Leyland Accordion Club, Leyland, Lancashire, England.

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Leyland Accordion Club - 9th August 2000

 

Editors Comment

At the end of our last club night there was a bit of a to do with the Manager of The Highfield over his treatment of us, as a result we have a new meeting place, you can read more about that later. Just remember we are NOT at The Highfield anymore, details of our new venue is in this newsletter.

David Batty

Dugald Mcallum

 

Our August Concert

Because Dugald Mcallum told me that he preferred to be surprised as to when he was about to play at the club, I made the usual announcements and then, much to Dugald's surprise I announced that he was our first player. Dugald did a fine job playing John Robertsons Scottish Waltz, Pachelbel's Canon In C and then Tyrol In The Wirrall. Chick Stephen who had asked to be put on early was next playing on his button accordion. Chick played The Snow In Summer, My Bonnie and What Can The Matter Be. Bill Agnew then took to the floor, starting with Mari's Wedding and then continued with a large selection of well known tunes arranged into medleys. Elaine had the difficult job of following Bill, she played an Irish selection consisting of Maggie, Fields Of Athenry and Bunch Of Thyme. You may not know this but the tune Maggie which was arranged by Foster and Allen was based on an almost identical song called Nora, If you see some music with the title Nora, then think of the well known Maggie and you will know the tune. Our next player was Malcolm Milner who had brought his MIDI accordion to the club to show what a MIDI accordion can do. Malcolm had seen my writeup in the last newsletter explaining about MIDI and how it can be used or abused. Malcolm started with Jimmy Richard The Fiddler Of Glenshee and continued with Silver City Strathspey. Malcolm had detected from the newsletter that there seemed to be a tradition at the club of playing Dark Island so he continued this tradition with his own version complete with sea sounds courtesy of his MIDI setup. At this point, I shouted to Malcom to give his band a mention so he told everyone about his Houghton Scottish Country Dance Band (available for parties, weddings and Bharmitsphas, barmitspers Jewish functions). Malcolm then finished with an Irish set followed by a set of reels. I was asked by about four people at the club why his MIDI sounded so good. The simple explanation was that it was because it was set up correctly and the correct balance was made between electronic sounds and amplified reeds so the accordion player sounded like they were at the front rather than playing behind the MIDI. I am sure a few MIDI players will be asking Malcolm for a few tips on setting up their equipment. It was now time for our break, Brian Carland then provided background music while we all enjoyed a chat and drinks. After the break we started our second session with Jay and Jeff Ward, they set off with a medley of Louise and Sweet Lorraine, then a french number Tout Comme Un Premier Jour, Getting Sentimental Over You, a medley of Romany and Bella Notte, another medley Little Girl and Someday before finishing with Un Petit Brin De Musette. Our next player was Alan Draper who surprised me a few months ago when he got up to play. He has been a member of the club for a long time but I only recently heard him play. His selection this month started with Honeymoon March, Jealous Heart, Amazing Grace, the Jim Reeves' tunes He'll Have To Go and I Love You Because, finally finishing with Old Comrades. After Allan's fine playing it was Gordon Priestley's third time to play at the club. Gordon was nervous the first time he played at the club but he found it was more frightening thinking about it than actually doing it. Gordon now enjoys playing for us and is an example to all those accordionist who have been at the here a year or more and still not played (you know who you are!). Gordon's first tune was the German Tune Du Du Ligst Mir Im Herzen followed by Emperor Waltz and Swanee River. It was now time for our second break. After the break we started with Alan Gelling playing a medley of Tyroleon Medleys, Bluebell Polka and Snow Waltz. Basil Berry then took to the floor with his White Sonola. Basils contribution to the night started with Moonlight Serenade, continued with At Last, Serenade in Blue, La Vie En Rose, Umbrellas Of Cherbourg and finished with Body And Soul. Two club members were asking Basil how he got certain sounds on his accordion and they then approached me when they saw me using the same technique. If you put a low sounding reed on and play near to the bottom of your keyboard you get high notes which sound different to your normal high couplers. This technique can be used on a few of your couplers. You will find that most people tend to stick to one or at the most three couplers on their accordion when they have a wide range of sounds available. I have four couplers on my own accordions bass side and eight on the right, this gives a total of 32 different sounds that can be achieved using all combinations. As Basil finished, it was 25 minutes to eleven so I announced that we were running short of time because we still had four players to go on. The first of these four players was Jackie Sagar who normaly lives on the south coast so misses most of our nights. Jackie was playing a very lightweight accordion I pointed out to her and which she bought at the recent accordion festival at Blackpool. Jackie played My Wild Irish Rose and a number of other tunes I did not hear the title of. It was now seven minutes to eleven and there was still three players to play so I played just one quick tune before handing the floor to Linda Grant who also only played one tune This allowed us to put Malcolm Milner on at 11pm to finish the night by 11.05. I have mentioned it before but to be fair to all players I am going to have to impose a time limit on players in future if we have a lot of players to get through. I feel guilty at having to limit some people while others have as long as they want. We had enjoyed another great night of entertainment courtesy of our own players who are brave performing in front of all those watchful eyes. They can have a bit of a rest this month and let Walter Perrie and Tom Cowing show us how it should be done.

