. i will be attending noel's camp as well--hope to see you there!i agree with ross... there are no books or videos currently on the market that will prepare you for noel's camps. they will only teach you things that you will have to unlearn.
you will not find many top players who's scales make any more sense than noel's. nowadays just about everyone plays across the rows. when people say "in the row" they dont mean it literally. this is a pet peeve of mine. if you actually play in the rows, you can only play in C and G, and never D. many players DID in fact do this a long time ago. they are far and few now. when modern "in the rows" players play a G scale, for example, many** of them start in the C row and then switch later to the G row. the difference between them and "across the rows" players is not whether or not they play in multiple rows, but WHEN and WHERE they switch. noel's across the row style is in fact unique, but so are the styles of many top players. so... noel is not unique in that his system is unique.
i have not seen any scale charts personally from any of those you mention besides edel fox's scales, and it is only one note different than noels, and just as confusing. i have only seen micheál ó raghallaigh's ornamentation chart, and my recollection was that his ornamentation chart was much more confusing than noel's (though of course this made it all the more enticing).
that being said... if you want a primer, there are a couple things you could do. you could see if tim clarke is accepting students; he lives in or near cincy. right now, he is listed on the website as the concertina teacher at the riley school of irish music ( http://www.rileyirishmusic.com/modules/ ... lasses.php ).
the other thing you could do would be talk to me. i am always accepting students, and i am a big proponent of the noel hill style, though tim clarke is equally adept at the intricacies of noel's system. i do lessons over webcam, and have prepared sheet music and scale sheets ready to go. we could definitely fit in some lessons before camp.
but no matter what, don't feel bad if you end up going to camp without having any tuition at all. noel has taught many complete beginners and is very accommodating and adaptable.
daiv
**i know this is not all players. for the modern, so-called in the rows style, there are those whose home row is C, and then those whose home row is G. the naming convention of "in the rows" is not because they actually play exclusively in the rows, but because of the cognitive organizational process behind the fingering decisions, namely that of trying to adhere to the most immediately evident scalar patterns on the instrument.
