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White Dog Eggs posted:I've made a few rough examples of a simlar type (I'm the guy who's making the naresyuk) and for what it's worth it's easier to get a decent sound out of a 4-string, but a 5-string gives you a 'richer' sound. I'd recommend a 4-string personally, but if you see a 5-string one you like then go for it! Wait, are you talking about kantele/kannel/kankles/kokle here? I don't recall ever seeing one with as few strings as four, that'd be pretty limiting. Are you thinking of a different instrument? quote:Would you say that I'd be better off with a 5~ string variant if my musical experience is about 4 months of (somewhat serious) guitar learnin' and about 8 years of (not very serious) recorder playing? Really depends how complex of music you want to play. If you want to do really minimalist or atmospheric folky stuff, 5 is cool and also helps you really focus on the fundamentals. If you want to quickly get to more complex music, I'd go for a ~10 or whatever's standard at that mid-size (kokles are often 11-string vice 10 for whatever reason). I wouldn't go any higher than that though, both in terms of initial expense/size, and also distracting you from the basics. 11-string Latvian kokle: http://vimeo.com/1828177  quote:Just dropping by to say that I received a Feadog D tinwhistle in my stocking this morning! Tinwhistles are great stocking-stuffers; I'm hard-pressed to think of any time when it's not a good idea to get a tinwhistle. I feel a bit remiss that I didn't work up a holiday gift-buying guide for both this thread and the uke thread, maybe have a specific banner to bring folks in for gift ideas. Tinwhistle is of course always great, being among the instruments that are inexpensive enough to get someone even if they haven't specifically asked for that instrument. Good generalist instrument that anyone can get value out of mucking with. Kalimba/thumb-piano fall in that category too, particularly in pentatonic tuning. Native American flute is a bit more unusual of a choice, but for anyone that is vaguely into either American Indian stuff, hippie/enviro/meditational stuff, or wants something that it's really easy to sound good on, they can be a cool choice. One interesting version that I've heard of before but not seen in person, I ran across at the Dusty Strings music shop in Seattle this week. Tiny high-octave NAFs are often called "pocket flutes", small ones about 9" or so, maybe fat as a fat highlighter. I wouldn't literally keep on in an actual pocket since pockets bend too much and collect lint, but it's small enough to wrap and stow all kinds of places. The company High Spirits seems to make some cute ones.  High Spirits is having a 25% off sale with free shipping until the New Year (which makes their A $30 shipped) so I'm probably going to pick up one of their pocket flutes, and maybe one as a gift. I've read that the High A pitch is pretty small to the point that larger fingers might have trouble playing it, but, their high keys seem popular overall. EDIT: They also list flutes in keys just below "Pocket" keys under their regular flutes, like their High F, High D, etc. They also make some flute of their own design called "Spirit Flute" that are a somewhat streamlined NAF available in several different kinds of pentatonic tuning. The latter I think are a bit more geared towards people that don't play a lot of music, and want something as simple as the NAF but more culturally inspecific. EDIT: HS also has this cute little "build it yourself" wooden ocarina kit in a little tin, that with sale and free shipping is like $12. Might be worth buying for a future gift: http://www.highspirits.com/products-page/ocarinas/ocarinakit/ TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Dec 25, 2013 |
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Dec 25, 2013 19:10
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:Wait, are you talking about kantele/kannel/kankles/kokle here? I don't recall ever seeing one with as few strings as four, that'd be pretty limiting. Are you thinking of a different instrument? I made a few prototype solid body psaltry-like instruments a while ago (basically a plank, some electric guitar strings and a pickup made from a hard drive magnet) to see what they sounded like, I had amassive hangover so I guess I forgot to put that, doh.
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Dec 26, 2013 00:19
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Fenrir posted:... Even my dulcimer is a thing I only break out every few months or so - I'm mostly just a singer.... No need to stretch beyond comfort, though from what you describe you may at some point be interested in at least trying out a concertina, like the other goon on this page, since they can be outstanding for song accompaniment. It's pretty minimal, but here's a YouTube playlist of people singing with just concertina backing them up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5tjRshOZdo  Concertina aside though, since you have a dulcimer already have you tried much to use it as a voice backup instrument? You mentioned above that you play mostly noter-drone style (which I really favor myself) but as you may have noted that gets a little busy for backing up voice. A lot of folks these days play chords on dulcimer to back singing, but I think that loses a lot of dulcimer's uniqueness and makes it more a lesser guitar. What I would most recommend is taking a shot at using a minimal note-drone style for singing: tune the drones to the root and fifth of your song's key, and then on the melody string finger a note (root, third, or fifth) of the chord for that bar. That way you get a mellow drone throughout (used sparingly, not necessarily a constant strum), but are still at least partly tracking the chord progression on at least one note. There's a diatonic instrument of similar song-accompaniment style, but bowed, that the issue puts me in mind of. I should do a megapost on the psalmodikon sometime in January:  quote:That said, I'd love to get my hands on an old disgusting ugly wood dulcimer that still plays right. You can't make these - they have to be aged like that beat up fucker TTFA posted earlier. drat I'd love to have that. I've run across some neat beater ones in my time, buying up junkers for workshops and all. The problem is that I gradually shed the junkers as I sell or give them away. There was one neat basic teardrop dulcimer I had once, appeared to be cedar top, that looked to have been finished at one point but had all the finish worn off of it. I got it for $20 total, so I used it as my haul-around, and at one point had to re-glue the head to the body after I dropped it. Curiously, it had no soundholes at all, but sounded great regardless. I took it up to Philly on a visit to a friend, ended up giving it to the friend's husband since he really took to dulcimer, and they ended up getting divorced. I wish now I'd at least photographed that little beater, though I have taken snapshots of a good number of the dulcimers that have gone through my hands. Dulcimers come in a larger variety than almost any instrument I can think of. 
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Dec 27, 2013 22:00
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Concertina Update Someone has made me a good offer on concertina.net. A 30 button Regoletta Anglo Concertina. Which is apparently just a re branded Stagi W-15. I think she'll do just fine. Here are a few pictures he sent over.     He also had quite a few shots of the interior, but I didn't want to spam up the thread with an image dump.
