Print

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

[triskel]

Not wanting to drag the Tasmania. An odd question thread even further off topic, I've opened this new one about a subject arising from it:

Hitherto, the Old "English Chromatic" C/C# system (going back to the 1880s) was prevalent amongst English 2-row melodeon players, played in C (with a row of semitones, much as an Irish D/D# player might play his instrument in D), and indeed, C might be considered as "concert pitch" amongst the old-style players recorded in East Anglia (like it still is amongst the Cajuns in Louisiana). In fact I'm reminded of a number of instruments I bought after the death of Suffolk melodeon player Cyril Stannard - who had single-row C's, and double-row G/C, C/F, C/C# and B/C boxes that had all quite evidently been played exclusively on the C row...

I've been told that D/G (in English music) originated with a couple of dance players on Dartmoor in the 1940s, who got their Club Model C/F accordions (which were themselves a new introduction in the 1930s) converted to play in D/G, to suit the keys of the fiddle players. Peter Kennedy then took up D/G and seems to have been behind the more general introduction of the system.

It was Peter who got the first D/G instruments manufactured for the English folk market - a batch of Club Models built by Hagstrom, a Swedish firm who had set up an accordion factory in Sunderland after WWII and brought Nils Nielsen with them as a young factory-trained tuner. Those boxes were made (subject to a Licence from the Board of Trade, in those immediate post-war years of restrictions, rationing and 100% Sales Tax on musical instruments!) especially for the English Folk Dance Society in 1949, and they could only be bought at that time by members of the Society who had pre-ordered them.

The very first Hohner D/Gs for the English market (and the first D/Gs to be commercially available in Britain) only appeared in 1955, when Bell's of Surbiton ordered a small batch of Pokerworks, and then another of Ericas (which were then a new model) - one of the Pokerworks was bought by Reg Hall, and the last of the Ericas by Brian Hayden - but the second batch sold much more slowly than the first, and Brian ("Inventor" of this parish) has reported that he was told they might not be getting any more made.

The system was so new, and little known, that a 1957 article in English Dance & Song magazine, "What you can do with the melodeon", doesn't even mention it!

I commented in the Tasmania. An odd question thread that;

... people might be surprised to learn that even my latest Bell's catalogue, from May 1968, only lists the Erica in C/C# - and no Pokerworks, or D/Gs, at all!

But tonight I came across an even later, January 1971, Bell's catalogue that I bought recently.

It still shows the Erica as being in C/C# as standard, but adds (almost as an afterthought, below the main body of the description) "Also available in D and G tuning."

There are still no Pokerworks in that catalogue though, and there are altogether 4 different models in C/C#, four in B/C and 4 in B/C/C# listed, as well as 2 models in C#/D and 2 in D/D#, but only the Erica in D/G! 

Early days for D/G, even then!

Edited title

[ACE]

When I got my first soprani in D/G from accordions of London I got it cheap as the salesman said he would not be able to sell it to any of his regulars, this was  years before the internet, so I  suspect advertising the thing country wide was not an option and Kilburn then being termed as the Irish Quarter, his regulars would not be seen dead with those tunings. My very first D/G was a pokerwork purchased in the early seventies from the West Midlands Folk federation who had managed to obtain a batch of pokerworks and a couple of Coronas in A/D/G.  For us players out in the back woods it was still 20 years plus after the 1949 intro that we came across the weird beasts. Playing in C was the norm up to then or a very squeaky G on a cheap old lachenal anglo.

[Pearse Rossa]

...But tonight I came across an even later, January 1971, Bell's catalogue that I bought recently.

It still shows the Erica as being in C/C# as standard, but adds (almost as an afterthought, below the main body of the description) "Also available in D and G tuning."

There are still no Pokerworks in that catalogue though, and there are altogether 4 different models in C/C#, four in B/C and 4 in B/C/C# listed, as well as 2 models in C#/D and 2 in D/D#, but only the Erica in D/G! 

Early days for D/G, even then!

It seems obvious that the supplier was catering mainly to Scottish and Irish box players?
Which begs the question...how many English folk musicians were actually playing the button box at the time? Very few maybe?

Which models were available in C#/D and D/D#?

[Pearse Rossa]

When I got my first soprani in D/G from accordions of London I got it cheap as the salesman said he would not be able to sell it to any of his regulars, this was  years before the internet, so I  suspect advertising the thing country wide was not an option and Kilburn then being termed as the Irish Quarter, his regulars would not be seen dead with those tunings...

