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sliderule posted:I can't find reference to jemtheflute making and selling flutes himself, just his big list of other makers. Can you link me? I got the price wrong (it's 18), and he's hard to google since his thread is titled "Simple PVC Piccolo". But here's the thread: http://forums.chiffandfipple.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=82663  Update: I ordered my Persian setar, and I'll post back with pics and maybe even clips once it arrives... from Istanbul. 
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Jul 26, 2012 22:10
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I bought this thing today - I was sold it secondhand as "some kind of banjo" but after a bit of research it turns out to be a Chinese instrument called a qinqin. Here's a closeup of the body. A better look at the bridge. (It's fallen sideways, which way up is it supposed to go?) And the head/tuning keys. I found a video of a guy playing one almost identical to mine. The question is, now what? It looks like it might need restringing, but I don't know what kind of strings to use (or how to do that). I figure I can just mess around with it and try to copy videos I find if I want to play it, but I don't know anything about traditional Chinese music.
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Jul 27, 2012 05:49
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Carbon Thief posted:I bought this thing today... That's awesome and I'm jealous to the point of not wanting to help you. That and I have no idea about them at all other than the bridge is supposed to go fat bit down so it looks like it's smiling instead of frowning.
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Jul 28, 2012 00:32
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Carbon Thief posted:I bought this thing today - Big question: do you already play some string instruments? A lot of this will be easier if you do. If you don't play strings, or you do but some of the below is gibberish to you, let me know what you'd want clarified. Worst case, we can Skype this out or something. You certainly have stumbled onto an unusual piece of gear to find outside of its home turf; did the seller have any backstory as to how he acquired it? It looks like your reckoning of qinqin would be correct. This is a slightly Westernised one, in terms of having a flat fretboard as opposed to the traditional raised frets. Raised frets (see as "scalloped frets" on some Western guitars) give a lot of flexibility for bending notes, but these flat ones are easier to make and play. However, yours maintains the traditional Chinese scale, which we'll get into below. Here's what an older style of one would look like, with wooden body and raised frets:  Tackling your questions in order of easiness: - As noted above, the bridge stands up like an "M". So far as which side of it faces the peghead, on most simply bridges it won't matter. Squinting at your bridge, if the slots cut for the strings are cut at an angle, put the bridge so the upward angle goes towards the peghead. But otherwise it shouldn't matter. The very important point on the bridge is getting it set in the right location. You can YouTube up tons of clips explaining this, with terms like "banjo bridge" and "placement" or "setup". Here's a decent clip of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOkh1ccqaCw . Essentially, the bridge has to be placed right so that the frets all fall into their proper mathematical intervals along the length of the string. The easiest way to check this is using the "octave harmonic". That is, you make the unfretted string vibrate, but cut off the sine wave at the mid-point, making the note one octave higher than the unfretted string. Then you push the string down onto the fret that should produce the note one octave higher than the unfretted string, and see if they match. If they aren't in synch, that means your bridge isn't in the right spot. Playing harmonics is hard to explain in text, but easy to see, so I'll just briefly say that you just rest your finger at any of the harmonic points and pluck lightly while feeling around the area until you hit the "sweet spot" where you hear the chiming note, and that's the harmonic. Here's a video showing finding the harmonics on guitar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwSZL-xuDG4 Sub-Big point to the above: the banjo video linked gives a good demo of checking harmonic intonation, and he uses the 12th and 19th frets to suss out whether the string and the frets are in synch. However, your qinqin is fretted in a traditional Chinese scale, so your equivalent of his "12th fret" would be the 7th fret. I'm reasonably sure your frets are set up in the Chinese diatonic pattern, and your 7th fret does indeed appear to be mid-way between the nut and where the bridge would generally be, so I'm about 90% sure you want to run your harmonics checks at the seventh fret. Chime on the unfretted string above the 7th fret, get a clear note then press down to play the 7th fret and see if the notes are the same. Sorry for the text dump, but again easy to show, hard to describe. If I had the instrument in my hands this would all take me under 100 seconds. If you don't play strings, or this is all Greek to you, an experienced guitar-playing friend should be able to help you in a matter of minutes. - For strings, and this is a general point for most instruments in the thread: the vast majority of the time people say "but where can I find strings for Y instrument?", the needed strings will be something you can just buy off the shelf. Few modern instruments have terribly specific string needs, so in most cases you can just go to a good music store and buy what you based on string composition, and their measuring the strings gauge with a micrometer. In your case, your instrument uses "ball-end" strings, like most steel-string guitars. If you have a decent music shop around (like one that repairs string instruments), they should be able to measure your strings and sell you ball-end replacements. In whatever case, make sure you don't lose the original strings for this, just in case you need to measure them again later to verify. When you replace them, coil the originals and put them in the envelopes the new strings came in, label the envelopes properly, and chuck it into the back of your junk drawer. - Tuning: I dug into this a little, and ran across a few threads online pondering this issue. This dude might have exactly what you have, by his description. Don't get too wrapped around what he says though, since he doesn't understand Chinese scales, and mis-describes Western scales. I read around a bit about this, and in the end I'm reasonably sure that you wouldn't go too wrong tuning it to a I-V-I or I-IV-I tuning. So if your lowest string, for example, feels comfy in D, the D-A-D or D-G-D should suit. Tune your low string until it's reasonably tight but not about to break (again, get a guitar friend to help you if you're not a string player), and once you identify that pitch, tune the high string an octave above that (again watching to see if it's over-tight). Then the middle string to the 4th or 5th. I was a little surprised yours has violin-style friction pegs; kind of halfway-modernised between the Asian-style friction pegs and modern geared tuners. If they give you any trouble just google up advice as though they were violin pegs, which is basically what they are. If for whatever reason you get big into playing this, and find the pegs troublesome, there are various ways to replace them if you don't mind making some basic mods to the instrument, which I assume isn't a specimen overly rare in China. So now assuming you've got the bridge right, got some nice clean strings on it, and got it tuned. Now you're up to the tricky bit of figuring out what to play on it. I have next to no famimiliarity with trad Chinese, so for that you're going to have to check our the English-language forums on Chinese music, of which there aren't a ton, or get clever and do something like track down some foreign student at the local college who knows Chinese string instruments and do some exchange like English tutoring or something. Or similarly find some Chinese musician online and do some Skype lesson exchanges with him. Or you could do what I'd do and just improvise on it, but that's just because I have no inclination for Chinese music but do like messing with things. The key thing to understand is that your instrument is fretted in a distinctive Chinese arrangement, so Western music would sound way off on it (thus the despair of the guy linked above). My impression is that this is called the diatonic Lü scale. It's actually kind of interesting, in that it's a rigidly mathematical scale; to my eyes not unlike the Western Pythagorean scale. Here's a pretty interesting, but dense, article on Cathay Cafe, and the wiki Chinese musicology has a good layout too. Understanding the scale isn't totally necessary, since you can just accept it and move on with playing, but if you like technical stuff it's pretty fascinating. Huge wall o' text, but hopefully that clears up some of this. If anyone else is looking for one of these, they're supposedly not uncommon at import shops, and if you're in the Asheville area there's one on Craigslist for $100 now. TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Jul 28, 2012 |
