Hi Paul Thanks I hope it was ok to put it here. Feel free to get it moved if it's more appropriate. I had found the earlier posts and Ted was in touch a while back. Here is one more clip for those interested, Colm with Boys of Tandragree and Scatter the Mud http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZmkHejGsoU&gl=US AtB mory
Hi mory,
Hah! Not my call to police thread drift, and anyway I'm the worst offender if that were even an offense. But in fact those clips you and I posted, of a fine player using an Irish-American box, are right on topic IMO.
A lot of today's players scratch their heads over the very concept of these highly elaborated instruments. Extra voices, exquisite decoration, the best available parts and craftsmanship invested in the playability and sound -- but only 10 melody buttons. That's only 19 different notes in the case of the Likely box (with the duplicate low A and leaving aside the octave voicing), and nary a C natural, F natural, G#, Bb or Eb to be found. Only 2 basses. But for a lot of people playing Irish music today, complete chromaticism of the melody notes (and a playing style, including key modulations and equivalence of enharmonics that requires 12 tone equal temperament) would be basic requirements. It was a different world among Irish and Irish-American box players in the 1920s.
Colm did a great job with that borrowed Superior. Nothing incomplete about that powerful music. It's a great reminder that you have a whole musical world to explore with just one row. The tunes I have from recordings of Mr. Sullivan (R. I. P.), mentioned at the beginning of this thread, though in four different keys, were all played on that one Baldoni-Bartoli 10-key box
To hear a great player with a smaller and simpler Hohner 1-row box is just as impressive and I also love that sound. In fact, the Hohner 1-row sound is a fuller sound in some ways, and the stops offer more variety in voicing than the single switch of these Baldonis. It's a marvel to me that the design of the 4-stop Hohners can achieve what they do in such a small size and so inexpensively!
PG
