Leyland Accordion Club, Leyland, Lancashire, England.

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11th February 1998

They say that the definition of a Gentleman is someone who knows how to play the accordion but doesn’t, well if that is the case then there were no gentlemen at our February meeting, I was struggling to fit everyone in, there were so many of you wanting to play that three hours was not long enough, we must have some talent in the area that is all I can say. Our night opened with Jay and Jeff in their keyboard and accordion duet mode, I get the distinct feeling that they have played together before - they make it look so easy. Richard Eastam played a Fats Waller medley:- My Very Good Friend The Milkman / When Somebody Thinks You Are Wonderful / Aint Misbehaving, followed by Tom Bennett with the first version of American Patrol of the night. Malcolm Milner played next - Malcolm is the leader of Houghton Country Dance Band. This was followed by Geoff Warwick on his melodeon - I had no idea that you could get so much music out of a box with only eight buttons on the left hand, Geoff told me that he is normally used to playing in a group to a few hundred dancers, and found it was a new and daunting experience playing on his own to an audience seated only a few feet away and watching only him, if he was nervous then I certainly did not spot it. Basil Berry who lives at Lytham played a few tunes from earlier years such as Chattanooga Choo Choo, Basil bought his first accordion in 1940, it was a 120 bass Paola Soprani and it cost him only £15 - I have just bought some new straps for my accordion which cost me more than that! I have seen some accordions at car boot sales for that price but I was playing spot the note when I pumped the bellows - I think a note did come out of one of them but it was a H#. Next we went electronic with George Hicks playing the Maigret Theme, Beautiful Days and Star of Love on his MIDI accordion. Ian Carter played next followed by myself and Tom Bennett playing a version of Plaisir D’Amour written for two accordions, this was an arrangement by Steve Roxton - I played first accordion and the twiddly bits on the left hand side while Tom played second accordion and fancy bits on the right hand, we even finished at the same time! that was it - our confidence was such that we decided to do another one just to show that it was not a fluke. We played another of Steve’s arrangements, this time it was Now Is The Hour with the right hand consisting of all chords. We were closely followed by another duet, this time from Helen Berta and Betty playing Charness Waltz. I decided to have a go on my own and played the second version of American Patrol of the night and my own arrangement of Dueling Banjos; this involved an arrangement of Dueling Banjos tune from the film Deliverance (you know the one where two banjo players are competing against each other) with the two parts played on the left and right hand sides of the accordion. I hope this made a few of you think about the kind of tunes that you can play on the accordion, we can have a go at anything rather than sticking to ‘standard’ accordion pieces; the Beverly Hillbillies theme tune, sixties popular hits and the Wurzels hit ‘Combine Harvester’ are on my “have a go” list at the moment. Trudy showed us some more of her morris dancing tunes followed by Richard and Bill on the Accordion and Bones. They were right it was the first time that the accordion and bones had appeared at the club and they went down very well with everyone. The night ended with Jay and Jeff playing us up to just after 11pm.