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Dec 28, 2013 17:05
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:Concertina aside though, since you have a dulcimer already have you tried much to use it as a voice backup instrument? You mentioned above that you play mostly noter-drone style (which I really favor myself) but as you may have noted that gets a little busy for backing up voice. A lot of folks these days play chords on dulcimer to back singing, but I think that loses a lot of dulcimer's uniqueness and makes it more a lesser guitar. What I would most recommend is taking a shot at using a minimal note-drone style for singing: tune the drones to the root and fifth of your song's key, and then on the melody string finger a note (root, third, or fifth) of the chord for that bar. That way you get a mellow drone throughout (used sparingly, not necessarily a constant strum), but are still at least partly tracking the chord progression on at least one note. Nowadays once I get warmed up I can usually keep up a fairly high speed drone and sing over it without much problem. If anything, the biggest problem is that my voice is REALLY LOUD and I sometimes forget the words, which happens more than I'd like to admit. That's what happens when you occasionally stop playing for months at a time, along with having to retune the drat thing because it's been in a closet most of the year. quote:There's a diatonic instrument of similar song-accompaniment style, but bowed, that the issue puts me in mind of. I should do a megapost on the psalmodikon sometime in January: quote:I've run across some neat beater ones in my time, buying up junkers for workshops and all. The problem is that I gradually shed the junkers as I sell or give them away. There was one neat basic teardrop dulcimer I had once, appeared to be cedar top, that looked to have been finished at one point but had all the finish worn off of it. I got it for $20 total, so I used it as my haul-around, and at one point had to re-glue the head to the body after I dropped it. Curiously, it had no soundholes at all, but sounded great regardless. I took it up to Philly on a visit to a friend, ended up giving it to the friend's husband since he really took to dulcimer, and they ended up getting divorced. I wish now I'd at least photographed that little beater, though I have taken snapshots of a good number of the dulcimers that have gone through my hands. Dulcimers come in a larger variety than almost any instrument I can think of. e: Also, that cool Pretty Polly link kinda got my attention for ideas. I may at some point (NOTE: Don't hold your breath, I just don't play that often) get around to figuring out some murder ballads that I like and doing a silly/dumb dulcimer version. Maybe like, In The Pines and Lord Randall. I always liked In The Pines (even Nirvana's version) and that song made me think of a few others I've heard over the years as well. Fenrir fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Dec 28, 2013 |
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Dec 28, 2013 17:44
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Dangit, my PM inbox overflowed again. Does anyone know if there's a writeup on an easier way to dump it all into a Word file or something? Or do I have to manually open any copy-paste each individual message if I want to archive them on my computer?Lallander posted:Someone has made me a good offer on concertina.net. That looks pretty cool, even better than I expected. I rather like metal ends visually, and since you rarely see them on basic-level concertinas that adds some value to it for distinctiveness. And I didn't know he was chucking in a hardshell case; those are great protection and worth at least $50. Overall it looks like your CNet post has landed you a good deal; I'd suggest updating your CNet thread once you get it so folks can feel all warm and fuzzy that a noob found his first box there. As you note, getting a 30 right out means you'll have as many buttons as you could possibly need, and if it turns out you end up using mostly 20 buttons, you can buy a nicer 20 button down the line (or 22-24 button) since any arrangement under 30 gets you a substantial cost savings on buying a vintage late 19thor early 20th C Wheatstone or Lachenal concertina, since a lot of the Irish players who provide the vast majority of Anglo demand only want 30+ to be able to play the dominant "Noel Hill style" for Irish. Since you're getting this one, I bought the eBay broken Bastari for $50+$10s for myself. I'll fix it up so I have one on-hand the next time a goon like you wants a cheapie starter concertina. Once you get it, if you're digging it start saving up for an upgrade down the road. I find it helpful to just chuck all my spare change in a drawer, drop it off at the bank once every few months and earmark it all for the upgrade instrument. My credit union lets me have a supplementary savings account for free, so I have one where I put any saved loose change, windfall money, profits from selling other gear, etc. and keep that whole little account for nothing but the next instrument. Ideally that way you can store up money while barely noticing it, and not being tempted to dip into it, and before too long it adds up to enough. The Regoletta will do you fine for a while, but if you end up playing it seriously you will want to upgrade in a few years. Should be a really fun 'box, definitely update us once you get it and start feeling it out! quote:That's what happens when you occasionally stop playing for months at a time, along with having to retune the drat thing because it's been in a closet most of the year. Ah, all just a matter of how keen you are to incorporate dulcimer into singing, but it's certainly a fun option if you find it enriches your experience. I would definitely buy or make a capo, to make it easy for you to change key. You can buy really good ones for $12 or so, or you can make one for a buck or two from bits you buy at a hardware store. One guy came to buy some used dulcimers off me for his grandkids, and brought along a homemade hardware store capo he'd assembled before I was born, something like this:  (there's plastic tubing over part of the threads so the metal doesn't scratch the fingerboard, just it's clear tubing in this photo and dark tubing in others) quote:That actually looks pretty drat cool, but seems like it would be more expensive. I'm kinda poor. Not at all expensive. For one thing if inclined you could temporarily unstring a few strings on your cardboard dulcimer, get a beater fiddle bow for a few bucks, and end up with almost exactly this. I'm not sure the fret pattern is identical, so the exact tablature for these might not correspond, but if you're playing by ear anyway it's a non-issue. For anyone that wants one, Musicmakers sells a kit for $75, assembled-but-unvarnished one for $120, or finished one for $150. And the shopping page of the Psalmodikonforbundet sells all the individual component part, or kit, or just plans. At the risk of sounding cruel, it's kind of hard to find really good clip of the instrument on YouTube, because a lot of the enthusiasts are not exactly musicians. A lot of its following is elderly Scandinavian-Americans who want a sociable and ethnic hobby, so they buy or build these and play tunes in tablature alone or in a group. It's very cute, but a lot of bowed instruments sound like total rear end until you get some practice in, which a lot of these folks don't have. So apply that filter before listening to any such clips. Here's an audio-only clip of someone pretty competent playing, backing up a congregation singing some Scandi hymn, which is the whole origin of the instrument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g05yP2HvyVE  They can have steel or nylon/gut strings; I hear the latter less on YouTube but presume it would sound mellower (and is more trad). TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Dec 28, 2013 |
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Dec 28, 2013 21:39
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I actually do have a capo for it, and I do use it from time to time. One of my friends worked in a hardware store back in '97, and sorted one out for his, then I asked him if he could make another one. My main uses for it so far have been to play Ring of Fire and House of the Rising Sun (vocals done Animals style, loud as all gently caress). On the other part, Bow instruments and I just don't get along. I'm not exactly talented. I'd say I'm fairly good at this thing that I've farted with on and off since I was in junior high, but learning something else that requires a LOT more practice (bow instruments are hard) may be more than I'm up to. Fenrir fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Dec 28, 2013 |