David Batty

Busking Taught In Schools

The Arts Council is spending £400,000 on sending street artists to visit schools to promote busking and making a living on the streets. An Arts Council spokesman said "If street art was taught in school it would be taken more seriously".

 

Standardisation

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase-in plan that would be known as "Euro-English". In the first year, 's' will replace the soft 'c'. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard 'c' will be dropped in favour of the 'k'. This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome 'ph' will be replased with the 'f'. This will make words like 'fotograf' 20% shorter. In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double leters which have always been a deterent to akurate speling. Also al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent 'e' in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away. By the 4th yer peopl will be reseptiv to steps such as replasing 'th' with 'z' and 'w' with 'v'. During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary 'o' be dropd from vords kontaining 'ou' and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to oza kombinations of letas. After ziz fifz yer ve vil have a rali sensibl riten styl. Zer vilbe no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu anderstand ech oza. Ze drem of an united urop vil finali kum tru!

 

Musical Goods Sale

On Tuesday September 26th there is a musical goods sale organised by Stockport Accordion Club. On sale will be music, recordings, instruments or any other musical items. The sale starts at 7.30pm at St Johns Ambulance Brigade HQ, Stockport. The admission is free, but if you want to book a table to sell something, then telephone John Trigg on 01457 855249 before the event. Also on sale will be 143 of the late Stuart Thomas' large collection of paintings.

 

This Wednesday

A charity evening in aid The Cancer Care, Vine House was held on Friday 8th September at The Derby Arms Longridge. There were about 70 people in attendance. The performers were Tom Bennett, Linda Grant, Rebecca Postlewhite a comedienne and a singer. The music included Under The Double Eagle, Mexican, Scottish, Alpine and French pieces. At the time of going to press the amount of money raised had not been determined but I am assured that everyone had a good time.

 

Accordion Workshop

In earlier newsletters I reported on the accordion workshops held in Scotland. Many people commented that this is a long way from Leyland and required that any attendees were able to take five days off work and pay for accommodation on top of the course fee. I therefore decided that it would make more sense if I arranged for a workshop to be held locally at a reasonable cost. I have pre-booked three professional tutors to deliver one day workshops on the accordion. The workshops will, amongst other items, include, fingering, bellows control, presentation, time signatures, waltz, march, bellows shake, left hand techniques, MIDI, Scottish, standing, singing, continental music and much more. The workshops are planned to be suitable for ALL levels of player we see at the club from beginners to old hands. I understand that many people will feel that they may be out of their depth on such a course but I can assure you that there will be something for everyone at these workshops. I am currently arranging a venue and dates for these courses, I aim to keep the price down and have estimated the cost should be in range of £15 to £30 per person for each days workshop. I am looking at putting the first three workshops on in November, January and March. If you would like further details let me know or tell Elaine on the door when you are at the club, we will add you to the mailing list for the course details and dates. I will also be interested in suggestions for course content if you have an unusual requirements! The workshops will be held on Saturdays to accommodate those who work. Further details will be available shortly.