Some of you may have wondered what is going on with people plugging their accordions in to the wall and then appearing to play a trumpet or strings! There are two ways this may happen, the first which I will gloss over is that the instrument is an electronic accordion, this means that the accordion has circuitry inside it that plays electronic notes while you play the accordion as normal, this is fed to an amplifier along with the sound of the reeds from internal microphones, you hear the reeds and electronic sounds combined.The second and more exciting reason is that the accordion has been Midi’d, this simply means that it has had a MIDI interface fitted inside it, MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface and is a way of turning your key-presses into electrical signals, when you press a note, the midi interface sends out a ‘key down’ signal and when you let go of the note a ‘key up’ signal is sent down a cable connected to your accordion which can be plugged into any midi input, say on an electronic keyboard or an expander, (which is a box of electronic tricks that turns midi signals into sounds). When this signal reaches the expander it is turned in to an organ, guitar, trumpet or any other sound you select. You then simply play your accordion as normal and you hear your own reeds playing but the expander is also playing alongside you, it is playing the exact same notes but sounding like another instrument or instruments. You can press one bass chord button on your left hand and have it turned into the sound of a trumpet, clarinet and strings each instrument playing one note of the chord. Expanders also have Rhythms built in to them, intro.’s and fill in sequences to give your performance extra sparkle, some have record and playback facilities. The more expensive expanders have auto accompaniment.When playing a MIDI accordion you can, if you wish, keep the bellows closed. The reeds will not make a noise, but you will still hear the electronic sounds, this means that you can plug headphones in to the expander and play without moving the bellows and you will not disturb people in the same room as you. Now the good news is that you do not need to buy another accordion to have all these features, midi is simply fitted to your existing accordion, it is just a box that is hidden inside your instrument and wired up to all the keys on the right and the buttons on the left, you then simply plug a lead into your accordion and connect it to an expander or keyboard and you are off. If you unplug the MIDI connection then your accordion feels and sounds exactly like it did before you had the MIDI fitted, MIDI will not alter your accordion’s sound and feel in any way until it is plugged in and used. Now with MIDI fitted you can plug into a computer, play a tune, listen to the computer play the tune back, correct any wrong notes on the computer’s screen and then get the computer to print out the sheet music for you. MIDI tunes can be saved on computer disks and stored or sent to other people, you can also swap them over the Internet by E-mail. The cost of adding MIDI to your accordion is about £350 for the kit which you install yourself if you are handy with a soldering iron or £800 for MIDI fitted professionally. If you already have a MIDI keyboard you can plug in to that at first but you will be better with an expander, these range from about £200 second hand to £1700 for the latest top of the range model. Go into your local music shop and ask for a demonstration of an expander you will be amazed. While you are there, you can tell them it’s for an accordion. The Roland RA90 and the latest Roland RA800 both work well with the accordion. Rimmers in Leyland have quite a few expanders in the shop connected to electric pianos, ask to hear one of these. MIDI is a subject that needs an expert to give you advice. If you feel like finding out more about MIDI then give Charlie Watkins a ring on 081-679-5575 and tell him that David Batty sent you. Charlie is an accordion MIDI expert who gave Roland advice on the design of their RA800 to make it suitable for accordionists. Charlie runs WEM or Watkins Electronic Music - a company dedicated to accordions and accordion music. Charlie welcomes accordionists with open arms, he will have a stall at the International Accordion Festival at Lytham 26th- 30th April.

Q: What’s the difference between an accordion and a trampoline? A: You take your shoes off before you jump up and down on a trampoline.

Q: What do you call an accordionist with a pager? A: An optimist.

Q: What’s the difference between a dead dog and a dead accordionist, both lying in the road. A: There are skid marks in front of the dog.

Wyre Accordion Festival and Competition On Saturday 11th April 1998 at the Marine Hall, The Esplanade, Fleetwood. an accordion competition will be taking place throughout the day, with 42 sections from First Time Juniors to Senior Solo, Buskers, Virtuoso, Scottish Traditional, Senior Band, Polka, Latin/Musette, Duet, Band etc. The cost of attending to watch the competitions throughout the day will be £2.50 with the concert at night costing £6. Contact Tom on 01253 852648 or Gina on 01253 822046 for more information, to enter the competitions or to book your tickets.

We have meetings on Two Nights in April Please note that in April we have one night on 1st April with Steve Roxton as guest artist before he returns to Jersey and then we have another club night 1 week later on 8th April with the entertainment provided by local players.

Charity Players wanted I have been asked if I can organise a group of accordion players to entertain at a charity accordion evening in aid of the Brittle Bones Society. This will take place sometime at the end of May and will involve volunteers playing their best pieces to a crowd of 70-100. I have two names on the list at the moment, if you would like to take part then let me know.

Our Forthcoming Club Nights 11th March 1998:- Peter Whiteley & Adrienne Sharpe 1st April 1998 Steve Roxton 8th April 1998 Local Players 13th May 1998 Deirdre Adamson 10th June 1998 Local Players 8th July 1998 Johnny Coleclough 12th August 1998 Local Players 9th September 1998 (To be confirmed) 14th October 1998 Local Players 11th November 1998 Steve Roxton 9th December 1998 Christmas Dinner

Did you know!! Idi Amin, Ghandi, Charlie Chaplin, Richard Nixon, James Stewart and Hitler were all accordionists.