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[Stiamh]

You haven't put it crudely, Andrew, just literally. Remove the engineer's glasses, put on those of the poet, and you'll find, miraculously, that instruments can indeed have ideas.

For the first 10 years of my fiddle-playing life I laboured with a mediocre instrument. I finally got a good one, a really good one, and when I got it home, for a while, I was awed and mystified. I realized that I had to adapt / relearn the way I played to get the best - or indeed anything much - out of it. I understood this instinctively as needing to learn how the violin wanted to be played.

Occasionally people ask to try it out and they fall into two classes: those that don't know how it wants to be played, and don't like it; and those that do, and really appreciate it.

I think I'd agree with you about the tea leaf though.

[Andrew Wigglesworth]

You haven't put it crudely, Andrew, just literally. Remove the engineer's glasses, put on those of the poet, and you'll find, miraculously, that instruments can indeed have ideas.

For the first 10 years of my fiddle-playing life I laboured with a mediocre instrument. I finally got a good one, a really good one, and when I got it home, for a while, I was awed and mystified. I realized that I had to adapt / relearn the way I played to get the best - or indeed anything much - out of it. I understood this instinctively as needing to learn how the violin wanted to be played.

Occasionally people ask to try it out and they fall into two classes: those that don't know how it wants to be played, and don't like it; and those that do, and really appreciate it.

I think I'd agree with you about the tea leaf though.

Playing a musical instrument with regard to the way that is was designed and constructed by another human, the history of music making, social context and to be pleasing to your own senses is very different to saying that technology itself has agency.

That's what Gary's website article was saying.

... oh, how to refer to people on forums, "Gary" seems a little impertinent to a person I've never met, and "Mr Chapin" seems a bit cold and possibly rude. Ah well 

[Andy in Vermont]

Playing a musical instrument with regard to the way that is was designed and constructed by another human, the history of music making, social context and to be pleasing to your own senses is very different to saying that technology itself has agency.

I didn't take Gary's blog post to mean that the melodeon has agency, but rather, that it has an embedded ideology that places parameters on what can be done with it; that once you apply a melodeon with "expanded features" to music that would not have included those features, there is an increased possibility that the variations you will bring to the music will make use of the added features.

I definitely see selective processes at work as well: compose tunes that are playable on the more popular melodeon configurations and they can be repeated by other players; compose for a rarer configuration and either 1. probably of transmission is decreased, 2. probability of simplication (i.e. in playing on 8 or 12 bass/chord buttons rather than 18) will increase OR 3. the tune will simply not get transmitted through very many other players.  On the other hand, if 18 bass players are searching for repertoire, and a composition makes use of the 'expanded' features, perhaps those players are more likely to grasp onto the new tune.

-Andy, whose CDs of 18 bass players see very little play...
P.S. Have personally met Gary, so I use his first name; but knowing him, I doubt he would want you to call him Mr. Chapin!

[Chris Ryall]

... oh, how to refer to people on forums, "Gary" seems a little impertinent to a person I've never met, and "Mr Chapin" seems a bit cold and possibly rude. Ah well 

.. how do you like to be addressed, Andrew? Let's face it, we'll meet up in a session or similar soon eventually, and this place is no more formal than there. There's one recent melnet recruit I've only ever known as "Dave" - it took me quite a while to recognise him online!

As a young registrar I was once b0ll'cked by the head of dept for referring to our Prof of Obstetrics as 'Bill'.  No matter that "Bill" had co-supervised my student computer project, delivered both my daughters, dammit, even helped leaflet when I stood for council!  "Bill" even like the same music.  I considered that Head a bit of a dinosaur (and was not alone in that). Times have changed and my own registrars use my first name. Anyway, surnames were only imposed on Britain by the Normans for tax reasons. They didn't feel a need for them amongst themselves

FWIW in France everyone on the folk scene uses first names, and merrily tutoyers without a second thought, albeit you are still expected to vouvoyer in a non-social (eg restaurant waiter) relationship.  Cheers, Chris

[Thrupenny Bit]

Quebecois:
I was thinking particularly of Andy Cutting's  version of Old Molly Oxford, on his cd of the same name.
It is one of my favourite tunes, gloroius, powerful and relates to the morris dance i call occasionally that is equally powerful and hard. Though a great fan of his, I really am not keen on his rendition as he makes it more wistful and 'flowery' and I think it really looses the essence of the tune. Far better played at dance speed, simple, emphasis where it needs for the morris dance. Job done!

Gary: ' melodeons don't kill....' thank goodness you didn't hear me when first beginning 
 Q

[Andrew Wigglesworth]

... oh, how to refer to people on forums, "Gary" seems a little impertinent to a person I've never met, and "Mr Chapin" seems a bit cold and possibly rude. Ah well 

.. how do you like to be addressed, Andrew? Let's face it, we'll meet up in a session or similar soon eventually, and this place is no more formal than there. There's one recent melnet recruit I've only ever known as "Dave" - it took me quite a while to recognise him online!