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Jul 28, 2012 15:20
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To add one thing to the excellent post above, once you know the scale (distance from nut to bridge) and tuning (DAD or whatever), you can plug that into a string gauge calculator which will tell you the proper size strings. I'm on my phone so I don't have the link handy but just google and it will come right up. Edit: http://www.strothers.com/string_choice.htm wormil fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Jul 29, 2012 |
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Jul 29, 2012 01:02
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:Lots of qinqin info Thanks so much for all that information. I'll start at the beginning - I don't play any stringed instruments; I can read music, but only for woodwinds from when I was in HS band. The qinqin was something I picked up from a junk dealer off Craigslist; they'd advertised it as a banjo-ukulele and sold it to me for $35. It doesn't show well in the picture, but it does have metal frets raised about 2mm from the neck. Luckily I live in Toronto, which means not only are there lots of good music shops, it turns out there's a Chinese musical instrument store here. Next week I'll pop into one of the shops downtown and get new strings and a cheap tuner and work through your post from there. If it needs more work, or if I want some lessons/sheet music, I'll head out to Harmony and see what they have in English. I'll report back once I make some progress! (And hopefully I won't end up buying a bunch of other instruments while I'm in the music shops.)
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Jul 29, 2012 03:38
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Carbon Thief posted:(And hopefully I won't end up buying a bunch of other instruments while I'm in the music shops.) This is certainly a problem. I stopped in at the banjo shop around here to pick up a capo and had to try really hard to stop myself from buying a banjo-uke or a balalaika.
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Jul 29, 2012 04:21
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quote:To add one thing to the excellent post above, once you know the scale (distance from nut to bridge) and tuning (DAD or whatever), you can plug that into a string gauge calculator which will tell you the proper size strings. Note the reverse would be true as well: if you get someone to micrometer the strings and tell you what gauge they are, you can get some rough idea what a safe range of tuning them would be. In whatever case retain the old strings, even if broken, as something to refer back to later. Carbon Thief posted:Thanks so much for all that information. I'll start at the beginning - If it's in decent condition at all you got quite a good deal. 2mm? So about 3/4 inch? That would definitely be a "raised fret" then, since normal Western frets are like 1/8" or less. They just looked Western from the top. Could you shoot a side-view of a fret? The raised frets are going to be awfully cool for all the note-bending and the like. The one downside is going to be that since you have great flexibility of tone, it'll take some learning to figure out what tones you're supposed to be hitting. For example, if you have a guitar and you pluck the A string (440 hertz), and then press the 5th fret all the way down, you get a straight D (587.33hz). No doubt at all what note that 5th fret is supposed to get you. On your instrument, let's say your "Chinese D-equivalent" is 560hz, but if you press the fret a bit you get 520, and if you press really hard you get 590, so it'll take some kind of schooling to get you to know that 560hz is the target pitch, and any variant on that is for effect. For comparison, here are "scalloped frets" on a Western heavy metal player's guitar:  quote:Luckily I live in Toronto, which means not only are there lots of good music shops, it turns out there's a Chinese musical instrument store here. Next week I'll pop into one of the shops downtown and get new strings and a cheap tuner and work through your post from there. If it needs more work, or if I want some lessons/sheet music, I'll head out to Harmony and see what they have in English. I'll report back once I make some progress! (And hopefully I won't end up buying a bunch of other instruments while I'm in the music shops.) You're certainly in luck, since Toronto is in the Top 4 of Chinesiest cities in North America (along with NYC, San Francisco, and Vancouver). So finding someone who plays shouldn't be too difficult. It is a particularly Cantonese instrument, so not necessarily something all Chinese musicians would know, but my impression is that Overseas Chinese communities are disproportionately Cantonese, so that should help. Also looking at Wiki apparently it completely slipped past me that Canton is called "Guangzhou" now. If they have packaged qinqin strings and they're $10 or less, sure, grab those (but still keep your old strings on file). If they want some crazy price for them, just go to a guitar store and buy individual ball-end strings. So far as a tuner, if you have a smartphone instead just buy the app ClearTune for $5, as it's way better than any clip-on tuner. If you don't have a smartphone, make sure you get a tuner that shows frequency in hz, not just a tuner with "D-D#-E-F" on it. At some point in this process you'll be refining notes in the Chinese scale, so you'll want something that can tell you that you're hitting "560hz" not "C# plus 1/4ish or so". This is going to be a learning experience in whatever case, but it appears you're taking this as Providence encouraging you to take up traditional Cantonese music. So just roll with that, and bear in mind this is a somewhat unusual music learning experience, but some reading up and meeting some Chinese musicians will make it loads more accessible.  Note to self: planck, ainu, rabel
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Jul 29, 2012 14:27