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Dec 28, 2013 21:56
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:Should be a really fun 'box, definitely update us once you get it and start feeling it out! Will do. She's shipping out in the morning and I should receive it before the week is over. Do you know of some good web resources for learning the concertina? Would be nice to have some links saved for when it arrives. Update: My concertina arrived today. Can't wait to learn it. Lallander fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Jan 4, 2014 |
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Dec 30, 2013 02:08
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I was traveling and thus out of pocket, but I figured you seemed comfortable on the Regoletta and on-track, so glad to see you dropped the hammer on it. This should be a great starter. So far as online learning for free, there are a number of ways to go about it.  I'll briefly mention first the print books, just for reference. Anglo concertina instructional materials are a bit of an odd issue, since there are a couple really established/documented schools of playing, but not for the kind of things most generalists want to do. Plus there's no clear agreement on how to write Anglo music. There's plenty of tutorials, classes, workshops, and everything for Irish trad, though actually the dominant style played for "Irish Traditional Music" these days is very new, invented by a guy named Noel Hill born in 1958. As a minor sidenote, Noel Hill had an instrumental diss-track written against him by The Pogues, just to tie in some pop culture. But in whatever case the vast majority of current Irish Trad players copy Hill's style, to the point where it's seen as "wrong" to play otherwise. But a) that's just Irish Trad, b) it's ridiculous to pick one single style created within living memory as the only way to go. Irish styles in general tend to be heavily based on single-note melody lines, Irish Trad not being a heavily harmonic genre. Then they add little blips of harmony, in the Hill style somewhat in imitation of uilleann pipe regulators. There are a few books and tutorials on the "harmonic style", which is what the English Country style has come to be called. Morris dancing and the like. Harmonic involves a lot of playing bass/chords on the left hand, melody on the right. Gary Coover has a new book out called Anglo Concertina in the Harmonic Style, but that's more for mid-level players. If you were to buy any book at all, apparently the good one is The Anglo Concertina Demystified by Bertram Levy. I believe both those authors post on Cnet as well. There are a few cheap books which are reprints of older works, like "Best Concertina Method Yet", or "Mel Bay's Deluxe Concertina Book". I wouldn't recommend the latter, as it's kind of old and stodgy, lots of rather twee old tunes like "Michael Row the Boat Ashore" and tablature but really nudging you to read music. If you want to check out older stuff for free, the Concertina.com (separate from .net but they appear on amiable terms) has a page of great info on Anglo: http://www.concertina.com/anglo/index.htm . Fundamentally though, Anglo is a great instrument for just feeling out. In your initial exploring, I'd stick to the two lower rows since those are consistent scales, while the top row is extra chromatic notes, and "reversals" which duplicate notes you already have but in the opposite bellows direction. And in the very beginning, you may find it easiest to stick with just one row for a bit in order to deal with a simple scale to work in. there are two semi-separate ways of play to address for what you seem interested in, so personally I'd suggest tackling the opposite angles and working inwards: learn to play basic melodies, and learn to play chords. Basic melody is just a matter of playing by ear, largely and at first. I'd suggest playing a really simple melody on the middle row at first, and once you get that down, start figuring out how to trim out some of the excess back-forths by using your reversals on the bottom row. That is, if you have an awkward push-pull-push series of notes, and you find that your middle pull note exists as a push on your bottom row, just swap that in so you get a clean run of push. Let me try to tablature out a really simple tune to start with: "Drunken Sailor" Tablature given for the "C" row, numbering starting from your far left (1-5) and then over to your right hand (6-10). "p" is pull, "d"is draw: What shall we do / with the drunken sailor? d5 d5 p5 d5 / d5 p5 d5 d3 d4 d5 What shall we..." p5 p5 p4 p5 / p5 p4 p5 p3 p4 p5 What shall we..." d5 d5 p5 d5 / d5 p5 d5 d6 p6 d7 Ear-lie in / the morning p6 d5 p5/ p4 d3 d3 EDIT: I wrote this tab up during a slow moment at work, with no concertina but just wiggling my fingers in the air. Was stoked to come home, try it on my Anglo, and confirm I wrote it right.  That's the melody for it. And note that at many points while playing, you can hit a button near your main note button on the same row, and it'll tend to harmonize pretty well, so as you progress you want to both look for "reversals" that can cut out your awkward bellows-changes but leave in the cool rhythmic ones, and also ways to add harmony by hitting other buttons along. For example, on the runs where it's a consistent push or pull on 3-4-5, try running those together as you play forward to form a chord. Now, let's say you want to switch it up by playing a stanza, then singing it. This song has really, really easy chords: Dm and C. That's it. To play Dm, it's just d3d4d5, and C is just p3p4p5. So just mash your fingers on your three main scale buttons on the left, and just alternate pressing and pulling. The first line is all Dm, the second all C. So just hold down 3-4-5 and pull slowly while singing your first "What shall we do...?" and then for the second line reverse, then pull again for the third verse, and the last verse pull for "Ear-lie", push for "in the" and pull for "morning". As a general note, it's advised for technique that when you are using the same buttons on a bellows change, don't just leave them pressed, but briefly let off them before the change, to keep the notes crisp. The above is the verses, but the chorus is equally easy, so worth figuring out by ear. I have some other suggestions for the next step after you get it in your hands and do some initial messing with it, including some suggestions on getting into playing basic chord progressions with musician friends. So drop back in to the thread once you get your hot little hands on your concertina and feel out the very basics, and I can ponder up some other points and answer any initial questions. And with any luck we can inspire the next goon to take up Anglo. TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 10:14 on Dec 31, 2013 |
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Dec 31, 2013 03:29
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Got another busted concertina off eBay, and it's always the moment of truth as I unscrew the sides to take a look at the guts. Thus far I appear to have lucked out again and gotten a 20-button Anglo concertina for a minimal price, with all its buttons present (if fallen loose and rattling around in the body), all levers working, and after a few checks I'll verify that the reeds are all in tune. If anyone wants a beater Anglo to learn on, I should have one posted on SA-Mart maybe this weekend or so; I'll update the thread when I do.
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Jan 3, 2014 12:48
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:I have some other suggestions for the next step after you get it in your hands and do some initial messing with it, including some suggestions on getting into playing basic chord progressions with musician friends. So drop back in to the thread once you get your hot little hands on your concertina and feel out the very basics, and I can ponder up some other points and answer any initial questions. And with any luck we can inspire the next goon to take up Anglo. The only musician friend in the area is into drum and bass and dubstep. He plays music with midi controllers and drum machines and other odd things. I've spent the afternoon playing some scales, fiddling about with trying to work out some basic tunes, and of course drunken sailor. What I really need now is tabs for something that has chords on one hand and melody on the other. Something fairly simple to get me started if you have anything.