If an Irish player wanted to play like Paddy O' Brien or Joe Burke or Finbarr Dwyer (and they all did!),
then it had to be B/C or some other semi-tone.
You just can't get the ornamentation that those players get, on a D/G.

[Steve_freereeder]

Which begs the question...how many English folk musicians were actually playing the button box at the time? Very few maybe?

In the 1970s, probably quite a lot, but I suspect they tended not to be documented very much. Certainly in East Anglia (where the eponymous Traditional Music Trust has done so much research) there were Oscar Woods, Dolly Curtis, Percy Brown, George Craske, and others. They mainly played two row melodeons in C/C# or B/C using the C rows only, although latterly, Percy Brown played a D/G Erica. The one-row four-stop melodeon in C was also popular and came to be Oscar Woods' iconic box.

I've no reason to doubt that there were similar players in other parts of England at the time, the Dartmoor area of Devon especially coming to mind.

[Pearse Rossa]

I've been told that D/G (in English music) originated with a couple of dance players on Dartmoor in the 1940s, who got their Club Model C/F accordions (which were themselves a new introduction in the 1930s) converted to play in D/G,...

I'm wondering how these conversions were made. Were there many fettlers around in those days?
Did the boxes go back to the supplier or the factory? Were reeds retuned or replaced I wonder?

It was Peter who got the first D/G instruments manufactured for the English folk market - a batch of Club Models built by Hagstrom...

Do you mean Club Models with a gleichton?
Why not a straight up D/G?...unless the players were only interested in playing the D row.

[Pearse Rossa]

..Oscar Woods, Dolly Curtis, Percy Brown, George Craske, and others. They mainly played two row melodeons in C/C# or B/C using the C rows only, although latterly, Percy Brown played a D/G Erica. The one-row four-stop melodeon in C was also popular and came to be Oscar Woods' iconic box.

I couldn't find any video archive on Oscar Woods, does anyone know of anything online?

[Pearse Rossa]

I have it now!

[triskel]

...But tonight I came across an even later, January 1971, Bell's catalogue that I bought recently.
... there are altogether 4 different models in C/C#, four in B/C and 4 in B/C/C# listed, as well as 2 models in C#/D and 2 in D/D#, but only the Erica in D/G! 

It seems obvious that the supplier was catering mainly to Scottish and Irish box players?
Which begs the question...how many English folk musicians were actually playing the button box at the time? Very few maybe?

Which models were available in C#/D and D/D#?

Bell's were the biggest accordion dealers in England in the 1950s/'60s/'70s, mainly selling piano accordions (including "own brand" ones made for them by Hohner), many of them by mail order, and also offered their own hire purchase facility. They certainly sold to both English players and Irish ones living in England, but Scotland had big accordion dealers of its own.

There were plenty of English button box players, most of them playing C/C# or B/C, and some with Paolo Sopranis (I've a 5-coupler, "horseshoe grille", C/C# that came from an English home and has a Bell's celluloid label on it), but the piano accordion would have been hugely more popular in those days.

The Hohner Primatona and Amatona IV models were available in B/C, C/C#, C#/D or D/D#.

[triskel]

If an Irish player wanted to play like Paddy O' Brien or Joe Burke or Finbarr Dwyer (and they all did!),
then it had to be B/C or some other semi-tone.

Originally, in 1955, when his three 78 rpm discs came out, it was all about playing like Paddy O'Brien (from Nenagh) on B/C, and nobody else. Those other "young lads" hadn't even been heard of then...

Though "the young bucks" of the box in those days were listening to Jimmy Shand too!
 

You just can't get the ornamentation that those players get, on a D/G.

No "semitonally-inflected downward mordants" I trust, nor "pointless and random ornaments"...    (Seán Ó Riada)

[911377brian]

The sheer economy of his playing is an inspiration....

[Thrupenny Bit]

I've been going to the Sidmouth Festival since I happened to drive through the town on a day trip to the beach and wondered what was going on, probably 1972-3.
My interest in the festival and folk things grew and I was aware that melodeons could be bought from the local EFDSS office in Exeter, along with song books which were my initial interest and reason for visiting the office. Not sure if other stalls at the festival had them and in fact can't even remember if there *were* many music stalls then!
Don't remember the date when the first Hobgoblin stall appeared but then melodeons were 'out in the open' along with other folk instruments. It looked like an Aladdin's Cave. Quite exciting I remember!
Q

[triskel]

I've been told that D/G (in English music) originated with a couple of dance players on Dartmoor in the 1940s, who got their Club Model C/F accordions (which were themselves a new introduction in the 1930s) converted to play in D/G,...