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I've been getting back into playing more tinwhistle, and particularly enjoying the Shaw in Eb I posted back the last page. It resembles a Clarke, but the fipple fills in a bit more around the edges, so it's not quite so breathy. I got a Clarke in the same package, and I'd forgotten how soft they play, largely because they leak air like a damned sieve. Don't get me wrong, Clarkes are nice gear and have a very distinctive tone, but if anyone tries one and feels like they're always running out of air, try out a solid-fipple model for contrast. It's a huge difference. A guy on C&F posted this neat close-up of a Shaw fipple: note how at the top of the wooden block there are little ridges that seam into the metal. On the Clarke, in contrast, the wooden block is straight across the top, so focuses the air less:  The Shaw Eb is just a little sharper sounding than a D whistle, but I'm finding the finger reach extra comfy. Plus there's that precious snowflake joy of playing something slightly off of what 99.9% of tinwhistle players play. I'll mess with the Shaw for a bit, and when I go to the Piper's Gathering in Burlington this weekend, I might see if I can talk Jerry Freeman into tweaking it for me. Freeman is the "only full-time professional whistle tweaker in the world"; basically takes $10 Generations and fine-adjusts them for $40. Sounds price inefficient, but a lot of folks swear his tweaked whistles are as good as $100 ones. I have a Freeman F, and it is way, way smoother playing than the stock Generation. I don't know if he still tweaks Shaws, but I intend to find out.  Wiki pic of an assortment; I need to get around to photoing my collection. I think I have just over a dozen whistles from Low D to High A, though not in every single key. It seems like forever since I learned any new Irish tunes, so I've been working to learn Cooley's Reel, Kesh Jig, and some other classics. I've been really enjoying Tradschool's "20 Popular Session Tunes playlist on YouTube. They're played at regular speed, so not necessarily tutorials, but if you set it on "play all" and just listen to them cycle through for a while, you can pick up a lot by ear. And they're all popular trad tunes, so easy to google up the sheet music for if you want that as a study aid. Definitely a recommended resource. Do we have anyone here playing tin whistle who's learning a style other than Irish on it? I keep meaning to find some good Breton tunes for whistle, but they're nowhere near as easy to find online as Irish stuff. Though I imagine if I dig around there are probably some collections of Scottish tunes. For anyone wanting to branch out and try some tunes from another tradition, the Swedish bagpipe site has a page of six tunes in sheet music and with .mp3 that are pretty easy and distinctively Scandinavian. They're written in A and in Am, so you'd want to either play them on an E whistle, or just transpose in your head and play them on whatever key you like which is a useful skill to work on.  Here's piper Olle Gallmo playing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ82aOO4S-I Here's a dude playing it on a spilåpipa , a Swedish instrument like a wooden tinwhistle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdstjXBPzAY 
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Jul 31, 2012 05:10
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I've been making good, if intermittent, progress on that gurdy synth project, so naturally the next obvious milestone was to accidentally spill a can of diet Coke all over the prototype breadboard.  I'm actually shocked at how good my aim is - 2/3 of the Coke went on the breadboard, covering some 80% of the little holes in the thing, and the rest of the desk was barely affected.
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Aug 5, 2012 01:23
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I have a fairly good instrument store near my house; do you think they would have (good)ocarinas and tin whistles? I don't know which I want to play yet, or even if I do want to play one, but it seems like an interesting skill to learn.
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Aug 5, 2012 22:38
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Hiro Protagonist posted:I have a fairly good instrument store near my house; do you think they would have (good)ocarinas and tin whistles? I don't know which I want to play yet, or even if I do want to play one, but it seems like an interesting skill to learn. Pretty much every store has those little Feadog/Guinness whistle + tutorial book packs, which are honestly a decent way to get into the instrument. You can make some great music and learn all the basics on one of those, personally I'd pick them over a Clarke or a Generation (the other two likely candidates at a local music store).
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Aug 5, 2012 23:04
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Base Emitter posted:I've been making good, if intermittent, progress on that gurdy synth project, so naturally the next obvious milestone was to accidentally spill a can of diet Coke all over the prototype breadboard. Is it... is it okay?  I'm certainly keenly interested in your project. I don't know where you stand on the time/money spectrum, but if you're left-heavy this could certainly be a marketable item. If you have a solid job or can't be buggered, I'm sure someone would be happy to license the design, or many folks stoked if you publicised a writeup and coding for such an instrument so others could build it. I ran across an old friend last week who plays 'gurdy, and he was extremely interested, and without any prompting from me mentioned there'd be a lot of folks willing to buy a gurdy for <$200-300 as an "electronic practise chanter". Email me at my username at Yahoo, and I can put you in touch with him; as a player he'll have a great grasp of what features you'll want to puzzle out, what'd appeal most to buyers, be most realistic, etc. Just to give you some push, I'll share some cool pics and vid of the hurdy-gurdy's ancestor, the organistrum.  That's a carving from the Portico de la Gloria at the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia (currently occupied by Spain, up in the northwest). I visited that area in 2005, and seeing that carving in person was high on my dorkgasm list. Supposedly, before folks made proper little 'gurdies, they had these massive cranked monstrosities, with a really unwieldy keyboard that's too slow to actually play melodies, so presumably played kind of a slow bass part with drones. They're not quite sure how the keyboard worked, but it was maybe individual pins you pulled up, or maybe literally twist-turn keys that changed the notes. - Quick clip of a Spanish medieval band; the whole clip is good, but the organistrum bit starts at 0:53, and includes a hipster reporter playing Deep Purple and getting the band to join in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W9NZwL5Iow - Really, really freaky-gothy clip of a medieval-ish band Winter's Harp with an organistrum (with traditional unwieldy keys), and an almost totally ahistorical massive bowed psaltery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgcTKehpGcQ Organistrum is one of those impractical but massively cool instruments, where if I had silly amounts of cash I'd buy one just to show up at session, running the keys with a Fagin-eque street urching working the wheel, and blast out some ludicrous brain-shattering drone and be all "what, I'm just providing a little harmony here."  In any case, forgive my long delay, but work has been crazy and I spent the long weekend up in Vermont for the annual Piper's Gathering. It's an event for "alternative bagpipes", which pretty much means everything other than the Great Highland Pipes, since those noisy jerks have all kinds of festivals and competitions for themselves. So it's a chance to Scottish smallpipers and Border pipers, Northumbrian pipers, and Irish uilleann pipers, plus all the bastard obscure pipers (like me) to meet up and swap stories, do some classes and workshops, get drunk and do some jams. Took some good classes, hung out and got drunk with folks whose names pop up on my iTunes, heard some neat stories, and was crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in a session in a college dorm room with pretty famous pipers from Ulster and Dunkeld that got shut down at 3:30 AM for noise complaints. All in all a successful weekend. For those liking pipes, the Piper's Gathering has a smattering of YouTube clips up from various years. Only a few 2012 clips are up, but more footage from the nightly concerts should be up soon.  - 2011, Finn Moore, probably among the top five of the world's Border pipers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmhNngJW6Mo - 2011, Andy May, a cool but freaky dude doing some odd things with the Northumbrian smallpipes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxVIt98CCp8 - 2011, Dick Hensold, the only American who professionally uses Swedish bagpipes regularly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwzCuKn9n5g I have many new things to cover from this trip, including some tinwhistle-chat, a Puerto Rican cuatro I unexpectedly bought, and piping stuff in general.