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Jan 4, 2014 20:40
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Lallander posted:I've spent the afternoon playing some scales, fiddling about with trying to work out some basic tunes, and of course drunken sailor. What I really need now is tabs for something that has chords on one hand and melody on the other. Something fairly simple to get me started if you have anything.  A cat named Alan Day wrote a free tutor for the 20-button Anglo (so you'd just not need your top row for those): http://www.etanbenami.com/Anglo%20Concertina%20Tutor/ It's written in standard notation, but it has MP3s for every song in the book, exercises, etc. The site http://www.concertina-academy has a lot of higher-level teaching for sale, but has a section labeled "Tuition" that has a bunch of free materials for learning basics on Anglo. If you want to learn some Irish style melodic playing, Online Academy of Irish Music offers some free lessons: http://www.oaim.ie/free-lessons/concertina Here's a PDF of chord fingerings, useful to have: http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?app=core&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_id=7873 Aussie player Simon Wells has some good instructional materials: http://concertutor.wordpress.com/ As noted, actual harmony-part Anglo tabs are surprisingly uncommon online (though you may eventually have to break down and buy the "Concertina in the Harmonic Style" book someday), but there's one really old 1893 book available online with substantial harmony parts transcribed: http://www.concertina.com/merris/sedgwick-improved-complete-german/sedgwick-improved-complete-instructions-for-german-concertina-1893.pdf There's also an 1846 book available scanned online which has some notation and tablature written out, again it gets into some pretty challenging stuff, but it's something to sink your teeth into: http://www.concertina.com/merris/minasi-german-tutor-1846/index.htm Both of these are from Concertina.com, which has a bunch of good articles, both modern written ones about improvising chords and all, as well as old scanned tutorial books from the height of concertina-mania.  All that said though, Anglo is inherently an instrument a lot of folks learn just by listening and imitating, and has been played by plenty of illiterates who gained great skill on it. Probably one of the best things you can do is watch a ton of YouTube clips, especially those that are just one person playing, and slowly work on imitating the sound. It's really helpful that push and pull are pretty visible, so that narrows down any guessing on buttons, and soon your ear will instinctively know what button makes which note. There's a good quick clip of tips on playing Anglo here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rV-DASHKzc. There's also a user called "angloconc" who has a lot of really simple arrangements of popular tunes (Christmas carols, English dance tunes, etc) played simply and with the camera close up on the instrument: http://www.youtube.com/user/angloconc . In a number of his clips you can even visually see which buttons he's pushing. Give the above a look-through, see what seems most comfortable for you. I take it you're happy to have taken up the concertina? TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Jan 7, 2014 |
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Jan 7, 2014 01:55
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:Give the above a look-through, see what seems most comfortable for you. I take it you're happy to have taken up the concertina? Thanks for the links. Those should be very helpful. I had already found angloconc's videos and am currently trying to learn Monck's March. I'm really enjoying the instrument so far. Going to take me some time before I can comfortably play the melody and the chorus at the same time though I think.
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Jan 7, 2014 02:07
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Oh, fun! I just acquired a cheapie lapsteel from a musician's friend sale, and coming into this thread to get some info on lapsteels I see this lovely concertina post. A quick check of craigslist shows a "sunrise" anglo in my area with a hard case for 75 bucks-- it appears to be the same generic concertina for sale on musician's friend here. For the price, is that a fun one to mess around with? In terms of fun, folky instruments, I'm still getting a lot of use out of the Sanshin I bought in Okinawa. Tap, you said you used to play in some older posts, yeah? I found a pretty fun book of traditional tunes in the second hand store as well.
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Jan 7, 2014 06:35
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Paladin posted:For the price, is that a fun one to mess around with? That looks like a fairly low quality Chinese one. Not bad at that price, but... TapTheForwardAssist just picked one up fairly cheap that he cleaned up specifically to sell to a goon looking for a 20 button starter instrument. Maybe he'll pop on with some more info.
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Jan 7, 2014 06:57
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quote:Thanks for the links. Those should be very helpful. I had already found angloconc's videos and am currently trying to learn Monck's March. I'm really enjoying the instrument so far. Going to take me some time before I can comfortably play the melody and the chorus at the same time though I think. No worries; angloconc is also the selfsame Gary Coover who wrote the Anglo Concertina in the Harmonic Style. He's a good guy, and like a lot of well-known guys in the small concertina community, posts on Cnet, and is probably generally an easy guy just to drop a line to and chat concertinas. It's a pretty close-knit forum, good cats. And at whatever stage you get ready to upgrade, odds are you'll end up getting a good used instrument on Cnet for the next step. Playing melody and backing takes some familiarizing, but I bet you'll find it coming far faster than you expect. You just have to open your mind to how the Anglo flows, and pieces start to fall together. Paladin posted:Oh, fun! I just acquired a cheapie lapsteel from a musician's friend sale, Did you get a Rogue, or a Recording King? Any cool pics of it? The TFR gun threads have really nailed down "my recent buy posed in a cool way" photo art, lots of gimmicks posing them with liquor bottles, packs of smokes, and other odd life accoutrements. Any particular goal in learning lap steel, or just picked it up on a lark?  quote:and coming into this thread to get some info on lapsteels I see this lovely concertina post. A quick check of craigslist shows a "sunrise" anglo in my area with a hard case for 75 bucks-- it appears to be the same generic concertina for sale on musician's friend here. For the price, is that a fun one to mess around with? At that price, I'd go check it out, make sure the buttons operate okay under your fingers, and check all the notes in both directions to make sure the reeds play clean and are decently in tune. A good way to check is to play three buttons next to each other, and play up each row (separately) that way to make sure each button blends with those around it. Some of them will be "suspended" or similar jazzy-sounding chords, so don't mistake that with being out of tune, but any group of buttons within the same row should sound chord-like, as though you were just breathing in and out of a harmonica. I do have a beater I'm checking out, but when I sell it it won't be any cheaper than that one, and I'll be selling it as-is, needing a little unskilled cleanup by the buyer. So for the price I'd say check out that one, and if it sounds good to you then offer him $20 or so less and see if you can nudge it down a little, though it's not terrible at that price. It won't be something you'll be satisfied playing regularly all year, but if it's in tune and not busted it'll be find for feeling out, and for $75 or less you should be able to sell it for what you paid for it. If you get it cheap enough it'd even be worth selling and mailing to another goon elsewhere when you either upgrade or move away from concertina.  quote:In terms of fun, folky instruments, I'm still getting a lot of use out of the Sanshin I bought in Okinawa. Tap, you said you used to play in some older posts, yeah? I found a pretty fun book of traditional tunes in the second hand store as well. Not I, but we have a couple of other goons who play sanshin or shamisen. I was never an Okinawa Marine, so I never got exposed to that scene. A friend of mine missed out on the classes, ended up taking calligraphy classes instead (and got an amazing Okinawan tattoo), but I was always secretly hoping she'd take up sanshin. 
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Jan 8, 2014 00:58
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Thanks for the advice on the concertina! It turns out that the guy who posted the advertisement forgot to leave any contact info whatsoever.  If he ever updates it I'll go check it out, and if not I'll just stick with what I have going at the moment. The "how to check it" advice is appreciated!TapTheForwardAssist posted:Any particular goal in learning lap steel, or just picked it up on a lark? Trying new instruments has been my hobby since I was about 12. I was always the fill-in guy in school and I have the most fun just learning a little bit about everything. I was surprised I hadn't got around to lap steel when I saw the sale and couldn't resist. I'll try and post a few pictures this weekend. I'm really interested in trying to figure out how to do bluesy stuff on it. I'll probably start with C6 tuning for foundational technique but then move on to more blues friendly stuff. TapTheForwardAssist posted:Sanshin & Shamisen The cool thing about the standard Okinawan tuning (I can't speak for the mainland) is that it's Mixolydian. I learned the notation but then spent months just doing bagpipe tunes on it until I knew where everything was.