As a young registrar I was once b0ll'cked by the head of dept for referring to our Prof of Obstetrics as 'Bill'.  No matter that "Bill" had co-supervised my student computer project, delivered both my daughters, dammit, even helped leaflet when I stood for council!  "Bill" even like the same music.  I considered that Head a bit of a dinosaur (and was not alone in that). Times have changed and my own registrars use my first name. Anyway, surnames were only imposed on Britain by the Normans for tax reasons. They didn't feel a need for them amongst themselves

FWIW in France everyone on the folk scene uses first names, and merrily tutoyers without a second thought, albeit you are still expected to vouvoyer in a non-social (eg restaurant waiter) relationship.  Cheers, Chris

Heh, I've rather stumbled into this one without thinking ...

Actually, I rarely use my given name in online discussions. This is because of the places and people I'm usually communicating with over the Internet. This forum is one of a couple of odd exceptions; since it's nothing to do with the world of free software and hacking* I've used my "real name", though in reality my nick is no less "real".

So, "Andrew" on here I think, though I may have to respond to more disparaging terms sometimes 

* no, you're thinking of crackers   

[Gary P Chapin]

Sorry, I'm going to have to dissent on this one.

That's okay. I was reading Marshall McLuhan -- "the melodeon is the message" -- last night, so it may have been one rhetorical flourish too many.  Think of it in the same light as when 2X8 players talk about how the instrument "makes decisions" for them.

I didn't take Gary's blog post to mean that the melodeon has agency, but rather, that it has an embedded ideology that places parameters on what can be done with it; that once you apply a melodeon with "expanded features" to music that would not have included those features, there is an increased possibility that the variations you will bring to the music will make use of the added features.

That would be it, exactly.  Especially important is the idea of probability and possibility.  The idea isn't necessarily that I -- Gary Chapin -- will get a 3x18 box and suddenly be corrupted into jazzy accidentals, but that the existence of such boxes will increase the probability that someone (or many someones) will be thus influenced, the repertoire will change, the society of the music will alter, the values of players, listeners will alter.  Someone can -- and probably does -- play a 3x18 the good old old way, sans the modern flourish, but no one can play the 3x18 way on a 2x8 box.  It's the possibilities.  Also, this isn't the only thing determining the issue ...

-Andy, whose CDs of 18 bass players see very little play...

Actually, because of this discussion, I've been paying more attention to them.  I am so damned suggestible.

... oh, how to refer to people on forums, "Gary" seems a little impertinent to a person I've never met, and "Mr Chapin" seems a bit cold and possibly rude. Ah well 

Not rude.  Not impertinent.  "Mr. Chapin" is out.  "Sir," has a ring to it.  "Gary" is preferred.  On another board I had a user name, "planechant," because I liked the pun between geometry and plainsong, and folks invariably addressed me as "Chant."  S'a funny ol' world.

[Andy in Vermont]

[...] but no one can play the 3x18 way on a 2x8 box.  It's the possibilities.  Also, this isn't the only thing determining the issue ...

And a simple box is a kind of reduction of complexity which can in turn lead to the generation of more complexity (of a different sort).  See this video.  Note the hat.  In this case, the hat is the technology with the ideology that determines the entire performance!

http://melodeonminutes.blogspot.com/2012/03/flash-and-glitz-and-very-simple.html

[Thrupenny Bit]

Andy: that's outrageous! I suddenly feel very slow in my playing.

Back to my thought to add. I forgot to mention earlier the cost of a larger more complex box is not only in monetary terms.
Once you add a half or whole row and another set of 4 or 6 bass buttons, the whole size and weight issue arises.
Part of my thinking about 2r8b v's 2.5r 12b is that the weight can go up from half as much to even double the weight.
Do I really want at least a 50% increased lump to carry around for the occasional use of the extra 1/2 row or 4 basses?
I perceive my playing won't head off into the continental repertoire, so am willing to 'get round' obstacles on a 2r 8b simply to keep the size managable for me.
More grist to the mill!
Q

[Gary P Chapin]

Wow.  The hat, the one row, and he's having conversations with the keyboard (?) player.

[Thrupenny Bit]

...and he uses his thumb *on* the keyboard!
It's....... simply just too much 
Q

[Andy in Vermont]

...and he uses his thumb *on* the keyboard!
It's....... simply just too much 
Q

I couldn't see whether the thumb touched the buttons, or if that hand position was necessary to get the flicking motion (of the fingers).
I love how people appear to be casually browsing postcards in the background, numb to what is going on melodeonistically.