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Author Topic: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885  (Read 34993 times)

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Mutt

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #80 on: November 21, 2013, 01:22:44 AM »

.. there couldn't have been too many left handed box players about.

I don't know of any in those days, in fact there are precious few these days either...  ???

Remembering this link from last year: http://accordeonaire.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-accordeon-12-step.html

So if they played lefty in both old New York as well as in Ankh-Morpork, perhaps WE'VE got it the wrong way around?
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triskel

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #81 on: November 21, 2013, 05:40:29 AM »

Remembering this link from last year: http://accordeonaire.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-accordeon-12-step.html

So if they played lefty in both old New York as well as in Ankh-Morpork ...

Only that could be the bass end of some boxes, like these Estonian ones:


Quote
... perhaps WE'VE got it the wrong way around?

Accordin' to the thinking of Cyrill Demian, who only invented the darned thing, we have

Invented by Cyrill Demian (1772-1847) of Vienna and patented by him on 6th May 1829,13 the accordion rapidly spread throughout Europe. ... These very first models of accordion were made to be played left-handed (to our way of thinking) and played only chords, as contemporary tutor books explain and surviving instruments demonstrate (hence the name, deriving from the German word for chord = "accord", plus the suffix "-ion"). This has been the cause of some considerable confusion and misinformation in books and articles on the subject ...

(This was by analogy with the way you finger the notes on stringed instruments with your left hand, whilst producing them with your right.)

triskel

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #82 on: November 21, 2013, 12:08:52 PM »

I know of two left handed box players. One was born without a right hand.
The other is Brian Read.

There is, or was, one in Co. Galway because I was offered his stolen left-handed Paolo Soprani (converted by Brendan Mulhaire) one time. I smelt a rat when the seller didn't know it was left-handed, rang Brendan (because his name was inside it as repairer, to find out the story) then rang the Garda. Mind you, I never knew anybody so ungrateful about me sticking my neck out and getting their instrument back for them - the owner never so much as said thanks.  ???

Otherwise, in her book A maid and her Music, the English traditional player Ruth Askew mentioned a friend of hers, Charlie Johnson of Little Steeping, near Boston, Lincolnshire, who played left-handed and she pictured him playing his Hohner 4-stopper upside down.

But they'd be very rare exceptions and I'm still of the opinion that this may simply be a case of "artistic licence" - after all, it's why that expression exists... Plus, the man directly behind him is holding his glass left-handed too, so maybe they were originally sketched the other way around?

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #83 on: November 21, 2013, 12:29:16 PM »

A left handed player borrowed my Oakwood once. Female, singer, I don't know who. It was at the Dolphin, Robin Hood's Bay, during Whitby Folk week.
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Andrew Wigglesworth

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #84 on: November 22, 2013, 02:09:42 AM »


... I'm still of the opinion that this may simply be a case of "artistic licence" -


I don't know if this makes any sense but I am going to throw it into the mix anyway...
A right handed player will rest the box on their left knee (most of the time),
tuck the left leg in for support and extend the right leg for foot taping.

Our guy in the sketch is resting the box on his right knee and is taping with his left foot.
It all seems to fit in with him being a left handed player.
That's a lot of attention to detail on the part of the artist and is in keeping with the
level of detail in the sketch in general.

Well, I'm left-handed, so I suppose I'm a "left-handed player". However, I play the melodeon the "conventional" way round with the left hand on the basses etc.

I have to disagree with your observation about extending/tucking in legs. If sat, I will usually raise the right leg to put the right hand end of the instrument against it, if a leg is extended then it will be the left one. Precisely the opposite of what you describe. So, not conclusive evidence after all   :P

Chris Ryall

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #85 on: November 22, 2013, 08:10:54 AM »

Sounds to be more about 1 v 2 straps than a kneecap count … :|glug
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triskel

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #86 on: November 22, 2013, 01:07:43 PM »

Stephen, have you seen this photo of Joe Burke?

Wow, everybody's left-handed in that photo, even Paolo Soprani...  :o

There's image-reversal for you, and a perfect example of "artistic licence" with a photo - presumably some photo editor along the way must have thought it looked better like that!  ::)

triskel

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #87 on: November 22, 2013, 01:30:42 PM »

Sounds to be more about 1 v 2 straps than a kneecap count … :|glug

More like 0 straps Chris, and there are still many players, including Marc Savoy in Louisiana, who prefer to play the melodeon (using the word in its Irish/original sense in this instance, to mean a Deutsche Harmonika/German accordion) using only the thumb strap to hold it, when sitting down to play.

For that matter, I once saw somebody (years ago) disqualified from an All-Ireland melodeon competition for even using a shoulder strap...  :o

mory

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #88 on: November 22, 2013, 02:06:58 PM »

Stephen, have you seen this photo of Joe Burke?

Wow, everybody's left-handed in that photo, even Paolo Soprani...  :o

There's image-reversal for you, and a perfect example of "artistic licence" with a photo - presumably some photo editor along the way must have thought it looked better like that!  ::)
 
The Garda would have been in the way if he hadn't reversed it! 
It might have been from Joe himself after all he parts his hair on that side in front of the mirror every morning!  ::) AtB mory
« Last Edit: November 22, 2013, 04:07:56 PM by mory »
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triskel

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #89 on: November 22, 2013, 05:41:57 PM »

I agree with you.. in real life, players hold and play their boxes in all manner of ways.
An individual player can adopt several different positions.

Indeed they can, and do. The melodeon player in the print does appear to have his instrument raised off his knee on the treble side (be that right or left), but I can easily think of two reasons why this might be the case - either he was resting the bass end on his other knee and moving the bellows with his treble-playing hand, like a concertina player generally would, which is perfectly feasible if you're not using a shoulder strap, or he had the whole instrument off his knee at that moment, which is something that I'd sometimes do whilst playing.

