Leyland Accordion Club, Leyland, Lancashire, England.

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Leyland Accordion Club - 12th January 2000

After a frantic 5 mile dash to rush home and return with a man sized extension lead I returned at 8pm, when Johnny Coleclough had plugged his equipment in to the socket the mains sockets went off, the trip switch could not be found and the only power was downstairs in the Restaurant, this lead went downstairs through the corridor and took power from a working socket to power Johnny's equipment. I then breathlessly announced Linda Grant playing The Massacre of Glencoe which was a tune written about the Campbells slaughtering MacDonalds. I make short work of a MacDonalds myself, but I will stick to eating them rather than writing songs about them! Linda continued with Garry Strathspey and finished with Merry Widow Waltz, which were all played on her Guerrini Superior 5 accordion. Tom Bennett followed Linda, he played Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam, Matchstalk Men and On The Bayou. Following this I played Triste Sourire and The first 1 minute 45 seconds of my piece for the forthcoming competition. I said that the whole piece was 3 minutes 45 seconds long, I was mistaken, some of those dots were longer than I thought and this week I realised that it is 4 minutes 45 seconds!

Johnny Coleclough

I have never read the bass stave before, my music reading consisted of reading the right hand and seeing C7th printed for the left hand, for this tune I have to have a chart showing me the lines on the bass stave and what they represent, I am getting quicker at this though and I found that a quick rule of thumb is any line or space on the bass stave is two notes above what the equivalent line would be on the right hand. This saves you time checking your chart until you learn the bass stave. This is the first tune I have played that a metronome has managed to keep time with me, things are looking up.

It was now time for the welcome return of our guest artist Johnny Coleclough who last played for us in July 1998. Johnny started with Rhapsody In Blue, Summertime, I've Got Rhythm and the tune we know Basil Berry for S'Wonderful, there was quite a bit of singing going on to this tune. Johnny continued with Embraceable You, The Man I Love, Fascinating Rhythm, Strike Up The Band, Lady Be Good, Caravan, 'A' Train, My Florence, Exodus, Jewish Anthem, If I Was A Rich Man, Hava Naghila, Uncle Joe's Mintballs, That's A Plenty, La Cumparsita, Habanera, another Basil favourite Autumn Leaves, No Regrets, La Vie En Rose, The Maigret Theme and I Love Paris. After the break we started the second half with Basil Berry playing A Man And A Woman and Yesterday. Dugald Mcallum showed us how to play Indifference before George Ricardo played Whistling Rufus, Summertime and Birth of the Blues. There was just time for me to have another go at my competition piece before we welcomed the return of Johnny Coleclough. Before Johnny started, he had handed me a list of the tunes he was playing, the first half went well, then he threw me in the second half following various discussions with the audience, he played these tunes and some others in an apparently random order to make sure I was awake. My list includes lots of arrows, writing and numbers to indicate the real order, I think it went like this:- Johnny started with an Italian selection of That's Amore, My Marie, O' Sole Mio, Return To Sorrento, Funiculi Funicula, Moonglow. This was followed by Skye Boat Song, Peg O' My Heart, Zena Zena and Blaze Away. Then it was a Scottish selection of I Belong To Glasgow, Take the High Road, Flower Of Scotland, Donald Where's Your Trousers, Cock O' The North and Scotland The Brave. One of my favourites Orange Blossom Special was followed by Cataree. Then it was time for Tea For Two, I'm Confessing, Tico Tico and the tune Johnny wants playing at his funeral Sweet Georgia Brown (do people normally think about their funeral when they are at the club? We must improve morale!). Monty's Czardas was followed by a jazz number and finally finishing with Please Don't Talk About Me When I've Gone. I then went on to the floor and pointed out to Johnny that we had Sabre Dance on the list and it had been missed out, Johnny then gave us Sabre Dance as the final tune of the night. We had once again seen some amazing playing and, with the stories and anecdotes slipped in between the tunes, it had once again been a very entertaining evening. This Wednesday we have another bumper night of entertainment planned, why not treat your friends or neighbours by bringing them down to spend an evening with us, players don't forget your accordion and to make sure we give everyone an equal chance to play if you have 9 tunes you want to play then why not opt to play twice, we can then give everyone a chance to play what seems to be the average of 3 or 4 tunes per player and with the time left we can call players up a second time. I feel guilty when I have to ask two or three players who are playing near to the end to only play one or two tunes at the most because the earlier players have taken most of the time up and we are fast approaching 11pm. We also have quite a few players who have not played at any of our concert nights, I think they should consider playing this year to get over the first night nerves, I was hoping some of these would play at 7.30pm onwards while the club is half empty to give them experience. Why not bring your accordion along and play one or two tunes in the 7.30 to 8pm slot while everyone is talking, then when you are confident you can play after 8pm when everyone is watching you. I look forward to meeting you all again on Wednesday, see you there….

