Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Graham Spencer]

Don't forget that John K's main box is (or was!) a Casali B/C/C# with Stradella bass.  Yes, he is an absolute wizard on simpler fully diatonic boxes as well, but you do have to be aware if you're trying to emulate his left hand that it MAY be playing an entirely different system from yours.  I converted from PA to melodeon 30 years or moe ago, and it took me a good while to accommodate to the limitations of a simple diatonic 8-bass after the 120-bass Stradella system I'd learned on, and even longer to wake up to the potential that the "standard" diatonic bass offers. I currently play a 12-bass as my main box, and I'm still, after all these years, discovering new possibilities.  No waggly fingers, though - economy of movement wins the day for me.

[Jesse Smith]

Don't forget that John K's main box is (or was!) a Casali B/C/C# with Stradella bass.  Yes, he is an absolute wizard on simpler fully diatonic boxes as well, but you do have to be aware if you're trying to emulate his left hand that it MAY be playing an entirely different system from yours.

Yes, it is certainly true of the Stradella bass being a very different animal, but I was speaking of his performances on a Pokerwork on the two CDs that go with his tunebook.

[Tone Dumb Greg]

If you want to learn more about JK's techniques it's worth taking a look at his tutor videos. All the stuff discussed below is part of what he teaches. Only £15.00. Recommended.

https://www.johnkirkpatrick.co.uk/shop.asp

[Edit: All his teaching is on simple instruments. The videos go from beginner to advanced.]

[Steve_freereeder]

Don't forget that John K's main box is (or was!) a Casali B/C/C# with Stradella bass.  Yes, he is an absolute wizard on simpler fully diatonic boxes as well, but you do have to be aware if you're trying to emulate his left hand that it MAY be playing an entirely different system from yours. ...

At the workshop I described previously, he was playing and teaching using a bog-standard Hohner Pokerwork.

[Dick Rees]

For those wishing more output from the bass reeds, here's a good work-around:

https://youtu.be/SS4NDSdWlb4

[Chris Ryall]

• Long oooom, short pa!
• Short um!, long paaah...
• No oom, just the pah, i.e. off-beat chords: - pah, - pah, - pah
• 'Shuffle', off-beat chords - i.e.  - cha-cha, - cha-cha, - cha-cha, etc.
• Long 'block' bass and chords together

It fried the brain cells and fingers for a while, but it was a great way of bringing your left hand under control so you could play whatever style you want as needed.

Most of which are variant ways of getting some ait, some free space in there. 🤔 I’ve long been a fan of sparse bass, despite being a southpaw. Always bear in mind that the END of a  note or chord is as much a rhythm event as its start, and that you don’t have to run the note right up to the following one

 DUM cha cha … and DUM cha [finger off]  are rhythmically eqivalent if the finger comes off at the moment the 2nd cha would have started.  Practice that, and then insert even more oxygen by making the DUM a hot key tap …

D _ cha^OFF _ Not only is it sparse,  but introduces an element of hemiola into the bar

Another trick I like is to abandon bass all together, play the enire tune or stanza through on right end only, but as rhythmically as possible. It brings an element of drama to the tune, and surprise!

Above all, get several tricks working fluently in practice, and mix them. Bizarrely, though you’re playing exactly the same notes on right, it’ll sound quite different. Left end, and more importantly left ARM are the heart of the instrument, in my view

[IanD]

There are many different ways of playing the basses that work, ranging from the "treat the buttons as if they're red hot" to more elaborate styles using runs and crossed chords -- I treat the bass end almost as a separate instrument rhythmically and play a combination of what I'd play on bass and guitar, with some long notes, some short ones, leading notes, gaps, no chords at all sometimes, whatever fits the music but very rarely a straight "oom-pah", and often with timing different to the treble end especially if I'm "swinging" the tune -- doing this needs you to educate your brain into separating out what the left and right hands are doing, which is a learned skill and one which some people find very difficult to do.

But the most important thing is that whatever you do on the bass end works with the tune (and the dance if you're playing for dancing), and realising that this can be very different for different tunes even if they're in the same time signature.