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Aug 12, 2012 00:02
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:Is it... is it okay? I don't think its fatal, and in any case the tricky part is the code. I've just been making slow progress. I sent you an email.
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Aug 12, 2012 08:03
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So about two years ago I got a mandolin cheap off craigslist. I've fooled around a bit with the mandolincafe tabs, but I've never really known where to start properly. Can anyone point me at some appropriate things for beginners to play around with?
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Aug 15, 2012 07:58
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Took a little time away, and to give things a natural pause. Been having some fun messing with music stuff in my spare time, acquiring a Persian setar, a Puerto Rican cuatro, and a couple new (or new to me) tinwhistles. Got some gear I'm selling off as well to clear out some space, but overall things going well. I'm finally cracking down on learning some more Irish tunes I'd never gotten down, and strongly recommend the free Tradschool's 20 Popular session. You really can't go wrong just setting up the list to play all 20 in a row over and over again, and assimilate the tunes. Sheet music for these all is easily found too if you like reading "the dots". If you play a non-tinwhistle Irish instrument, this is still good to put on loop just to hear a simple and uncluttered rendition of some really widely-played jam tunes.  Among the whistles I've picked up are the Parks "Every Whistle", "Walkabout" three-part model. Really compact when broken down, great sound and smooth play, reasonable price at $60. One thing I like too is the adjustable volume. There's a simple slidey ring-bit on the fipple that can seal off portions of the air window. With a bit of finessing I can get it so that I get clean sound, but literally soft enough that I can play it in a small apartment at 2AM, including jumping to the second octave cleanly. There are various ways to "mute" a tinwhistle, but almost all of them only work in the low octave, so you have to "fold" the tune, dropping down an octave when the song goes above C#. I'd still encourage anyone who lives in tight quarters to look into the various techniques to mute a tinwhistle, including some as simple as just using some tape to cover up part of the window temporarily. There are a ton of ideas up on Chiff & Fipple, and I can give some basics from that if folks like. Pham Nuwen posted:So about two years ago I got a mandolin cheap off craigslist. I've fooled around a bit with the mandolincafe tabs, but I've never really known where to start properly. Can anyone point me at some appropriate things for beginners to play around with? Forgive the delay, yours snuck in right after I took my break. If you don't have much strings experience, I'd recommend for the moment separating melodic playing from chord playing. The two aren't totally separate, but maybe easier to develop separately. For melodic playing, it helps a lot to read music (though not mandatory), but even just by ear you can follow single-note parts like violin or flute parts by ear. Not sweating the harmonising, just trying to pick the proper notes and transition between them. Separately, learning basic chording in the "three-chord chump" guitar style is a good way to get the basic chordal fingerings down, and generally get a feel for fingering across the neck. As noted earlier in the thread, the hands-down best book not just "of" but "about" mandolin chords, is Niles Hokkanen's Pocket Guide To Mandolin Chords. A drat steal at :5bux:, and rather than just simply list out chords, it demonstrates the relationship between chord formations, so once you get a dozen basic shapes down, every other chord out there is some minor variant thereupon. When you have some chords down, just pick songs you like and google "Hotel California chords" or whatever and just work the strumming off of googled chord sheets. Not tabs, which are specific to guitar or mando, but just basic "C----G--Dm" kind of chords for popular songs. Once you get to the point that you can play the melody parts to a few Irish, or Old Time tunes, or play some vocal parts from pop songs by ear, and can do a basic strumalong with anything with a basic chord progression, the rest of mando is just merging and intertwining those skills. Not that it's an overnight process, but in the starting phases just some clean simple chording and some basic melodic picking can be a lot of fun. 
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Sep 13, 2012 02:30
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Wanted to PM you but your inbox is full and you can't receive anymore apparently. I'm curious about the Scottish Small Pipes again. I'm now within the financial means to purchase them and I'm a bit confused. The 3 main keys I see across the starter sets you mentioned (Gibson, walsh and Shepherd) are A, D and B flat. What is the difference between them all? What are they all used for? I have a very heavy Scottish heritage in my family (My entire father's side are immigrants, many of which still live now) and would like to focus on that. With that in mind, what key should I go for? And, curious, because it seems like a lot of people in music learn in C because its easiest (lack of flats or sharps), what key is recommended for Scottish style piping? Sorry for the excess of questions, but I'd like to know more before I drop money on a set of pipes.
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Sep 20, 2012 03:31
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Oh hey somebody bought me a title, guess I should probably buy that chordbook.
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Sep 20, 2012 05:24
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Pham Nuwen posted:Oh hey somebody bought me a title, guess I should probably buy that chordbook. This is incredibly amusing to me. Just such a weird, inane thing someone would buy you a custom title for. I bet the custom title cost more than the actual book itself would if you bought it.
