Scottish PA: register and tuning

[Rhadge]

Does anyone know which register switches are used by players like Jimmy Shand and Phil Cunningham, and if they use wet or dry tuning?
My PA sounds nothing close to Phil Cunninghams, hence my curiosity.

[Anyanka]

I'm not that familiar with those two players (but I've just Spotified them, so give me an hour or so...) but this is what I found with a bit of judicious Googling on the Session discussion board: "Hi. Phil Cunningham here. Someone asked me to clarify something written here about the kind of box I play. It's a custom made Borsini, 96 bass in a 72 frame , the front end midi is MusicTech and the bass end midi mechanism by Ian Forrest. Borsini now make a version of this for consumer use without the extras. My Saltarelle is the 60 bass Clifden with the Basses moved to give me a C sharp at the top. I hope this helps,

keep squeezin,

Phil.".

Thing is, if it's custom made, the registers may not relate to those available on your 'cordie. Also, if he uses MusicTech he can make it sound like pretty much anything. Traditionally, Scottish accordion is quite wet, but the Cunningham tune I've just listened to seems to switch from a fairly dry sound to wettish halfway through (pardon the lack of accuracy). Most trad musicians go for the dry end of the spectrum these days.

[Rhadge]

Thanks, good find!

I'm mostly interested in the sound he has on Silly Wizard recordings, so the fact that he plays a digital accordion now doesn't necessarily complicate matters.
Too bad he didn't say what registers he mostly uses.

What tune did you listen to, when he changed from dry to wet?

[Anyanka]

It was the first one that came up on Spotify; Western Lilt/The Harsh February/Far from Home, with Aly Bain.
I'm going to check out Silly Wizard now. Not that I'm an expert at register detection, I'm still learning about accordions all the time - there's an amazing variety of configurations and soundscapes out there! That's why I love the instrument more than any other

[MTGuru]

I've seen Aly and Phil in concert, and my recollection is that Phil's preference was very wet throughout, and midi bass on the left. I've always heard Phil as a very wet player, from Silly Wizard on. Local PA feis player here David Lindquist also tends quite wet.

[Anyanka]

I'm listening to Silly Wizard right now; sounds like the typical Scottish accordion sound to me, which is - as the Guru says - quite wet.
Here's a little article about different nationalities of tuning, incl Scottish: http://www.ehow.co.uk/info_7899508_acco ... types.html
and a discussion specifically about Scottish tuning http://www.strathspey.org/list/strathsp ... ead/41648/

When it comes to comparing your 'cordie with Cunningham's, the first thing to consider is the number of reed sets (voices), and then the way they're tuned. His Borsini has at least 4 reed sets.

[Rhadge]

I do not have musette, and only have two sets of reeds. So now I know where to start!
The ehow website states that scottish musette in fact uses only two reeds per note. This is contrary to the information on the message board though, where scottish musette is said to have three reeds per note.

This clip shows three kinds of tuning used in scottish music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf4Ue4wTi-s
Judging from that clip, and what people wrote in that message board you posted, it seems that both musette and vibrato are common. All using only the middle register, with the reeds tuned slightly apart.


EDIT: I also found this convenient site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accordion_ ... d_switches
It seems that the vibrato sound is simply the "Violin" register /w wet tuning, and scottish musette uses the regular "Musette" register, but without the extreme width of french musette.

[Anyanka]

Thanks for that Wikipedia link, that's really useful!