire of tunes. It will include a lot of listening home-work as well as playing. Many cultures who have taken up the button accordion have similar forms that have developed in unique ways. For instance, two-steps and polkas and marches and paso dobles are all different yet very much the same.
I think this adventure into teaching is going to a lot of fun and very rewarding too.
The Girls: Memphis & Ellie Mae
Photos by Tuffy P.
For those who haven’t met our dogs yet, Memphis is the Landseer and Ellie Mae is the black Newfoundland. We took them for a walk up to the vet’s today. The clinic is just up at Lakeshore and 30th St. a 15 minute walk. Ellie Mae has an ear infection for which the vet gave us some stuff to clean out the ears daily, and and a medication to deal with the problem. There may be an underlying allergy issue, since this has been a nagging problem that has resurfaced a few times, or perhaps was never fully resolved. First we’ll see how she does with the cleanings and the medication, and reassess in a couple weeks. If the problem persists, we may have to restrict her diet and change her protein source.
Fontenot & Ardoin
I stumbled into this remarkable clip of Creole players Canray Fontenot on fiddle and Bois Sec Ardoin on accordion. Nice edgy blues feel about these tunes. I love the foot-stomping too. This performance is from 1966.
He has to be stopped…
So, my alter ego says, hey Mister Anchovy, I’ve got some news for you, and I says yeah, what’s that, and he says, look, I just want to tell you I’ve opened a Twitter account. I says, what are you messing with that junk for, after all I’ve done for you? He says he isn’t trying to muscle in on my territory or anything untoward like that. He claims it has something to do with his job, as if I’m going to believe that line of jive.
I know what’s going on here. He’s trying to phase me out, isn’t he? I know his tricks. Believe me, friends, it won’t be easy. I’m no pushover. Just because he created me doesn’t mean he can boss me around. I’ve got a life of my own, and I happen to like it over here at WordPress. So, I say, forget that Twitter nonsense. Just don’t go there. Stick with me, here at 27th Street. We’ve got it good on our little island in the sun. Hey, let me pour you a wee dram of Scotch. How would that be? We don’t need that newfangled fancy-pants social media. Old school blogging, now that’s where it’s at.
Anyway, we got in a big old argument about it. We’re not exactly on speaking terms. He’s going to have to apologize and that’s all there is to it. Doesn’t he understand the separation of church and state? Hasn’t he seen the relationship George/independent George Seinfeld episode?
Here’s what we’re going to do. Boycott whatshisname’s Twitter account. Just don’t go there. You can do it. I know you can. Show a little support, OK? I’m counting on you.
What’s up with blueberries?
Tuffy P and I have a weakness for blueberries with our morning soggies. As a result of our need to get that blueberry fix, we’re keenly aware of the bizarre pricing of the damn things. I’ve never seen any single item fluxuate in price quite so radically in a short period of time. Oh, I understand that seasonally there will be price shifts, and I’m OK with investing a few extra kroners to get those taste treats in my cereal bowl. But it isn’t just seasonal. Here’s an example. Yesterday on the way home from the salt mines, I stopped into my local grocery store, where blueberries were on special, 3 pints for $5. Just last week the same store was asking $3.99 for half a pint. That’s a difference of about $6.40 per pint. Sometimes it seems like they’re charging by the berry (we switch over to bananas during those periods) and other times they’re just about giving them away. It doesn’t seem right.
Go fly a kite…
So there I was, taking the girls out for their evening trip to the dog park, and as we traversed the very snowy field before the leash-free area, Miss Ellie Mae looked up and barked. There at the other side of the field was a guy out in the snow with one of those great big kites, the kind that people fly from cliffs with in sunny vacation destinations. He seemed to be tying the rope to a light standard. The kite itself, a big orange item was blowing around close to the ground. When we emerged from the park three quarters of an hour later, he seemed to be doing the same thing all over again. I never saw him take flight.
In the summer I saw a fellow out there a few times with a similar outfit except he had a giant fan-like item on his back. It appeared to be a pull-start gas-powered thing. He would get it going, get into position, and then the kite would crash to the ground. I’m sure he managed to fly from time to time. Otherwise, why would he keep trying? I just never saw it happen. I don’t even know if it’s he same guy or if there are two or more people living in Anchovy-ville dreaming about taking flight. I resisted the temptation to go talk to him for a couple reasons. One was that the girls were clearly nervous of the kite (and who can blame them?). The other is that I kind of like preserving the mystery.
Not so bad…
The storm wasn’t nearly as bad as the media would have you believe. We had snow and plenty of it, but the roads have been passable all day. The dogs enjoyed playing around in the yard while we shoveled out this afternoon.
It seems like it’s been a long day today. I’m tired and hitting the hay early. Nothing intelligent to say tonight, or even the usual stuff. Have a good night.
27th Street 