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Sep 20, 2012 10:24
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Red87 posted:I'm curious about the Scottish Small Pipes again. I'm now within the financial means to purchase them and I'm a bit confused.  Glad to hear you're moving toward your goal! So far as keys, you're probably going to want to get an A. A is the default key for SSP, basically all instructional materials, group workshops, etc. are in A. Down the road, a D chanter (which can plug into the same instrument) can be a useful supplement, but for now get an A. The only exception is if you have notably small hands, as the A is a bit of a finger-stretch. C is mostly used for playing with genres other than Scottish music, and Bb I'm not totally clear what folks use it for other than change of pace. Here's a link with some sound clips comparing an A, C, and D chanter just for your awareness. In addition to the reputable-popular brands you note above, I'll mention Dunfion (came up in an earlier post. I'll caveat that there's not a lot of word out about them, but they're UK made and what little I've heard is good. It's at least worth starting a new thread on Dunsire Forum about, since their retail price is quite reasonable (£240.00/US$389). Next less expensive is the Walsh Retro (2 drone) at around $500. Shepherds are a bit pricey new (like $900), but go as low as $600 used. Gibson Firesides are around $600 new, but they're a bit unusual in that they're set up Highland-style, with three separate drones over the shoulder, rather than bundled together laying across your chest like most SSP. Two other makers that started making affordable pipes in the last few years: Duncan Soutar over in Scotland started making synthetic mouth-blown SSP that several Dunsire folks own and really like. Also Seth Hamon down in Texas (the guy who made one of my Swedish sets) worked up a set of moulds to cast plastic resin SSP. If they're anything like my Swedish pipes, they're probably pretty dang decent and a good price. Both those guys don't have these aforementioned pipes up on their websites yet, so you have to email them directly for a quote. That aside, if money is tight you can try lurking the Trading Post at Dunsire (must be logged-in to see) for a few weeks and see what pops up in the $350-500 range. Mouth-blown are less expensive that bellows, logically, so if cash is an issue it's not a big deal to get a decent quality (not Pakistani junk) mouthblown set in A, and later on upgrade once you have all the basics down. Personally once you get over $600-700 or so you start seeing good used deals on good makes of bellows-blown SSP, so for the above basic brands I'd go with a simple synthetic pipe like the Dunfion or Walsh (or Soutar or Hamon if you get a good quote), and I'd go with the Walsh Retro over the Walsh Shuttlepipe unless you find a really good deal ($350 or less) on a used Shuttlepipe. But that's just my take. It also wouldn't kill to start a new thread on Dunsire's Uilleann, Northumbrian, Smallpipes sub-forum introducing yourself and asking for some advice. Ideally not a generic "hey tell me what to get", but a little "this is what I want to play, here's my budget, where I am so I can figure out what groups, helpful forum members, etc. are" info so folks can figure out what you need to know. So far as learning, if you can find a Dunsire member in your area that can coach you some, maybe do some yardwork for a lesson or something? Get some tips over Skype from someone helpful? So far as books, More Power To Your Elbow by the Lowland And Border Piper's Society gets rave reviews, so probably the way to go for £26 with accompanying CD-ROM. To avoid treading old ground there, here's a few recent Dunsire threads on affordable starters: which smallpipe and Smallpipe Comparison. Not a ton of consensus, but the variety of opinions is instructive, so don't get too let down by any one guy's "love/hate it". quote:I have a very heavy Scottish heritage in my family (My entire father's side are immigrants, many of which still live now) and would like to focus on that. With that in mind, what key should I go for? And, curious, because it seems like a lot of people in music learn in C because its easiest (lack of flats or sharps), what key is recommended for Scottish style piping?  As above, get A unless you have really small hands. Don't sweat the whole key stuff: the SSP (like a lot of pipes) can only play in one key at a time, so it's not like you have really complex music theory going on in smallpiping. The SSP can, with some modding, do some additional key stuff, but that's relatively modern innovating, so for traditional stuff you're literally just playing nine different notes, so only have to know nine different places on the sheet music. There are plenty of ways to challenge yourself in smallpiping (creative ornaments, keeping rhythm for dancers, etc) but music theory is not key among them. quote:Sorry for the excess of questions, but I'd like to know more before I drop money on a set of pipes. Not a problem at all. Again, this thread is kind of a clearing-house for intro questions of all types, and where we have experts on a given instrument we can get into pretty good detail, but the Dunsire Forum is where you want to bone up on any fine details, meet some folks who can hook you up with lead on a good price, point you to other players in your area, etc. While you're pipe-shopping I'd check them out, and scour YouTube for smallpipe clips to soak up the music. - Not the best recording, but Iain MacHarg up in Vermont is a great player, here jamming with a cittern: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubejS-rj-uU - Smallpipe and fiddle duet; SSP is way, way easier to play with other instruments than GHB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUK87oljf04 - Good clean solo by Fin Moore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAzL24O65Tg - As an example of modern modding of the SSP to play other scales, a Breton an dro in D minor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkuJUXZOVQQ TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Sep 21, 2012 |
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Sep 21, 2012 05:28
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:Buttload of information Holy crap, thanks for all the info, definitely going to get involved with the Dunsire forums. I think I might swing for the Gibson Firesides, because for some reason the GHB style over the shoulder appeals to me. They sound quite decent based on the samples on their site. Definitely going for the A key since that's apparently what I need for what I want to play. Much appreciated.
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Sep 23, 2012 02:54
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Red87 posted:Holy crap, thanks for all the info, definitely going to get involved with the Dunsire forums. I think I might swing for the Gibson Firesides, because for some reason the GHB style over the shoulder appeals to me. They sound quite decent based on the samples on their site. No worries, this is something I enjoy doing. So far as the Firesides, they tend to pop up pretty frequently on the Trading Post; my impression is that's not so much a knock on them, as much as it tends to be an "intermediary pipe." That is, people kind of interested in smallpipes get them, and if they get big into smallpipes they sell them and get a custom bellows-blown SSP set. You'll see Fireside sales posts saying "they're cool, but selling to pay for my Banton SSP set that's almost built." Being GHB-like, the Firesides are also commonly picked up by GHB players as something they can play indoors, and sold if gigs change. For what it's worth, they don't seem to take much of a price drop from retail, so that's arguably a good sign that they're not so much dumped on the market as a popular product that gets moved around a lot. There are six listed for sale used on Dunsire from $450, but note they retail for $600. Take a look at a site selling Gibsons to see the options (mounts, bag covers, cord colours, etc) to see if the used ones are what you'd want, or if you're better off new. There are a variety of Scottish pipes out there, so just to clarify things I'll re-summarise: - Great Highland Bagipes (GHB): the large bagpipes played by guys in kilts, either marching around playing band music, or doing solo ornate raga-like stuff (pibroach). Mouth-blown, conical bore (the hollow of the chanter, the pipe you play the melody on, is tapered rather than straight), kind of nasal and quite loud; three drones in separate stocks go over the shoulder. Pitched around B flat or so. - Reel, kitchen, parlour, or half set pipes: variety of names for downsized Highland pipes for indoor play. Still mouthblown. Existed since at least the Victorian period. A lot of GHB makers make these mini-pipes as well, though the Pakistanis make up the great bulk of the market. Basically the same details as the GHB above, just quieter and somewhat smaller, and also commonly available in Concert A pitch to better play with other instruments. Note "Reel Pipes" is also, confusingly, a brand name for Fred Morrisson's