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Jan 8, 2014 06:19
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Well, just got my wife a kantele. She's been remarkably supportive of my musical instrument purchases over the years, but hadn't quite found one that she felt like playing - she came from a musical family, played cello for years, but never really got interested in taking it further due to her nervousness about her abilities. So, I decided to surprise her by picking up a ten-string kantele kit from Musicmakers, building it over Christmas, and gave it to her around the New Year. It's been awesome. One of the best parts of learning folk instruments (and other, non-standard instruments) is that you usually don't have a preconceived notion of what good playing should sound like, so she's felt really free to improvise and figure out what sounds good. After a bit of basic technique training (to avoid bad habits), she's really taken to improvising. I ended up retuning my Anglo-Saxon lyre to the same scale as the kantele, and we just improvised for a while, which was incredibly relaxing and wonderful. Still waiting on my talharpa. I'm kinda disappointed in how long it's taking to be built, although I'll post pictures of all the acquired instruments from this past year.
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Jan 8, 2014 06:44
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Hedningen posted:Well, just got my wife a kantele. She's been remarkably supportive of my musical instrument purchases over the years, but hadn't quite found one that she felt like playing - she came from a musical family, played cello for years, but never really got interested in taking it further due to her nervousness about her abilities. So, I decided to surprise her by picking up a ten-string kantele kit from Musicmakers, building it over Christmas, and gave it to her around the New Year. I was just about to hassle you about your lack of a talharpa effortpost. Who's building it for you? I decided to pull the trigger and have a jouhikko commissioned. I think we've just confirmed the design, so at this point it should be largely a matter of waiting for the luthier to get enough time to build it. Edit: yesss we've finalized everything and it's on the build list. 3-string jouhikko, lime wood body and spruce top (all with a dark red-brown finish), piezo pickups, and some custom carving on the "neck". Expect a big post when it arrives. Watching this and getting excited: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Q17A01SzA Pham Nuwen fucked around with this message at 06:36 on Jan 9, 2014 |
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Jan 8, 2014 06:48
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Hedningen posted:Still waiting on my talharpa. I'm kinda disappointed in how long it's taking to be built, although I'll post pictures of all the acquired instruments from this past year. I was momentarily confused, thinking "I thought your were getting a jouhikko". And then I thought, "wait, that's not your username". And then I realize that we have two goons at the same time buying Scandinavian bowed lyres. It's a small world indeed. So glad to hear that you found a way to get your wife playing music with you. :3 These days I'm trying to sort and prioritize my music gear, and get rid of things I'm not using. I want to mainly focus on Duet concertina, so just bought a pricey Morse model at the end of the year. And though I haven't played it in a while, I want to get back into being at least decent on Swedish bagpipes, since it's a beautiful instrument and has very few players in the world. After that I'm keeping a handful of things that I casually play at least decently, so ukulele, Appalachian dulcimer, tinwhistle, etc. And then a few small and durable things that I don't feel bad chucking in a drawer, like thumb piano, Native American flute, etc. So I'm selling off the synthesizer I bought to learn piano keyboard (since I need to focus on concertina), selling off my Appalachian banjo since clawhammer takes a certain amount of investment I'd rather put into concertina or sackpipa. Plus there are a bunch of folks who are really good on clawhammer banjo, so it's not like that scene will suffer for my lack of participation. I'm looking at some job possibilities that may require moving, so all the more reason to stay compact.  Though while I'm still here in Washington, a buddy just contacted me to say a colleague is setting up a cabaret act in DC, with like jugglers and acrobats and singers and all, to play shows in DC. They're trying to form up a house band, so he wants me to come in and support with concertina. If anyone here is in DC and plays fiddle, clarinet, stand-up bass, or something unusual that fits a 1920s-esque cabaret band and wants to hear more about this project, PM me or email me at my username at Yahoo.
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Jan 10, 2014 05:20
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Has anyone posted here about the "paperina"? It is an ocarina design made out of paper. Well, card stock. But you know what I mean. I made one. (Actually my sweetheart made it for me. I helped to hold it together while the glue set. Thanks, honey!) It sounds like rear end. But if one wishes to try an ocarina for size it is a very cheap way of getting one. It also looks loving cool. I'm looking to move to a plastic or ceramic model. Something that won't fall apart if I play it too hard. I'd like something that sounds deep. Any suggestions? I can afford about 30$ worth of an ocarina. All cheap ocarinas I have seen to date are rather squeky and high pitched. Am I missing something? Of course, I do happen to have some polymer clay... So if anyone has hints on how to make one out of that...
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Jan 10, 2014 05:27
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k
rogue_squirrel fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Mar 6, 2015 |
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Jan 10, 2014 21:04
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No Gravitas posted:I'm looking to move to a plastic or ceramic model. Something that won't fall apart if I play it too hard. I'd like something that sounds deep. Any suggestions? I can afford about 30$ worth of an ocarina. All cheap ocarinas I have seen to date are rather squeky and high pitched. Am I missing something? The thing to recall is the ocarina generally offered in Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass. A lot of folks have sopranos, so it might be those you're thinking of squeaky. There aren't any reliably quality basses under $30 that I'm aware of, but a lot of makers have tenors in that range. The Mountain Ocarina in C is pitched from B4-E6, so that's tenor range for $25. And STL has both a pendant-style (ceramic) and sweet-potato style (plastic) on their site for $25. Plastic is of course more durable, but tend to clog with condensation faster, so it's a tradeoff. There are a few other inexpensive makes of tenors, but as others have discovered on the thread, google up reviews of any cheapies you find before buying, and don't buy an ocarina you can't find any info about. Go listen to a bunch of YT clips of "tenor ocarina" and see if that pitch range falls better on your ear.  quote:Is there are a tiny version of the bagpipes? Or what is the smallest of all the pipes. I'm still undecided on a weird instrument. I'll probably end up with a tin whistle. I'll note first off that getting a tinwhistle is never a bad idea. They're inexpensive, and they're a good introduction to wind instruments in general, yet can play really complex music with skill. So far as "tiny version", you're thinking of relative to the Great Highland bagpipe, the big loud Scottish thing people carry in parades? Are you meaning "tiny" like something that's quieter than that (most kinds of bagpipes) or something that's literally physically smaller? Or are you meaning like smaller and less expensive, easier to use for a person with smaller hands, more portable for travel? Just trying to suss out what you're getting at by "tiny". In whatever case, Wikipedia has a great list of 100+ kinds of bagpipes from all over Europe/Asia/Africa; note only three of them are indigenous to Scotland. Out of the whole page, I'd say easily 75% of them are notably quieter than the Great Highland pipe, so if volume is your main issue that's a wide field. If you literally mean "physically smallest", there are a number of pipes which are pretty small, the main ones jumping to mind being the Swedish sackpipa, the southern French boha, and the Croatian mih. Hands-down the tiniest chanter is the Breton biniou kozh, which is also about the highest-pitched bagpipe, really piercing little thing. Primarily used for playing duets with the bombarde, a trumpet-like oboe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL-OkzdyP4Q. It's slightly longer drone might knock it out of "smallest overall" running, in which case the Swedish bagpipe may pull ahead. Should I just assume that what you're going for is "I like the sound of bagpipes in general, but don't want to play some huge loud Highland pipe, so what's something reasonably inexpensive and accessible that I can play indoors without upsetting people"? In that case, barring your having an interest in a specific musical tradition that requires choosing a specific bagpipe native to that region, there are several good options for indoor bagpipes. If it's mainly that you literally enjoy the sound of pipes as a class, I'd suggest you listen to clips of the various pipes below and see if one of those traditions appeals to you. - Scottish smallpipe: similar settup to Highlands, but way quieter and pitched an octave lower, so not shrill. Not used for marching music or ceremonial stuff like funerals, but rather are played indoors for dance music, often along with fiddles and the like. If you like Scottish music but don't dig the whole kilts-and-parades thing, this would be the hands-down choice. We have a megapost on these on page 11, but suffice to say they can be bought at good quality pretty affordably in the $400ish range, and there are a lot of easy to obtain instructional materials for them.  - Swedish sackpipa: these are quite compact because the drone is about the same size as the chanter; my mouthblown one fits in a case about the size of a clarinet case. Really mellow/mournful sound similar in volume and tone to clarinet, does well solo indoors or with a guitar or fiddle. These used to be extinct, but are slowly reviving, and Seth Hamon in Texas makes great cast-resin ones for $385. If you like the overall sound of piping, but want something that breaks away from Scottish tradition, these are a great bet.  These are the two broadest and easiest choices, but definitely check out the longer list on Wikipedia, search up some YouTube clips of cultures/nationalities whose music interests you, and let us know what jumps out at you. If you're really keen on Irish music, you should look into the uilleann pipes, or if you specifically want to play French, German, Italian, or whichever tradition there are multiple shapes and sizes of pipes in those nations to choose from. Peruse around and get back to us.
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Jan 11, 2014 15:38
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Here's something interesting I spotted in the SFO terminal a few months back: Sorry the picture is a little blurred, I was shooting through a pane of glass, but it looks like basically a ukulele autoharp. Press button, strum, get chord.
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Jan 11, 2014 21:45
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Arthur Godfrey was a television talk show host who used to give Ukulele lessons back in the 50s. I remember reading that a lot of people were buying cheaper plastic ukulele's then, I never knew they came with a helper. You still see those things sold for guitars sometimes.
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Jan 12, 2014 17:47
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Paladin posted:Arthur Godfrey was a television talk show host who used to give Ukulele lessons back in the 50s. I remember reading that a lot of people were buying cheaper plastic ukulele's then, I never knew they came with a helper. You still see those things sold for guitars sometimes. There are a few different auto-chording devices for string instruments; the "Islander" ukulele by Maccaferri. He's the guy who designed decent-quality plastic ukuleles, which disappeared along with the general decline of ukuleles leaving the 60s or so. I'd been vaguely wanting to get a plastic uke so I could play it in the bathtub or out in the rain and all, and ended up getting an Outdoor Ukulele after they went into production in 2013 after not quite making it as a Kickstarter. In any case, I don't know if anyone's making the uke versions these days, but there is a "Auto Chord" for guitar: http://www.amazon.com/E-Z-Chord-for-Guitar/dp/B0002JKOZA It's somewhat an "answer to a question nobody asked" since learning 3 or 4 chords on a string instrument isn't unduly tasking. In fairness, you can play a huge swath of music with just four chords on a uke (a I-IV-V-iv progression), but again it's not like it's hard to learn that many finger formations, and you get way more flexibility just fingering directly.  There were all kinds of early inventions to make chord playing easier around the 1900 period, but the only one that really caught on (relatively) big was the Autoharp. And as noted earlier in the thread, the Autoharp is really the only survivor of an entire surge of odd "play in minutes!" instruments of that period. eBay and junk shops are still packed with the remnants of the failed products. A few websites like "Fretless Zithers" list out dozens of examples of these: http://www.minermusic.com/dolceola/fretless_zithers.htm One of the many subsets was the "guard plate" style of zithers, where there were different places to strum which had openings for some strings and not for others, such as the Apollo Harp:  Maybe someday all these weird "gizmo harps" will come back into style and become valuable, but in the meantime they're worth maybe $20-30 each on eBay, Craigslist, etc. TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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Jan 13, 2014 14:11
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I got inspired to order a Barcelona kids' accordion by this thread! It arrived today, but it's making significant rattling and clunking noises when shaken lightly. Pretty sure something's broken inside - likely the bass side keys as they seem to do nothing but let air quietly in and out. Bummer. It's not worth sending back; I'll probably take it apart and see what's going on in there. UPDATE! I've got the pins out, and can see inside. There are three metal reed "bodies" with one reed on each side. All three have broken loose. I have no idea which one goes where, and what orientation they are supposed to face. I've gone full on CSI and tried to match glue patterns to see where they go - no luck! Can anyone who owns one of these Barcelonas take the pins out and post a picture of the bass reeds? It may help. Not Nipsy Russell fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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Jan 15, 2014 02:09
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Not Nipsy Russell posted:I got inspired to order a Barcelona kids' accordion by this thread! Yeah, ordering them online is a roll of the dice, but they are really easy to work on as long as the reeds aren't totally buggered. Go ahead and pull out the little ball-head pins that hold it together, take a squint inside. It's incredibly mechanically simple, easy to figure out what's going on. Take some pictures for the thread if you see anything interesting. In the meantime, I've checked out the beater 20b Anglo concertina I got, Italian-made Silvertone, like Stagi. The reeds seem in tune and working, but it needs some basic unskilled work, nothing really harder than swapping a bicycle chain out, mostly just involves replacing bits of rubber tube at the levers (included from my kit) and such. It's visually shabby, but that just means you can feel free to paint it or bedazzle it or whatever. It's not worth my working on it, but I can sell it as-is for $45 plus US shipping; I'll take some photos and chuck it up on SA-Mart, or email me at my username at Yahoo. That aside, if anyone's been looking for an inexpensive Duet-system concertina, a guy on Concertina.net has an Elise Hayden duet concertina (the main reputable cheapie) for $275, which is about as good a deal as you can hope to find on a used one. They don't pop up new often since they've only been out a few years, so if anyone's been meaning to try one, check out his thread: http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=16182#entry152947 Hayden is a really intuitive fingering system: the same motion results in the same shift no matter where you are. One to the right is always up a half-step, up-right diagonal is always a fifth, etc. It's a really ingenious system and makes improvising easy. I have this same cheapie and after four years just upgraded and got a really nice one of the same system but really well made and with more buttons. Here's what the system looks like, for music theory geeks.   The older Maccann duet system, still retains some small popularity quote:Can anyone who owns one of these Barcelonas take the pins out and post a picture of the bass reeds? It may help. There's like a 95%+ correspondence between all the 7-button "toy accordion" instruments by dozens of different names, including Barcelona, First Act, Schylling, Hohner, Woodstock, Golden Cup, Child Prodigy, RWG, D'Luca, De Rosa... and the famous (semi)original US term "Hero". Though from Melodeon.net I gather than "Chanson" is the go-to term for the same in the UK. There is some difference since some are celluoid-covered plywood others pure plastic, but the overall layout and even the "upside-down butterfly" soundholes are identical for all of them. So pretty much everyone's spec'ing some mid-1970s/80s design and just replicating that. But in any case, any "toy accordion" with the same seven-button pattern, and maybe even the ones with the Cajun-style exposed metal levers instead of shrouded buttons, will be the same. Can you at least tell what side of the reed block should be facing out/in? If so, it shouldn't be too hard: the lowest reed-block should go on the middle button, the bottom button should just be letting air through, and the top button should have a small, medium, and large reed on it forming a chord (or maybe just a small and medium). TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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Jan 15, 2014 03:23
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Could I get some advice on instruments that can be played mostly with one hand? I have a bad case of RSI in my right shoulder. To give some examples of what I can and can't do, I played piano from age 7-17, and my fingers are no longer dextrous enough on the right hand for anything particularly accomplished, I also get very tired in that shoulder after about 10 minutes of playing. The arm is also weak, and I can't really use the bow on my double bass for more than 15 minutes. Plucking guitar/bass strings is also right out. Thanks in advance.