I'm wondering how these conversions were made. Were there many fettlers around in those days?
Did the boxes go back to the supplier or the factory? Were reeds retuned or replaced I wonder?

I'm sorry to say that, basically, "nobody knows" the answers to any of your questions. 

Which means we can only speculate.

So, seeing that no "ready made" sets of D/G reeds would have been available then, whoever did it (and there were precious few tuners around in those days) must have re-tuned the C/F ones up a full tone, much as Nils Nielsen would have done when he converted a 1930's Club 235 to D/G for me in the late '70s.

Certainly the renowned Dartmoor player Bob Cann, born in 1919 and playing for dances by the 1940s, was later known for playing a post-war Hohner Club III M that must have been converted, to be in D/G.

It was Peter who got the first D/G instruments manufactured for the English folk market - a batch of Club Models built by Hagstrom...

Do you mean Club Models with a gleichton?
Why not a straight up D/G?...unless the players were only interested in playing the D row.

Unless somebody finds one, and there were only ever a handful of them made, we only know that those Hagstrom boxes were described as "Club Melodeons" by Peter Kennedy.

But I'd suspect they were probably made without the dreaded gleichton... 

[Pearse Rossa]

No "semitonally-inflected downward mordants" I trust, nor "pointless and random ornaments"...    (Seán Ó Riada)

I wonder what Sonny Brogan and Éamon de Buitléar made of that...

[Thrupenny Bit]

I wonder if Ivor Hyde would have any input into this?
Though I've never met him, friends have used him since the 70's. He's in Somerset ( Yeovil? ) and now in his 80's and was still tuning ass far as I know, though his daughter has helped him apparently..
Apparently Hohner trained. He would have been tuning and witnessed this being at the 'reed end' of it all during this time period.
He might be worth contacting, if anyone's local to him, and get his version of events.
Just a thought........
cheers
Q

[triskel]

No "semitonally-inflected downward mordants" I trust, nor "pointless and random ornaments"...    (Seán Ó Riada)

I wonder what Sonny Brogan and Éamon de Buitléar made of that...

You'd wonder... 

Though Ó Riada had nothing but praise for Sonny Brogan's tasteful box playing, and I don't remember Éamon de Buitléar being too fancy either.

Actually, I was trying to get Éamon to talk to me about Ó Riada's attitude to the accordion ("designed by foreigners for the use of peasants with neither the time, inclination nor application for a worthier instrument"), but he died before we got around to it - a man of many talents, not least (but you wouldn't know if you never got a letter from him) being calligraphy, so that even my address on the envelope was a work of art...

[triskel]

I wonder if Ivor Hyde would have any input into this?

I was wondering myself, and he might have had a hand in things in the '50s/'60s, but he'd be too young to have tuned those boxes in the '40s - though he might have seen some of those original ones later.

[triskel]

... although latterly, Percy Brown played a D/G Erica. ...

In fact Cyril Stannard also had a D/G Pokerwork, only it seemed to be in "as new" condition - like he'd never played it...

[Phil B]

"Certainly the renowned Dartmoor player Bob Cann, born in 1919 and playing for dances by the 1940s, was later known for playing a post-war Hohner Club III M that must have been converted, to be in D/G." quote from Triskel's post
I am not sure about to boxes he played in the 1940,s but to the best of my memory the one I danced to late 60,s early 70,s was converted to DG by Ivor Hyde. I believe It also did have the dreaded glechion! because when Bob borrowed my 3 voice ADG Corona to try on one occasion he could not get on with because he missed having the glechion.
But Ivor would be the person to confirm this

[Rob2Hook]

Sadly I haven't seen Ivor for a few years now.  I do recall his mentioning that he once converted a Club for Bob Cann.  Later of course the Pixie Band approached him to repeat the feat, but he was not inclined to go through the process again so it was agreed he should re-reed the box with Italian reeds.  Presumably the scale length didn't suit the reed blocks as he said it was a bit of a disaster!

I'd love to see him again and tell him how much I've enjoyed the boxes he's fixed for me.

Rob.