 

Accordion Workshop

As you will have read earlier, we have now moved from The Highfield after an altercation with The Manager after the last concert night. Near to the end of the night, The Manager was behind the door leading to the back stairs, Elaine took the hot water jugs back to the kitchen and found him there, she said 'hello' to him but he did not acknowledge her. As Elaine headed towards the sink with the two jugs in her hand, he exited the kitchen turning the light out and left her walking with two jugs of hot water in the dark. This is the second time Elaine has had this kind of dangerous treatment in the kitchen when taking water back, the first time this happened she was going through the door and found that the lights had been turned off, luckily she glanced down as she stepped in to the kitchen and realised that a metal box had been placed across the doorway where she would trip over it in the dark. We have been ignored in the bar and visitors to The Highfield have commented on the way they were treated when they went for a drink. When I went to pay for the room last Wednesday as the last players were leaving, I placed a row of £5 notes fanned out on the bar in front of the Manager and I went to take the receipt he had already written out. He grabbed both the money and the receipt and slowly held each note up to the light making me stand there while he appeared to check each one to see if it was counterfeit. He took his time to do this and I was not leaving without a receipt because I found out that we have been paying for room hire at The Highfield but our bookings were not entered in the diary, when I checked with the Area Manager about this he admitted that our bookings were not in the diary because when the bookings were taken I always paid cash for the room hire there was no record of the booking and no record of the cash being in the books. He asked me if I had receipts to prove that we normally book the room, I told him that I have receipts for every night we had been there since 1997. I asked if he was insinuating that we did not pay for our room hire. It was then he admitted that the money had gone into the Managers' pockets. When he eventually gave me my receipt he told me that we were not allowed to have drinks upstairs, he said that he had told me this himself and also I had a letter from the owners of The Highfield, Punch Retail, to confirm our booking of the premises and noting this fact. He stated he also had a copy of that letter in his office. I told him that he was lying about telling me that we cannot have drinks upstairs and that no such letter existed. I also told him that if he did his job properly we would not have all these problems. He told me that I don't need to come back to The Highfield if I think he can't do his job properly. He then attempted to go upstairs but found he was too wide to go up the stairs while accordionists were descending with their instruments so he went back in to his bar. On the Saturday, three days later he rang me at home, he asked me if I had an apology for him! I told him what I thought of him and he then told me that 'As the Licencee of these premises I am barring you from them'. I made a few phone calls and quickly secured a new venue for the next three months. After this period we will either stay there or move to another as yet undiscovered 'perfect' venue where we will be wanted. For the moment our new venue is The Mill Hotel which is just a stone's throw away from The Highfield. If we play loud they will be able to hear us from The Highfield as they clear the tumbleweeds from their car park. It was suggested to me that the reason we were treated so badly was because they are trying to run the place down to build houses, that would explain why our rent has gone up an extra £50 per month since Christmas and why we have had so many problems. Each month I have been running the club but wondering what The Manager will do next. He even locked up all the chairs and required us to go and ask for the room opening to get more if needed. At the moment the manageress is asking us for £15 more than The Highfield for each of our nights but when I told her we would not pay that amount she said she will monitor our concert night and see if she can give us a better deal. Our new venue has three function rooms, we are using the outside one on a trial basis but I would like the inside one because it is a brilliant room for us, the Manageress of The Mill Hotel is going to judge our needs and the cost of room hire once she has seen how many people are at this weeks concert night. The more people we have the better I can negotiate a good rate for room hire and a better room. If you have any friends who are looking for a good night out then bring them along to what we know is going to be a brilliant night of entertainment from Walter Perrie and Tom Cowing who are returning to Leyland Accordion Club by popular demand. The lighting is good in our new venue so photographs should turn out well if you bring your cameras. I will see you there on Wednesday.......
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Our Internet Website

Our internet website has had 28724 visitors as at 11th September 2000, that's 884 visitors since last month. I am going to add some more of our newsletters to the site this month and, as a result, I am hoping that by the time I write the next newsletter, we will have had 30,000 visitors. This month we have had people searching for the following items which should give you an idea of what people are expecting to find on an accordion site, the spellings and capitalisation are left as they were typed, I have not corrected any of them, instead I simply take the list from the site and paste it in here verbatim. In no particular order people have searched for: accordion picture, Marchell, dustman, button-accordions, Scandalli, Northern Ireland, music, dave batty, C'est si bon, accordion, midi files, god save the queen, elsa, midi kit, jimmy shand, will star, ian holmes, jimmy blue, notre dame de paris, capri, hohner mignon, hohner, austin, Tony Marchell, microphone, music, acordion festival, underneath, sheet music, macnamaras band, midi files, accordion books, gwent, marcosignori, Sonola Rivoli, Sonola, motor pump, reed, hohner twenty-m, accordion, accordion festival, accordion festivals, underneath the arches, Abba, used accordion, accordion music, Scandalli, alan thwaites, austin mini, Morio, Silvieto, diatonic accordions, TUITION, hohner 3row button history, 3 row button accordion, Hohner, Hohner, zerrosette, surrey players, zerosette, whispering hope, scandalli accordian, Dino salutzzi, accordions for sale, Falcon crest, donald where's your troosers, frank yankovic, borsini, land of hope and glory and concertina.