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Jan 16, 2014 15:51
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SuBeCo posted:Could I get some advice on instruments that can be played mostly with one hand? I have a bad case of RSI in my right shoulder. To give some examples of what I can and can't do, I played piano from age 7-17, and my fingers are no longer dextrous enough on the right hand for anything particularly accomplished, I also get very tired in that shoulder after about 10 minutes of playing. The arm is also weak, and I can't really use the bow on my double bass for more than 15 minutes. Plucking guitar/bass strings is also right out. Thanks in advance. Harmonica?
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Jan 16, 2014 17:44
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SuBeCo posted:Could I get some advice on instruments that can be played mostly with one hand? I have a bad case of RSI in my right shoulder. To give some examples of what I can and can't do, I played piano from age 7-17, and my fingers are no longer dextrous enough on the right hand for anything particularly accomplished, I also get very tired in that shoulder after about 10 minutes of playing. The arm is also weak, and I can't really use the bow on my double bass for more than 15 minutes. Plucking guitar/bass strings is also right out. Thanks in advance. This is a subject I've pondered from time to time, particularly since in my past lines of work people tend to lose limbs every so often. Harmonica is certainly one to consider; you can even have a neck-harness like Bob Dylan and not use your hands at all. As a kinda fringe answer, tabor pipe jumped to mind. It's basically a tin-whistle made one-handed so a piper can do a "one man band" playing drum with the other hand. They're a little limited, and their scale starts out an octave higher than a corresponding tinwhistle does, so to not be too shrill you'd probably want to get one of the longer models available. Susato makes tabor pipes as low as $28 or so, even for the long ones. Here's a guy playing a one-handed pipe while using the other hand to back himself up on string-drum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XHZJ7LYYLk. For comparison, he's playing a G pipe, which would be low in a tin whistle, but since tabors play a register higher it's not so low despite its size. A Low D pipe plays in the same register as a normal D tinwhistle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vwfHhP23pk  That aside, there are a few ways to go with this. Some plucked string instruments can be played one-handed by "hammering" with your good hand. In your case, you're fortunate enough to have your left, which is the hammering hand anyway. If you search "One handed guitar" on YT there are many clips, oddly enough a lot from Vietnam. There's also an Iraqi musician with an amazing clip of one-hand oud techniques he developed for amputees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY152bc_pjA (there are many other related clips). Aside from hammering guitar-esque instruments, many zithers/lyres/etc could be played one handed. It'd be more melodic and with sparser accompaniment than having two hands, but if you own the style and make it yours that's not definitely negative. The same kantele a few goons have gotten could certainly be played one-handed. One step a little further than the other zithers that could be interesting if the sound speaks to you: hammered dulcimer. You can hold just one hammer (or hold two hammers in one hand like some skilled players do). You wouldn't be as fast as folks who can alternate hands, and your accompaniment would be sparser since you'd have to nip away from the melody for a sec to hit a bass string, but there are certainly ways to take on more languorous tunes in a minimalist style. Take a look at some hammered dulcimer clips (as well as Indian/Persian santoor/santur) and see if you could imagine doing that lefty-solo. Similar idea for bowed psaltery, which a lot of folks play one-handed anyway.  The above is assuming your right hand/arm is just a total write-off. If it were just a matter of having a wonky hand, I'd say to consider Irish button accordion. There's actually a minor trend of famous Irish accordionists who took up the instrument after injuring their right hand and being unable to play a string instrument. One famous melodeon player was shot in his right hand in I believe the Boer War, and Charlie Piggott played tenor banjo in the famous band De Dannan until he closed his hand in a car door, and had to switch to accordion. Irish music is just so melodic you can get away using just the melody buttons and not the chords. Easier if it's your left hand that's busted, though some lefties play Irish box upside-down. But this might not be the one for you since maybe strapping an accordion to your right shoulder would be painful even if the arm was mostly just holding the bass end still while the left worked. TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Jan 17, 2014 |
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Jan 17, 2014 02:47
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I know at least one irish accordion player who switched to accordion after his left hand got too wrecked to play fiddle any more.
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Jan 17, 2014 05:34
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Returning to this thread yet again to thank you for inspiring me to take up music. Instruments I have learned since first visiting include: * Recorder * Silver Flute * Tin Whistle * Harmonica (Diatonic and Chromatic) (Straight harp only) * Synthesizer / Piano * Trombone (pBone!) * Ukulele I'm not a master at any of them, but I can play in key and jam out a tune / chord progression. Sadly, I have yet to record anything, but perhaps that time will come. Thanks again TTFA / thread!