Anyway, there has never been one "correct" way of holding the accordion/melodeon and people find ways that suit themselves, whilst 19th century tutor books/photographs only go to show that there was no one "accepted" way of holding the instrument at that time either, in fact some of the holds they advocate/display would seem totally bizarre to today's players.  :o

triskel

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #90 on: November 22, 2013, 11:23:43 PM »

Here's a great illustration of somebody moving the bellows from both ends, and raising the instrument up whilst playing - the very energetic playing of my old friend Alan Morrisroe - My Grandmother's Favourite Jigs

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #91 on: November 23, 2013, 10:00:59 AM »

Here's a great illustration of somebody moving the bellows from both ends, and raising the instrument up whilst playing - the very energetic playing of my old friend Alan Morrisroe - My Grandmother's Favourite Jigs

I'm totally gobsmacked. Seems as light as a Chanson. How on earth can you play like that?
Stunning.
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KLR

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #92 on: November 23, 2013, 04:34:59 PM »

Here's a great illustration of somebody moving the bellows from both ends, and raising the instrument up whilst playing - the very energetic playing of my old friend Alan Morrisroe - My Grandmother's Favourite Jigs

I'm totally gobsmacked. Seems as light as a Chanson. How on earth can you play like that?
Stunning.

He really doesn't look like he's enjoying playing that thing!  Some of us do grimace a bit though, that's all that's going on I'm sure.  Thanks for that, I was told about Alan years ago but the only footage of him was on a stage somewhere, nice to be able to see him play up close, wonderful music.

In re:  ambidexterity, famed Highland piper John Burgess was said to be able to play the chanter either right or left handed.  He was the exception to pretty much every rule, though.  Can't imagine be able to do that on the box.  Mastering more than one system is crazy enough!
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Chris Ryall

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #93 on: November 23, 2013, 07:00:47 PM »

Incredible!
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Chris Ryall

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #94 on: December 04, 2013, 10:54:39 PM »

ditto
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pgroff

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #95 on: January 08, 2014, 03:01:29 PM »

Hi aradru, mory & all,

Yes, there were models like this that lacked stops.  Big boxes with small keyboards and small wooden pallet-covers/grilles/resonance chambers that were rectangular and drilled with holes to form a simple pattern.  And of course, a box that originally had stops can be modified to suit a left-handed player.

If triskel doesn't have some photos to post, I could dig some up from the web.

PG

Hi all,

I actually had some trouble finding examples of the boxes I remembered, as described above.  But this Menze on ebay today jogged my memory.  I'm *fairly* sure I have seen boxes similar to this with only one row of melody buttons . . .

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ANTIQUE-VINTAGE-C-T-MENZE-PUSH-BUTTON-ACCORDION-STILL-WORKS-PLAYS-LOUD-/301002061180

Here's a past melnet thread on that maker:

http://forum.melodeon.net/index.php/topic,738.0.html

PG

Well, the same ebay seller seems to have what looks to me like a different Menze for sale now:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-C-T-Menze-Accordion-Concertina-/301062969658

PG
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triskel

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #96 on: February 07, 2014, 01:51:27 AM »

A shillelagh/blackthorn stick seems to have been almost de rigeur in 19th/early 20th century illustrations depicting men performing the Irish jig - his pose and the "shillelagh under his arm" were why I guessed the youth in this picture might be intended to be seen as dancing it.

And tonight I stumbled upon this image from 15 years later, of two Irish soldiers step dancing (again with a stick) to the melodeon playing of one of their comrades on St. Patrick's Day 1900:


Drummer Kelly and Private O’Leary of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers and a melodeon player entertain the troops at Ladysmith, South Africa, 17 March 1900, with ‘a typical Irish step dance… after many an Irish song was sung’. Drawn by Sidney Paget from a sketch by Ernest Prater and published in the Sphere, London, 28 April 1900

Captioned ‘How the Irish Soldiers in Ladysmith Celebrated St. Patrick’s Day’, this drawing of troops at their ease can be considered as an example of war propaganda aimed at the home front. The siege of Ladysmith by the Boers had only been lifted by a British force under General Sir Redvers Buller in February 1900 after three earlier disastrous attempts and thousands of casualties (including many of the Dublin Fusiliers). The artist Ernest Prater was traveling with Buller as the embedded correspondent of the London illustrated newspaper The Sphere, and the illustrator Sidney Paget (creator of the popular image of Sherlock Holmes) finished the sketch for publication. Nevertheless the scene is probably authentic, even if it conforms to a stereotypical Irish image. Male cross-dressing is a standard feature of Irish mumming, and a stick or wattle was commonly used in Irish traditional dancing, as was a dancing platform. The cheap and robust mass-produced melodeon would have survived in a kitbag better than most instruments; the form of it depicted is a nineteenth-century one.

Courtesy Irish Traditional Music Archive

Edited link - to make it work!

gettabettabox

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #97 on: February 07, 2014, 02:33:23 AM »

a great image, was busy assessing it and the pith helmets before I saw the detailed information underneath.
I can look at these sort of images for ages, maps of time. thank you for posting.


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Nick Collis Bird

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #98 on: February 07, 2014, 09:21:07 AM »

Really lovely stuff, wouldn't it be great to be able to look back with a telescope like instrument  and see what it really was all about. :P
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triskel

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #99 on: April 07, 2014, 08:55:45 PM »

The stand out box for me was his 'Cooley box', the 3 voice red Paolo Soprani in DD#. What an instrument that one is. Two months on and I am still drooling!

I told you it was a good 'un!  ;)

Good to meet you Tom, and sorry about the drool...  :(
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