make of Border pipes. So if you see YouTube clips of "Reel pipes" that look like BPs, they're Morrison-made sets. It's an annoyingly confusing brand name. - Border pipes (BP): Bellows-blown (almost exclusively), drones in one common stock and across the chest rather than shoulder. Been around the UK since probably the late 1700s, largely died out, and been revived over the last century. Generally used for playing popular music (fiddle tunes, airs, etc) rather than the marching-type music or pibroch of the GHB. Same high pitch and slight nasality of the GHB, but somewhat more reasonable volume; almost always pitched in A. The huge difference is that modern BPs can play a lot of chromatic notes (the notes between the usual notes), so many of them can switch to minor scales just by changing fingering, and some can jump partially into the second octave to hit high notes. Not quite as flexible as uilleann pipes, but way more so than GHB. A little bit "advanced" to play, so generally not recommended for total noobs. Tim Cummings is doing some awesome Appalachian music on Border pipes these days; check out his clip and note the changes to minor key: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc1eIYHM_vw  - Scottish smallpipes (SSP): Usually bellows-blown (high-quality ones almost always bellows), and generally with 3-4 drones in a common stock across the chest. The big difference between these and the above pipes is that they have a parallel chanter bore, which changes the soundwaves and drops the pitch a whole octave, so they are way lower than the above, and of moderate indoor volume. The modern SSP is a bit of a re-invention of long-dead historical pipes, almost a "what if" instrument as though those pipes hadn't died out, but kept evolving like the Northumbrian pipes. One octave range and not particularly chromatic, though some folks add keys to get a high note or two, and it's easy and not uncommon to drill a lower thumbhole to be able to switch to a minor scale. As somewhat of a new tradition, people have been really feeling out using SSP in other styles of music, more flexible chanter/drone tunings, etc. Usually pitched in A, though Bb, C, and D are not uncommon. - Practice pipes or goose: Something between SSP and parlour pipes, made by putting a practice chanter into a bag and (usually) adding some inexpensive plastic or even telescoping brass tubing drones. For whatever reason, pipers tend to advise against these as not being worth the money, so better off saving for any of the above. Some people get really inexpensive versions by DIYing their own; if you DIY it you can also build a set around using a better-quality chanter, either GHB (conical, high pitched) or SSP (parallel, low) chanter. So those are the basic forms of Scottish bagipes. There are another three or so living pipes in Ireland, a few more (and many dead ones) in England and Wales, and then around a hundred kinds of pipes over the rest of Europe, North Africa, Middle East, and South Asia, so check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bagpipes to see the others. Alternately, this French site, while more limited, has pics and clips (and explanations in French) of pipes from all over Europe, so worth checking the map and sound clips even if you can't read French: http://www.cornemuses.culture.fr/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=94 TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Sep 23, 2012 |
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Sep 23, 2012 19:18
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Been talking about Allen Ginsberg with another goon, particularly how Ginsberg used the small Indian pump harmonium to back up his sung poems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afAAltAmIzA We covered the Indian harmoniums earlier in the thread back on page 6, but there's another type of small reed organ that's extremely cheap and easy to mess with. Electric reed organ  This ones are a bit of a weird marketing fluke: coming out of WWII or so the early electronic keyboards were starting to really pick up in sales. Key being electronic actual circuit-board, sine-wave, etc. of pretty modern design. Of course, this new tech wasn't totally cheap, and at the same time rebuilding economies in Europe were looking for things to sell to Americans. Some Italians and Germans with excess accordion-producing capacity got smart and realised they could make some cheap ripoffs that sort of looked like these new hip keyboards, but were basically just accordions set up as keyboards. Rather than have to pump them, by foot like Westerners or by hand like Indians, these models had little electric fans inside the produced an air current to be directed over the reeds.  The vast majority of these were pretty cheap, as in literally turning up in LIFE Magazine adverts with the "sell 100 subscriptions and get a free organ!". The cheapest models were mostly plastic, had rattly fans, and so little air pressure that pressing any more than four keys at a time started to really cut down on your volume. Others, however, weren't half bad, with nicer accoutrements, weighted keys, etc. Just about none of them are as serious of musical instruments as all but the cheapest electronic keyboards at the time, but they have a certain quirky appeal, and are dirt-drat cheap even today. These varied in size, with some literally toy-types the size of a lunchbox, others about 2ft long and reasonable keyboard, yet larger-longer tabletop versions, sometimes with attachable legs, and some full-size cheapie-model reed organs along the same lines. The really interesting quirk these have, musician-wise, is that many/most of them are chord organs. Instead of having a full keyboard, there are a number of buttons for the left hand that play chords. The idea was, like an accordion, you only have to know simple right hand melody, and can play the left-hand harmony with just a finger. These were marketed as "anyone can play" with sheet music showing just a simple melody line and the chord printed above it. The tiny ones have like only six chords (and all Major, annoyingly), while some larger ones have a couple dozen chords.  For those of y'all wanting something inexpensive and slightly unusual, but pretty easy to play, these could be a viable option for casual music. They're not quite as musically adept as a cheap piano accordion, but are probably cheaper still, and have their dorky appeal. Magnus and Bontempi are the two most prolific brands, and both are serviceable if clunky; Bontempi fans can get noisy, so some folks put towels on top to quiet them, though that might also be fixed by cleaning and lubing the fan motor. From what I see, I wouldn't pay more than like $30 shipped for the small 6-chord Magnus or Bontempi, but they pop up on eBay and Craigslist for that kind of money every week. I'm not as familiar with the larger ones, but even big 20-chord five-octave tabletop jobbies sell for under $100, including a few that are from decent brand-names. None of these are uber-polished, but there are plenty of folks on YouTube playing them well. Here's the one I'd been right on the edge of buying (the link, not the cheapie in the picture), as it looks solid, was made by a very nice accordion company, and is quite reasonably priced at $99. All that keeps me from buying this off eBay is that I need to focus on concertina more, but some goon buy this and report back to us: http://www.ebay.com/itm/SONOLA-ELEC...=item3a7a457b05  - Decent musician actually sounding pretty good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2D_eoznsMQ - Girl who picked one up at a thrift-shop tries out the E-Z sheet music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAGEa26Fs4o - An extra cheap/tiny/noisy one that's actually rather cute: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bmSa10Xmno - For the goons: the Tetris theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRn22ZOD9H0
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Oct 2, 2012 04:48
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^^I'm pretty sure my grandmother has one of those organs. I'm going to have to ask her to ship it to me... Ok, so since this thread has slowed in the discussion of new instruments, can we start posting pictures of what we all have? Look, Tap, look what you've done to me:  Keyboard Ukulele (2x) Electric Ukulele Guitalele Banjolele Brac 4-string Banjo Midi guitar Nylon string guitar Acoustic guitar shaker Native American Flute Jawharp Harmonica Tin Whistle Bongos Violin Toy Accordion Button Box Edit: To be clear, thats my hosting. Edit2: Come on, guys, show me your instruments too! Nuggan fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Oct 3, 2012 |
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Oct 2, 2012 23:40
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That's impressive, Nuggan. My own collection of weird instruments looks more modest: Russian garmon, Okinawan sanshin. I do have more in storage at my parents' house, including an oud, bowlback mandolin, anglo concertina, toy accordion, djembe and various harmonicas and keyboards. And now I really need to get an electric reed organ ...
