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Author Topic: Chemnitzer Concertina  (Read 11403 times)

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Accordion Dave

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Chemnitzer Concertina
« on: May 07, 2010, 03:50:07 AM »

The Chemnitzer Concertina is another free reed box with which I would like to become more familiar.

The large square box shaped concertina is a big part of Polish Polka music in Chicago, Illinois and Buffalo, New York and German Polka music in New Ulm, Minnesota.

Some of the Polish players that I like are Eddie Zima, Little Wally Jagiello, Casey Siewierski, Jersey Polka Richie, and Steve Litwin.

Some of the German style players that come to mind are  Whoopee John, Karl Hartwich, Elmer Sheid, and Cristy Hengel.

Steve Litwin has a great website on the concertina. Any search engine should be able to find it for you.
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oggiesnr

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Re: Chemnitzer Concertina
« Reply #1 on: May 07, 2010, 10:22:15 PM »

Started life with the same roots as a bandoneon but stayed sane!  If you can play an anglo you can play a chemnitzer.  There are however a whole series of hybrids, for example where the right hand is standard but the left hand is chords (think a square shaped melodeon).

The reason that so many have quite garish decoration (rhinestones etc) is that they were the lead instrument of the polka band, the lead guitar of their era, and thus the focal point.  Some of them are superbly OTT in looks but sound great.

Steve
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Accordion Dave

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Re: Chemnitzer Concertina
« Reply #2 on: May 08, 2010, 01:07:10 AM »

OTT? Here we go with the alpabet soup again.
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Accordion Dave

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Re: Chemnitzer Concertina
« Reply #3 on: May 08, 2010, 01:07:34 AM »

Alphabet soup that is.
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Andrew Culwell

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Re: Chemnitzer Concertina
« Reply #4 on: May 08, 2010, 02:57:19 AM »

Over The Top!
IN the Midwest Polka is serious stuff!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nyXCQaZ1UU
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Accordion Dave

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Re: Chemnitzer Concertina
« Reply #5 on: May 08, 2010, 03:30:25 AM »

O (Oh)
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strad

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Re: Chemnitzer Concertina
« Reply #6 on: May 08, 2010, 11:09:13 AM »

Interesting watching the left hand fingers of the nearer player. I can't even move them like that without a box on my lap. And an alternative to the strap wearing. Good sounding music, too.

Nigel
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old geezer

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Re: Chemnitzer Concertina
« Reply #7 on: May 08, 2010, 01:21:32 PM »

Alphabet soup that is.

this urban dictonarywill unravel at lot of acronyms
there are several online acronym finders available in cyberspace.....  

Here we go with the alpabet soup again.

wot key are you playing that in ??  :||:
« Last Edit: May 08, 2010, 01:33:23 PM by old geezer »
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Accordion Dave

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Re: Chemnitzer Concertina
« Reply #8 on: May 08, 2010, 05:15:41 PM »

Why do I need Wicky-wacky-pedia, or an "urban dictionary" in order to understand what is being written?

Are people from the city too lazy to write things out?

The alphabet abbreviation thing is getting ridiculous.

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Accordion Dave

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Re: Chemnitzer Concertina
« Reply #9 on: May 08, 2010, 05:22:35 PM »

The key to my annoyance is summed up in the word "unravel".

Encountering these acronyms is like having to untangle a ball of string when I would rather be reading something clearly written.
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Theo

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Re: Chemnitzer Concertina
« Reply #10 on: May 08, 2010, 06:06:39 PM »

The key to my annoyance is summed up in the word "unravel".

Encountering these acronyms is like having to untangle a ball of string when I would rather be reading something clearly written.


On the other hand use of abbreviations is very very common on all sorts of internet discussions and in my humble opinion is a great time saver, and some like OTT are common in everyday speech at least here in the UK.   Perhaps another example of "two nations divided by a common language"
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Accordion Dave

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Re: Chemnitzer Concertina
« Reply #11 on: May 08, 2010, 06:23:46 PM »

A great time saver?

Perhaps for the person typing with two thumbs whilst operating a motor vehicle.

It doesn't save me any time when I have to leave the forum to consult wicky-wacky-pedia or some online dictionary of secret codes and cyphers.

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oggiesnr

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Re: Chemnitzer Concertina
« Reply #12 on: May 08, 2010, 06:45:49 PM »

As the originator of the "OTT" remark I apologise, I had thought it was in common currency, mea culpa.

So to re-phrase my original -

"Some of them are so decorated as to be almost vulgar and definately vearing towards the garish but they sound great."

As to the left hand, it's a great workout for the fingers but requires a lot of muscle memory (or good luck).

Steve
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HallelujahAl

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Re: Chemnitzer Concertina
« Reply #13 on: May 08, 2010, 06:57:51 PM »

AFAIK and IMHO OTT is perfectly OK - WYSIWYG surely?
 :D
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ladydetemps

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Re: Chemnitzer Concertina
« Reply #14 on: May 08, 2010, 09:11:03 PM »

ROFL

old geezer

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Re: Chemnitzer Concertina
« Reply #15 on: May 08, 2010, 11:49:38 PM »

AFAIK and IMHO OTT is perfectly OK - WYSIWYG surely?
 :D

okay....... ok......
(though I sometimes find it daunting to understand some of the younger peoples' text messages and 'lingo' nowadays)
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Owen Woods

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Re: Chemnitzer Concertina
« Reply #16 on: May 09, 2010, 12:38:46 AM »

AFAIK and IMHO OTT is perfectly OK - WYSIWYG surely?
 :D

very useful if you CBA and just was to GTFO, TBH :P
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Ollie

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Re: Chemnitzer Concertina
« Reply #17 on: May 09, 2010, 12:47:41 AM »

IDK what this all means.  :(










 :P




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Andrew Culwell

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Re: Chemnitzer Concertina
« Reply #18 on: May 09, 2010, 03:03:17 PM »

Talk about thread drift!
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Matthew B

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Re: Chemnitzer Concertina
« Reply #19 on: May 10, 2010, 02:44:17 PM »

As to the left hand, it's a great workout for the fingers but requires a lot of muscle memory (or good luck).

And if I'm not mistaken, he's missing a fair-sized section of his left little finger.  Which drifts us over into the three fingers or four discussion, I suppose. 

Back on on the topic of Chemnitzers, they're great.  A few years ago I picked one up for pocket change at a junk shop, and although its a bit beaten up, its got a great sound and its a lot of fun to play.  It came with about 200 tunes, hand-written in Chemnitzer tab, and covered in other annotations such as "Aunt Millie's favourite" and "Don't play this one of the Swanson twins show up".  Nearly all fox-trots and Polkas.  When I win the lottery I'm going to have the box overhauled.  And when I retire, I'm going to learn how to play it.

It should be pretty easy, as I still have all the fingers on my left hand. 
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