Box players, defend yourselves!

Post by **Nanohedron** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 8:57 pm

dubhlinn wrote:
Nanohedron wrote:
StevieJ wrote:Just remembered another gem of a put-down directed at box players: "glorified melodeon player"...

From Seamus Tansey, heard on that unbelievable radio program, you all know the one I mean.
-Knock, knock.
-Who's there?
-Seamus Tansey.
-Seamus Tansey who?
-Well, YOU are not too sharp!
Disgraceful..very funny, but disgraceful nonetheless.

Slan,
D.

Being disgraceful is one of my less attractive vices, I'm afraid.

StevieJ · Post by **StevieJ** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 8:56 am

Disgraceful? I thought it was very subtle myself and if you are the originator Nano please accept a virtual pint. If not, you can have one for passing it on anyway.

PS Dubh if that's disgraceful, what adjective would you suggest to describe ST's behaviour in the affair at issue?

Martin Milner · Post by **Martin Milner** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 10:24 am

Apart from the fiddle, what instrument doesn't come with the notes ready-made?

I think some people do see the box as a quick-in to playing a melody instrument - I'm thinking English stuff here but it applies to ITM too I think - but rapidly discover that making "music" is a more than just hitting buttons at a predesignated moment.

Post by **Nanohedron** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 12:00 pm

StevieJ, I didn't originate that; found it at The Session. Dunno if the poster there originated it or not, but it was brilliant.

As for Dub, I take his jibe as a wry compliment, being as it was qualified with the smilies so. Then again, I may be thick as clay. Well, okay, I am as thick as clay, but I think I got Dub's intent.

Seanie · Post by **Seanie** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 1:04 am

Hello

From Joe Burke

There was a whip around in a pub to help defray the funeral expenses of a recently deceased accordian player. When the hat reached the resident fiddler he put a pound into the hat 'to help bury the box player'. He thought for a few minutes and then said ' heres another pound for the acoordian'

Sean O'Riada presented a series of radio programmes in the early sixties entitled 'Our Musical Heritage'. These radio programmes were brougt out by RTE on 3 cassette tapes with an accompying booklet. This was where the world first heard the seminal recordings of Johnny Doran. They had not been publically available before these programs.
In one of these lectures he talks about how accordian players are ruining tunes. He then went through a slow air on the piano stopping and showing where the accordian players of the time were changing the music as to make it unrecogniseable.
These were a brilliant set of lectures and the style of box playing in the fifties and sixties was totally different than styles today.
Paddy O'Brien from Nenagh was the man who changed the way accordians were played.

Regards

John Moran

bradhurley · Post by **bradhurley** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 6:57 am

About a decade back I was at a weekend Irish music festival in White Plains, New York, the one organized by the excellent Kerry accordion player Denis Galvin. During the Saturday evening concert they announced a surprise appearance by that year's All-Ireland senior accordion champion. The man (whose name I have conveniently forgotten) climbed up on stage and for half an hour played fast music that was full of notes and empty of spirit. An accordion player sitting next to me whispered in my ear, "ah, he's from the typewriter school of accordion playing."

John's Joe Burke story above reminds me of another: a cop who played the box wanted to know the name of a tune he had recently learned, so when he saw Joe Burke at a session he played it (aggressively and badly) for him, asking when he was done, "so what would you call that now, Joe?"

"I'd call it Police Brutality," Burke replied.

dubhlinn · Post by **dubhlinn** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 9:19 am

Nanohedron wrote:StevieJ, I didn't originate that; found it at The Session. Dunno if the poster there originated it or not, but it was brilliant.

As for Dub, I take his jibe as a wry compliment, being as it was qualified with the smilies so. Then again, I may be thick as clay. Well, okay, I am as thick as clay, but I think I got Dub's intent.

Yep..it was a joke.

Slan,
D.

dubhlinn · Post by **dubhlinn** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 9:20 am

StevieJ wrote:Disgraceful? I thought it was very subtle myself and if you are the originator Nano please accept a virtual pint. If not, you can have one for passing it on anyway.

PS Dubh if that's disgraceful, what adjective would you suggest to describe ST's behaviour in the affair at issue?

Tanseys behaviour was a disgrace, and that is not a joke.

Slan,
D.

colomon · Post by **colomon** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 9:34 am

Seanie wrote:In one of these lectures he talks about how accordian players are ruining tunes. He then went through a slow air on the piano stopping and showing where the accordian players of the time were changing the music as to make it unrecogniseable.
These were a brilliant set of lectures and the style of box playing in the fifties and sixties was totally different than styles today.
Paddy O'Brien from Nenagh was the man who changed the way accordians were played.

I have to admit this leaves me at a bit of a loss. I could see complaining because the accordion forces you to use a strict equal-tempered scale -- but so does the piano! Other than that pitches you can't hit on box or piano, wouldn't it just plain be crappy playing if you made a slow air unrecognizable?

Certainly I've found a number of older accordion players I really like who would have had little to no influence from Paddy O'Brien's B/C style. Is admiring (indeed, preferring) Joe Cooley and Michael J Kennedy a sign I have no taste? Or did the accordion world fall apart after they learned, only to be rebuilt again later?

Editted to add -- just looked at the timeline for B/C accordions in Irish music, and now I'm even more confused. According to what I'm reading, the accordion playing of the late-50s and 60s would have been B/C inspired by Paddy O'Brien.... Is he the problem rather than the cure?

Ro3b · Post by **Ro3b** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 9:41 am

Martin Milner wrote:I think some people do see the box as a quick-in to playing a melody instrument - I'm thinking English stuff here but it applies to ITM too I think - but rapidly discover that making "music" is a more than just hitting buttons at a predesignated moment.

As Bach is alleged to have said about playing the organ, "You have only to hit the right notes at the right time, and the instrument plays itself."

The box is a good deal easier on a day-to-day basis than the flute, that I know for sure. The tone is built in, you can play after meals, it's always in tune, and you don't have to mop it out after playing. What could be better?

johnkerr · Post by **johnkerr** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 10:49 am

Ro3b wrote:The box is a good deal easier on a day-to-day basis than the flute, that I know for sure. The tone is built in, you can play after meals, it's always in tune, and you don't have to mop it out after playing. What could be better?

A concertina. It's all that in a smaller package. Plus, hexagons are much cooler shapes than rectangles in all aspects of life, including boxes.

BTW Rob, I think your new avatar is even more frightening than your last one, if that's possible. Is it a view from the other direction just before the hammer hit?

Ro3b · Post by **Ro3b** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 1:00 pm

johnkerr wrote:A concertina. It's all that in a smaller package. Plus, hexagons are much cooler shapes than rectangles in all aspects of life, including boxes.

Yeah, but it sort of makes you look like you're knitting when you're playing. Whereas the rugged sexual magnetism of the accordion is universally acknowledged.

BTW Rob, I think your new avatar is even more frightening than your last one, if that's possible. Is it a view from the other direction just before the hammer hit?

I'm not sure. It's a photo that turned up on my camera phone; I have no idea when or where it was taken. It certainly seems to have surprised me, though.