 

Dermot O'Brien

On Tuesday October 17th Dermot O'Brien is a guest artist at Stockport Accordion Club. The venue is Cheadle Heath Junior School, the nights starts at 8pm. Telephone Rob on 0161 480 8858 for further details.

 

NAO North West Championships

These are to be held on Sunday October 29th in the Duckinfield Town Hall. The trade show will feature Trevani, Music World, Electronic Accordions Ltd, John Douglas Music, Geoff Holter Accordions and The Music Room. Further details of this event are available from Mrs V. Ainscow on 0161 320 9994.

 

Play By Ear Trainer

If you visit the Internet website www.earpower.com you can download a good piece of software for teaching you to play by ear. The software which is free to download can be used a number of times before it asks you to send some money to the author, the fee is about £15 if you like the software and want to keep it after the trial number of runs it allows. This program will play random sounds, (melody, rhythm or harmony), and you are supposed to play back what you hear. You can use the piano on the screen with your mouse or select from the Input menu either guitar, microphone, notation or by name. Your response will be evaluated as correct or incorrect. If correct - the computer will continue to test you with new sounds, otherwise will wait until you get it right. You can Select the dificulty level yourself - from Beginner up to Excellent - or let the computer measure your skills. For this you should click on the TEST button. This program will help you determine your musical abilities and improve them. I plugged a microphone in to my computer and watched the oscilloscope display show my voice pattern while I sung the notes it asked me for, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had a score of almost 100% after about ten minutes of singing along to it. At it's most basic level the software plays a note to you which you have to identify on the keyboard by playing keys until you have found it then you click a button to check your answer, clicking the Repeat button will play the note again while you compare it with the notes you are pressing on the keyboard. Later on it plays various chords to you Major Minor, etc. as well as intervals of a fifth, major sixth, perfect fourth, augmented fourth, etc. and you have to identify the intervals by clicking various buttons until you find the one you think matches the one the computer is playing. I think this is a good piece of software for someone who wants to play by ear but needs to learn the skills.

 

Forthcoming Events

The NAO UK Championships are to be held in Scarborough on the 4th to 6th of May 2001. On the 4th and 5th of November 2000 at Leeds the St Johns Independent Accordion Band from Cree have been selected by the British Federation Of Festivals to represent the Accordion. The Coupe Mondiale is on the 24th to the 28th of October 2001 In London, this year it includes an international piano accordion competition. Further detail of these events can be obtained from the NAO secretary Pauline Noon on 0116 278 4094 or visit http://members.aol.com/accoll/bca.htm.

 

This Wednesday

I have heard on the grapevine that someone is 'coming out' on Wednesday, I will not spoil their surprise but I am pleased for them, their course has paid off and they are going to share the fruits of their training with you all on Wednesday. Their name is mentioned in this newsletter. Our opening night at The Mill will not only feature our guest artists but by popular demand we have the return of Bygone Tunes with their massive array of accordion and general sheet music, Bygone tunes specialise in second hand and out of print music, this makes them Ideal for finding pieces you may have given up hope of locating. I had been searching for two pieces which I could not find anywhere, even at the accordion festivals, but I got both pieces when Bygone Tunes last visited us. I will see you all on Wednesday at THE MILL, remember we are open from 7.00pm on ALL our nights so that gives you an hour to meet lots of people and make new friends. The Mill are not watching the clock like they were at The Highfield so we have our earlier opening time back, this is handy because I am sure the music stall will be packed during the breaks. The music will be on sale before the night starts, during the breaks and after 11pm. I look forward to seeing you all there at our new venue. If you spot someone on The Highfield car park as you pass it who looks like they belong to us then please tell them that we are across the road. See you on Wednesday.

 

Accordion For Sale

Bellini 96 Bass Double Casotto Midi Accordion for sale, 9/11+3 couplers. Excellent condition only £2000 ono. Telephone Alan on 01876 500436.

 

Switzerland Trip

John Higham is interested in organising a trip to Switzerland next summer involving some accordion playing. Telephone John on 0161 928 5994.

 

 

 

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