a "knuckle-dragging Neanderthal beat"
Sep. 10th, 2004 10:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaala(quote: Stan Rogers on Morris Dancing music)
Some young women spend $35 at this time of year on things like, say, new clothing or shoes. I bought a cheap little diatonic accordion. Let me explain...
I love traditional acoustic music from many different cultures. Among my favourites are the music of Great Britain, Francophone Canada, Atlantic Canada, Cajuns, and klezmer. (One thing I loved about my job at the Fort was that we played this sort of music.) Accordions feature in many of these. I have a piano accordion and love it dearly (GEEK!) but this doesn't have quite the same "trad" credentials as a diatonic button accordion (or melodeon). Most traditional music doesn't need a chromatic range. Fast fiddle tunes are pretty challenging to play on a piano accordion because it requires so much hand movement; melodeons are easier for such material because the reeds are set up like a harmonica, i.e. one can play two notes with the same button.
Yesterday, I was walking back from a doctor's appointment a fair distance from my house and I decided to stop in at a music shop I'd noticed before but never entered to buy a trumpet mouthpiece for my Fort Henry replica bugle. (The mouthpiece it came with is pretty shoddy.) The place was an absolute mess but the proprietor did find me a mouthpiece. I browsed a bit. He was quite amiable so we chatted for a while.
Then I noticed two button accordions sitting up on a shelf. I ask if I could try the antique wooden one (which looked like a cross between this and this) and, to my surprise, was granted permission. He let me walk around around the store playing this thing for an hour! I kept asking if he wanted me to stop but he said it was fine. It took a while to figure out the system but by the end I was merrily playing away with both melody and harmony.
He had no idea whatsoever how much money the wooden melodeon was worth; at any rate, I probably couldn't have afforded it. But I was hooked on learning how to play diatonic accordion so he sold me the tiny little antique Hero accordion sitting next to it on the shelf for $35 dollars. I left feeling rather foolish.
Some young women spend $35 at this time of year on things like, say, new clothing or shoes. I bought a cheap little diatonic accordion. Let me explain...
I love traditional acoustic music from many different cultures. Among my favourites are the music of Great Britain, Francophone Canada, Atlantic Canada, Cajuns, and klezmer. (One thing I loved about my job at the Fort was that we played this sort of music.) Accordions feature in many of these. I have a piano accordion and love it dearly (GEEK!) but this doesn't have quite the same "trad" credentials as a diatonic button accordion (or melodeon). Most traditional music doesn't need a chromatic range. Fast fiddle tunes are pretty challenging to play on a piano accordion because it requires so much hand movement; melodeons are easier for such material because the reeds are set up like a harmonica, i.e. one can play two notes with the same button.
Yesterday, I was walking back from a doctor's appointment a fair distance from my house and I decided to stop in at a music shop I'd noticed before but never entered to buy a trumpet mouthpiece for my Fort Henry replica bugle. (The mouthpiece it came with is pretty shoddy.) The place was an absolute mess but the proprietor did find me a mouthpiece. I browsed a bit. He was quite amiable so we chatted for a while.
Then I noticed two button accordions sitting up on a shelf. I ask if I could try the antique wooden one (which looked like a cross between this and this) and, to my surprise, was granted permission. He let me walk around around the store playing this thing for an hour! I kept asking if he wanted me to stop but he said it was fine. It took a while to figure out the system but by the end I was merrily playing away with both melody and harmony.
He had no idea whatsoever how much money the wooden melodeon was worth; at any rate, I probably couldn't have afforded it. But I was hooked on learning how to play diatonic accordion so he sold me the tiny little antique Hero accordion sitting next to it on the shelf for $35 dollars. I left feeling rather foolish.