David Batty

Accordions At Witney 2000

"Accordions at Witney 2000" will take place on February 12th and 13th at Henry Box School, Witney, Oxon, UK. This is a non-residential weekend music course for piano accordion players. Course units will be led by Karen Tweed, Ian Lowthian, Alan Dunn, Paul Hutchinson and Dave Townsend, covering musical traditions from Ireland, Scotland, England, Louisiana, and Eastern Europe. Some places are still available. For information on places and booking details email: homweekend@aol.com

Junior Academy Project

The accordion department of the Royal Academy of Music in London has recently launched its Junior Academy Project. The Junior Academy is committed to preparing young accordionists aged from 11 to 19 for the "rigours" of the classical music profession and aims to prepare them in all aspects of musical education. For auditioning details contact: Owen Murray, Head of Classical Accordion, Royal Academy of Music, Marylebone Road, London NW1 5HT. Phone: 0171 873 7381

Guest Speaker on the accordion

I was the guest speaker on 20th January at the Kirkham Lifelong Learning Group. I made my weary way there at 9.30am (did you know that there are two 9 o'clocks in the day!). The talk went very well, it was ten to 12 before I knew it, the talk included a tour of the accordion's features which included me taking my own accordion apart (this only took seconds to do) as I talked about the instrument, and, when I found another part, and another that came apart the audience wondered if it would ever play again. After playing the reeds like a mouth organ and taking the 120 button bass section out of the accordion while I delivered my talk and answered their questions, I promptly put the accordion back together again and continued with a demonstration of the couplers, bellows technique, straps, positioning, midi, electronics, festivals, our club and others within travelling distance. I briefly covered our website and it was time to finish with a last tune. The only complaint I had was that I stopped. Many newsletter were taken at the end and I had lots of people around me asking questions. One or two said they will be coming to the club and asked for directions. I was then asked if I would play the accordion at their Christmas party, I had to decline the offer because it was on the night of the second Wednesday of the month (our own club night), minutes later they had rebooked their party for a Friday night so I could play for them! I am looking forward to this and seeing some of them discover our club. I told them I had made notes the night before and I only covered half of what I had planned to cover, they said don't worry there is always next year!

Our Internet Website

Our Internet website has had 21444 visitors as at 7th February 2000, that's 1050 visitors since last month. The Minnesota Accordion Club in the USA, which only started up recently sent us an email saying that the Leyland Accordion Club was used "as an example in our discussion and creation of our club". It is nice to know that we are setting an example from our website 24 hours a day, even when we are in bed, come to think of it I normally set….. no forget that one! There are quite a few changes to the website which are on my computer at the moment, some of them will be appearing on the site this month, I need some more photographs of the players and also of the non playing members of the club to decorate the website, so if you are sat with someone you are not supposed to know then let me know when you see me with a camera in my hand. More and more of our club members are appearing on the Internet and it is nice to see this trend.

Accordion Festival at Blackpool

There is an accordion festival at Pontins, Blackpool on the 15th to the 20th of March. This includes a competition on the Saturday, for competition entry forms telephone Nora on 01253 854444, the only problem is that unless you are 16 or under there is only ONE category you can enter as a solo performer, this means that whatever your level you are against all the good players over 16 who frighten you. I don't see how you can put all adult solo players against each other, you might as well give me a fail certificate as I go in! Day tickets at £5 are available for those attending the competition as a spectator and this includes your lunch in the restaurant. There is another competition on in April, this one at the Marine Hall, Fleetwood includes around 40 accordion sections, I have decided to save my good stuff for this competition because I can compete against those at my level as well as showing those above me that I am in their rear view mirror and practising to give them a run for their money one day. Details of this competition which is on from Friday 21st to Monday 24th of April can be obtained from Gina on 01253 822046. The Friday night and Saturday are the accordion sections while the other days are dedicated to Pianoforte, Keyboard, Singing, Wind Instruments, Orchestra, Entertainment and Variety sections. The Saturday night includes a concert with Gervasio Marcosignori, the piece I am currently learning for the competition was written by Marcosignori and I recently found out that he will be there when I am playing it, oh no, pressure! Last week I was asked if I would play on stage on the Saturday night when Marcosignori is booked as the guest artist and the Audience will be full of hundreds of accordionists who will spot the mistakes even before I do them!, I had better stop writing now because I am frightening myself!..David is not here now, there's nobody here but us chickens……..

Other clubs in the area

The Wyre Accordion Club has changed to the fourth Wednesday of the month, unfortunately this clashes with most of our practice nights but because our practice nights are calculated to be two weeks before a club night there are four months in the year when we do not clash, these are March, May, August and November. If anyone wants to follow me to the club in these months then let me know. The Bellows Buttons and Keys club remains at the first Tuesday of the month and Stockport club meet at odd dates so I cannot give you a rule of thumb for their meeting dates.