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Oct 5, 2012 13:49
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I was at a little International Festival today, and I picked up a kalimba. It was under 20 bucks, so I was pretty sure I was basically getting a toy. And holy cow, was I right, it's impossible to tune!! But it's still fun to play 
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Oct 7, 2012 11:37
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Man, you really want to fry your fingertips? Take up ukulele while practicing harp regularly. Of course, it could be a lot worse. I could have taken up tweive-string guitar or mandolin.
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Oct 7, 2012 20:47
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quote:Ok, so since this thread has slowed in the discussion of new instruments, can we start posting pictures of what we all have? Been a bit distracted, so haven't done many new instruments recently, but I ebb and flow. The main reason the thread has slowed a bit is I haven't had a banner ad running for a few months. If anyone wants to design me a new banner ad, I'll have a good-quality Irish fife mailed to you (includes Euro goons too). quote:and I picked up a kalimba. ... And holy cow, was I right, it's impossible to tune!! What's the issue with tuning it? Usually there's some kind of bar or whatnot that tensions the tines, and you can loosen that slightly and wiggle a given tine further in or out to change the note. Or is that not what you meant? A few harmonium follow-up points: -- Ivor Cutler was apparently a Scottish musician/artist; a bit of a pop-intellectual, somewhat Dadaist type. He did a lot of his music on a small foot-pump harmonium, so worth checking out if you're into that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LddPuhzt0F4  -- Shilpa Ray is a punk-blues musician in Brooklyn, and coming from a conservative Indian family was taught to play the harmonium growing up. These days she uses it for fronting her freaky band. I'm a fan of pump-harmoniums, punk music and/or girls, and short haircuts, so I'm digging it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvvMnT6Wjmk  On a minor sidenote, I finally found a harmonium more-or-less like the one Allen Ginsberg used. Bringing up here because there's at least one goon besides me who likes Ginsberg's songs with harmonium. He played a small 25-key (2 octave) harmonium with a single-fold pump, facing upward. So much smaller keyboard and pump than usual. DMS (the main reputable harmonium dealer I know) was kind enough last year to take a squint at the Ginsberg clips on YouTube, and concluded it was a model of toy harmonium, such as they don't currently carry. I was a bit skeptical as it sounded like "we don't stock it so it's crap and you should buy something we stock", but on GIS I ran across their old page for a very similar model: http://www.indianmusicalinstruments.com/miniatureharmonium.htm  I am vaguely, vaguely considering trying to talk DMS into making a model of this type that looks pretty much like Ginsberg's, and maybe market it as the "Beatnik Edition" or something. In a crazy world of ambition, it'd be cool if somehow the Ginsberg estate could license the name and help market such an instrument themselves, but whatever. No idea how large the market is for Ginsberg reenactors...
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Oct 15, 2012 04:01
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:What's the issue with tuning it? Usually there's some kind of bar or whatnot that tensions the tines, and you can loosen that slightly and wiggle a given tine further in or out to change the note. Or is that not what you meant? The tines move in and out just fine... but it will skip wildly between notes/octaves no matter how slightly I adjust it. I think part of this is because the bar they rest on is not actually attached to the base. It's just held there by the pressure from the tines, so when the tines move, it does too, and then the other tines are out of tune. Though upon re-reading your comment, it seems like the bar is supposed to move? Or maybe I'm misunderstanding something. edit: "Exciting" update: after jamming the bar tightly under tines, instead of tuning starting from the lowest note, I started from the highest note and was able to whip it into shape. Yay! Also curious - is it okay to nail the bar in place? Or is it free for a reason? sans pants fucked around with this message at 12:35 on Oct 15, 2012 |
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Oct 15, 2012 11:50
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I'm not very well-versed in the differences between bagpipes and säckpipas and gaidas et al, but I'm buying a practice chanter (bagpipe) even though my end goal is to one day buy a säckpipa set or Uilleann set. Is this a bad idea, or are they similar enough?
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Oct 16, 2012 00:12
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@ sans pants: can you snap a pic of the bar/tines assembly on your thumb-piano? There are a couple ways they can be set up, and I'm just curious to see what about yours was causing trouble. Some kinds are easier than others.QPZIL posted:I'm not very well-versed in the differences between bagpipes and säckpipas and gaidas et al, but I'm buying a practice chanter (bagpipe) even though my end goal is to one day buy a säckpipa set or Uilleann set. Is this a bad idea, or are they similar enough? The Scottish practise chanters are really made for Scottish piping, and really even within that for the Great Highland Pipes where there are a lot of really dry techical drills to do and a huge loud pipe that it's not really easy to find a place to practise with. I'm not sure that even Scottish smallpipe and Border pipers really use them much. If you want to learn uilleann pipe at some point, absolutely buy a $5-10 tinwhistle and get cracking. A huge amount of tinwhistle skill crosses over to uileann. If you want to learn sackpipa, tinwhistle is still your best bet. Technically there's kind of wooden pennywhistle called a spilåpipa that's maybe a little closer, but a regular Irish tinwhistle is plenty close for the price. Here's an example of some spilapipa playing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erw-ovi2DPQ  If you have no musical background, start by learning some Irish tunes on tinwhistle just because there's so, so much learning material for that tradition online. If you're familiar with reading music, ear training, etc. you can always pull up some Swedish fiddle and dance tunes online and learn those, either by sheet music or by ear off YouTube. If you're doing Irish, get a D tinwhistle, hands down. If you're interested in trying Swedish too and money's not unduly tight, include a Generation tinwhistle in E (not Eb) with your order, since it'll be useful for some of the keys Swedish is in. It's not going to hurt you to get a Scottish practise chanter if you're set on that, but they're not as fun or versatile to play as a tinwhistle, cost more, and are really specifically applicable to GHB music.
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Oct 16, 2012 05:13
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Awesome info, thanks so much. I had already ordered my practice chanter, since I am somewhat interested in Scottish music, but just ordered a penny whistle as well, I love the sound of it.