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Jan 20, 2014 15:50
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If anyone is young/poor, doesn't already play an instrument, and wants something weird, I have a pentatonic kalimba I can send you for $5 of postage. I bought it from some Baltic state while drunk on eBay (bad idea), and while it's not terrible, I overpaid and ended up just getting a better Catania electric later. Nothing amazing, but if you just want something you can make music with, pentatonic kalimbas are great because you really can't sound wrong on them, everything blends together and harmonizes, so you can just focus on finding cool patterns. Shoot me an email at my username at Yahoo if you're keen. Concertina already sold. If I clear out more stuff in the house and get caught up on other projects, I look to buy another one or two later this year for cheap starters. If somebody wants a mid-range starter in the meantime, best way is to ask as the Sales sub-forum on Concertina Forums, same place our last goon found his starter Anglo. Alternately, there's a basic 20b Italian up on eBay for $50 with free shipping; if you can get it under $65 or so, and the seller claims it's in decent shape and in-tune (though about any used old one could use re-sleeving with $5 of rubber tubing), so could be worth the risk: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Concertina-20-Button-Riccordi-Italian-/181304841800?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a369c5648 TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Jan 21, 2014 |
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Jan 20, 2014 22:00
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The 20b Anglo concertina is sold to a goon who's interested in using it to learn Irish music. A 20b, unlike a 30-button, can only play in C and G, so that limits you to a certain swath of Irish tunes if you want to play in the "standard" keys, but still an easy and inexpensive place to start. Hopefully he'll swing by here once he gets it tweaked right, and let us know how it's working out for him. Lallander, are you getting the hang of your 30 button? In other good news, I got back my udu drum that a friend borrowed for a year. Now I just need to brush up on the basics of hand-percussion; it's one of those things that seems easy, but I don't want to be that guy who just assumes he's a good percussionist because he can clap along with a beat. 
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Jan 23, 2014 04:51
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:Lallander, are you getting the hang of your 30 button? My wrist has been bothering me for a few days so I've laid off practice for a bit. Before that things were going well though. Really enjoying the feel of the instrument. Having the notes change with bellows direction is starting to sort of slip my mind that I'm even doing it on occasion.
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Jan 23, 2014 08:17
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Lallander posted:My wrist has been bothering me for a few days so I've laid off practice for a bit. Before that things were going well though. Really enjoying the feel of the instrument. Having the notes change with bellows direction is starting to sort of slip my mind that I'm even doing it on occasion. Awesome, it's a good feeling when the inherent harmonizing of the instrument becomes intuitive. Free kalimba is still up for grabs for any noobs-to-music, and if anyone is looking to learn clawhammer banjo, I have a few books up in the NMD:ML banjo thread for ultra cheap: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3385681&pagenumber=11#post424685431
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Jan 24, 2014 11:47
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I'm looking at kalimbas thanks to this thread. Something pentatonic that either comes with or can easily be modified with a pickup would be the coolest. Any good shops to check out besides kalimba magic?
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Jan 25, 2014 03:16
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Hedningen posted:Well, just got my wife a kantele. She's been remarkably supportive of my musical instrument purchases over the years, but hadn't quite found one that she felt like playing - she came from a musical family, played cello for years, but never really got interested in taking it further due to her nervousness about her abilities. So, I decided to surprise her by picking up a ten-string kantele kit from Musicmakers, building it over Christmas, and gave it to her around the New Year. Hey. Hey you. You goon. Has your talharpa arrived yet? I'm waiting for my jouhikko to get built, and after working with the luthier to customize it, I am practically drooling over the thought of seeing the real thing. Do you have pictures of the kantele and/or the lyre? I'm thinking about a kantele for my girlfriend; she likes to write songs and sometimes plays acoustic guitar, so I think the kantele would be a pretty easy step.
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Jan 27, 2014 00:59
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utamaru posted:I'm looking at kalimbas thanks to this thread. Something pentatonic that either comes with or can easily be modified with a pickup would be the coolest. Any good shops to check out besides kalimba magic? Hmmm, I don't know many folks other than Catania that make production electric pentatonic kalimbas. Granted, a diatonic kalimba can be made pentatonic by sliding some of the tines further back. A buddy of mine I gave a penatonic-converted kalimba to, and at one point while he was chatting up a musical chick in a bar, hollers over to me "hey TTFA, what's that thing you did to that thumb piano you gave me so it always sounds good when I'm drunk?" Meinl also makes an electric kalimba, albeit hollow bodied and pricier than the Catania (which is mostly stocked by Kalimba Magic). Hugh Tracey (the original Westernized kalimba company) has hollow-body electric versions, diatonic but probably pentatonicable. Other than those two the rest is pretty much custom; places like coloradosoundscapes.com and a few other folks we discussed a few pages back make transducer'ed kalimbas and at that level of custom you can probably get whatever tuning your pretty little self inclines to. There are a smattering of weird one-off makers, Etsy shops, etc with electric kalimbas, but again mostly Meinl and Catania that produce a standard model. Also, you could always follow basic "install transducer" instructions to electrify the kalimba of your choice. For those unfamiliar, a "transducer" differs from a standard electric guitar pickup in that it absorbs vibrations, while a regular guitar pickup reacts to the magnetic field around steel guitar strings. There are basic "bottle cap" $30 or less transducers you can stick on to most string instruments, that pick up the vibrations and turn them to electrical signals, though with acoustic instruments it's harder to avoid feedback, having the sound coming out of the amps resonate the body of the instrument, which then feeds it to the amps, which then vibrates the instrument and its transducer... and so on in an endless shrieky loop.  Speaking of such, I have the Catania diatonic electric kalimba and am trying to figure out what effects pedals to buy; I'm thinking flanger, particularly a used MXR flanger; anyone have an alternate idea? SuBeCo, one other possible "one hand only" instrument. If you have piano/keyboard skills but can't play two-handed, you can play solo organ/keyboard like the Indians do. Here's Indian-American Shilpa Ray playing harmonium one-handed while pumping with the other: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLno-RUD2YY . There are motor-powered tiny reed organs like this that you can buy cheap so you can still avoid taxing your right and using your left to play all the chords/melody of Indian-based harmonium music. Depending on your interests, portability, and how much space you have, on Craigslist there are constantly organs offered for just the cost of hauling them away to free up someone's house. You could theoretically get a small organ, and play the bass pedals with your feet, and do minimalist melody on the keyboard with one hand. I saw a hipster-y show at an art gallery in Quebec City with a singer and organist, and the organist did several feet-only solos, holding his hands in the air and playing nothing but the foot pedals:  Here are a few cool clips using foot pedals: - Bach's ""Pedal Exercitium" (BWV 598)", playing organ mostly using the feet dancing about on the pedal - Among the terribly pricey and inconvenient instruments I dream of is the "pedal clavichord". A normal large-ish clavichord with a whole extra sub-body of bass strings played by pedals. Apparently originally made so organists could practice without needing a bunch of choir-boys pumping bellows so they could play the big church organ, not to mention warming up the workspace in a massive indoor stone freezer. YT audio clip of playing (for reference a decent used clavichord is $1500-2500, a new pedal clavichord is $9k). Here's a pedal clavichord playing at some rich/obsessed dude's house: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV246jxDTd0 
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Jan 28, 2014 08:13
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