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Oct 16, 2012 05:39
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For a few months now, there's been a balalaika hanging in the banjo shop near me. For some reason it caught my attention. When I went to the shop, I'd look at it, sigh a little, and write it off as something I shouldn't buy because I'm low on cash and have a few instruments I should learn to play better before I get something new. I'd check their website to see if someone had bought it every couple weeks. I'd draw pictures of me and the balalaika holding hands while prancing through a sun dappled meadow in white-out on the front of my Trapper Keeper. Last week, there was the annual fall festival and I found that the banjo shop had moved to along the street where the festival was. Of course, I had to stop in to see the new shop and say hi and...well...  I'm the proud new owner of a 1950s/60s balalaika make in the Lunacharsky Folk Instrument Factory in Leningrad. Complete with MADE IN USSR sticker! This makes the third stringed instrument I own that's several decades older than I am. I did break the trend by this not being a Harmony made ukulele tho.
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Oct 17, 2012 05:16
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I picked up a pennywhistle (Clarke Original in D) yesterday on my lunch break, it's so much fun  Can anyone recommend some good tunes to learn? I guess D would be best suited for Irish tunes. So far I just keep playing the theme from Concerning Hobbits over and over again...
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Oct 17, 2012 14:07
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QPZIL posted:I picked up a pennywhistle (Clarke Original in D) yesterday on my lunch break, it's so much fun That's me. I've only learned a few songs and keep playing them over and over. This girl does some nice pennywhistle tutorials: http://www.youtube.com/user/inspirationalflute
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Oct 18, 2012 07:26
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quote:I'm the proud new owner of a 1950s/60s balalaika make in the Lunacharsky Folk Instrument Factory in Leningrad. Complete with MADE IN USSR sticker! This makes the third stringed instrument I own that's several decades older than I am. I did break the trend by this not being a Harmony made ukulele tho. Niiiice... Do you know how to make sure the bridge is in the right place, and how to check the action height to make sure it's set up properly? If not give me a shout and I'll give you a rundown. Those aren't balalaika-specific, but general strings skills. I bought a Puerto Rican cuatro for $50 this fall, and the action is ungodly and I need to get around to taking a file to the nut slots to fix that. It's not unduly hard, I just have too many projects plus a job. Are you going to try to play some trad Russian music on it, or do the hipster thing and just play Anglo/pop music on it? Not that the latter is bad or anything, the balalaika makes a decent substitute tenor guitar, or you can just apply mandolin technique (though slightly different tuning). Way back earlier in the thread I have a clip of a dude just applying guitar skills to a balalaika, so worth checking out. Similarly, here's someone's crappy student film, but the soundtrack is a balalaika being played by a guitarist with no specific Russian experience; it's a good example of how even outside its tradition an instrument can sound great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDSSiz_D61k  QPZIL posted:I picked up a pennywhistle (Clarke Original in D) yesterday on my lunch break, it's so much fun Clarkes have a really classic sound, but be aware they take a lot of air. So if you're having hard time keeping up the air, it's not just you. There are ways to "tweak" this, which reminds me I need to do a post on tweaking tinwhistles. In terms of things to play, there are a zillion online tutorials, of which wormil gave one he likes, and to that I'll add Tradschool's "20 Popular Session Tunes. From the sound of it you have the basic musical skillset already, so learning the Irish equivalents of Freebird, Yesterday, and Hotel California is probably the next step. There is the intermediary step of learning "ornamentation", the various little flicks, rolls, etc. that are used for style in Irish music, but there's not necessarily an problem with learning tunes "clean", and once you have the melody down then dressing it up later. Of course, if you learn a lot of session tunes, you'll eventually have to go to a seisiún. 
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Oct 19, 2012 16:06
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I finally got an English concertina about a month ago. I decided to go with a vintage Wheatstone rather than a Jackie since I am primarily interested in playing classical music. So thanks for this thread 
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Oct 19, 2012 16:39
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:Niiiice... Do you know how to make sure the bridge is in the right place, and how to check the action height to make sure it's set up properly? If not give me a shout and I'll give you a rundown. Those aren't balalaika-specific, but general strings skills. I would love that explanation, and I suspect so would a lot of other people in this thread.
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Oct 19, 2012 17:06
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:Clarkes have a really classic sound, but be aware they take a lot of air. So if you're having hard time keeping up the air, it's not just you. There are ways to "tweak" this, which reminds me I need to do a post on tweaking tinwhistles. Awesome, thanks for this post. Yeah, the Clarke is a little tricky to get in the second octave reliably. If I'm just going up the scale B-C-d+-e+-etc., its not so bad, but going from say G straight to f+, it's a bit squeaky. I have an Oak in D coming, probably today, so we'll see how different that is. I've been having fun playing around with säckpipa tunes transposed down a major second (from E to D). The A#/Bb is an interesting challenge, especially trill sort of sounds going Bb-A-Bb (1o3123 to 12oooo and back). If I wanted to play these in E minor as they're written, should I get a whistle in E or in C# (whose native minor key is E)? Is that a dumb question? Heh. Anyway, so yeah, it's been a lot of fun playing around with tunes and learning cuts/hits/rolls. As far as tonguing goes, should I be tonguing every note or should I be using ornamentation to separate the notes as on a bagpipe? Or is it all just stylistic? My Gibson practice chanter came today, this is a whole new world of hurt. Man, wrong notes on this sound like death itself come to life. At least the fingering is similar to the whistle. Then again I guess that's true for most instruments like this. Now I really want a concertina, this thread is dangerous for my wallet. At least my girlfriend talked me out of a säckpipa (for now). Count Thrashula fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Oct 19, 2012 |
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Oct 19, 2012 17:07
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thousandcranes posted:I finally got an English concertina about a month ago. I decided to go with a vintage Wheatstone rather than a Jackie since I am primarily interested in playing classical music. So thanks for this thread Dang, that's probably one of the fanciest single pieces of gear a goon has bought in this thread. 48 button? Got any cool pics? How's the process of learning classical on it? Are you looking to play the music of a specific time period or composer? Are you just getting scores and playing the key melodic instrument (like the first violin part or whatnot)? There's a surprising dearth of English concertina playing classical on YouTube. Kind of odd, since that was much the point of inventing the English over the Anglo concertina. The English historically wasn't a "folk" instrument, more made for art pieces that were too fancy for the working-man's Anglo box. Here's a neat Molique piece with EC and piano: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sT0p01q9_M
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Oct 20, 2012 02:17
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