Leyland Accordion Club, Leyland, Lancashire, England.

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Leyland Accordion Club - 17th January 2001

David Batty

Guest Artist Booked

Following the cancellation of their concert for us, which was supposed to have happened in the middle of the November petrol strike, I have rebooked Walter Perrie and Tom Cowing to play for us on the 16th of May. Walter lives in Wales and Tom in Northumberland, so it was impossible for them to get to Leyland and back on the fuel they possessed. I know that many of you are looking forward to the performance from this duo whose return to the club is now long overdue.
St Patricks Day
Don't forget Saturday 17th March when Steve Roxton will be playing in The Wheatsheaf, Town Lane, Croston. Turn down the side of The Highfield and it's about two minutes drive on your right hand side. I advise getting there early for what will be a packed night of Irish music and singing from Steve. This is a repeat booking from last year when his performance emptied two pubs nearby and we could not find the bar in the crowd. I will be there about 7pm. Steve is also guest artist at Stockport on 13th March.

Midi Expander For Sale

Roland RA-90 MIDI expander for sale, this is in perfect working order and comes complete with a Roland manual and Hugh Barwell's Operators guide. London prices £600. This one is only £350. Telephone Bernie on 01759 304371(York area).

Accordion Festival

The Fylde Easter Music Festival will be held at its usual venue of The Marine Hall, The Esplanade, Fleetwood, on Saturday evening the 14th of April, and the accordion part of the festival on Sunday the 15th of April 2001. Sunday is competition day starting at 9am through to 5pm in three main halls. Presentations will be at 5.30pm. A trade show will be held as usual with a celebrity concert on the Sunday evening. Saturday evening is a welcome day to the Wyre. This is an informal reception with buffet and music, which is open to all contestants and their families. Entry to the Saturday evening concert is by ticket only. Tickets for the buffet and further information of the festival and of the concerts is available from the organiser Gina Branelli on 01253 822046. The closing date for entries for the competitions is Saturday 24th of March. Get your entry forms now, there are 45 sections which range from 'absolute beginner - if you can get the accordion on the right way round we will look at you favourably' sections to 'Too clever for your own good' sections, so all levels are catered for in this excellent competition. I look forward to seeing you there.

Cumbria 1946

One of our members wants some information if anyone can help him, he writes, "I know I am showing my age - but does any veteran know what happened to the lady accordionist who used to play (I think as one of a duo) in the lounge bar at Butlin's Holiday Camp at Filey in 1946 ? Yes 1946 ! Is she still in the land of the living? I do hope so. I borrowed a piano-accordion from her to enter the Friday night talent contest and came first for which the prize was a rose bowl ! I did return the accordion but would like to offer my belated thanks ! Any information welcome." If you can help then telephone George Griffith on 015396 25417.

For Sale

Orla Commander XM-1 midi expander. very compact. external 9volt psu, with operating notes and extra Style modules. Usual Nice sounds, inc. Hawaiin guitar but no musette. Have used very successfully for busking (see below) £225 o.n.o
"Home-made" Busking Box designed for my MusicTech MIDI, your equipment fits inside this trolley, it gives you from 3 to 12 volts for an expander and 5 volt for the MIDI, all from small motorcycle battery.
Boehm MD 519 rack-mounting midi expander. This is simple to operate, has basic rhythms and sounds, some accordion sounds, a great Hawaiian guitar, and good bass. £125.
For any of the above items Telephone Martin on 01759-371383

Morris Dancers

Newburgh Morris are a women's team from West Lancashire who dance in the local area and further afield. They have two hardworking musicians who would welcome more support, especially from accordion players. They practise on Tuesday Evenings from 7.30 to 9pm at Wrightington Hospital Social Club. They perform mostly during the summer months, at fairs, festivals, carnival processions and folk weekends. The group tell me that they enjoy their dancing and they are always looking for new members, whether dancers or musicians. Anyone interested should phone Rebecca Richardson on 01257 463942 for more information. You can email her on rebecca@duttons50.freeserve.co.uk or simply turn up at the practice nights and meet the team. I was just thinking, some of you fast players who go like the clappers better slow down if you are going to apply for this job, I have visions of lots of ladies in morris dancing outfits lying spread-eagled across the floor, sorry - that's something else, no hang on - I stand corrected that also was my vision of what would happen if you play too fast for them! Give Rebecca a ring as she will welcome a chat from anyone interested in finding out more about the group. This sounds like ideal practice for many of our players, the music is not complicated or fast, so why not give it a try.

Accordion Workshops

The next accordion workshop has been arranged for Saturday the 24th of March 2001. This workshop from 10am to 5pm will feature tuition for all levels from Steve Roxton prior to his return to Jersey. Steve has lots of ideas for inclusion in the workshop and I have spent time with him working on ideas, concepts and features which have not been covered in previous workshops. I did not want this series of workshops to be the same information but presented by different people each time. I wanted each workshop to feature new ideas from not only the tutors preferences but from my view of what has been covered so far. The workshops have been very popular and have been well attended with excellent feedback from participants. This is the third of the four planned workshops after which I will decide with the participants the future of these types of events. The cost of the whole day's workshop is £20 which includes the days tuition and a hot lunch. The bar will be open in the afternoon for the drinkers while tea and coffee are served all day. This is an excellent day of accordion socialising, entertainment and tuition in one package. Because Steve knows accordion electronics inside out, a small part of his tutorial will explain how to amplify your accordion, choose amplifiers and other equipment and how to use MIDI on the accordion. Steve also has some very interesting ideas for you on fingering, learning tunes, memorising, practising, singing, nerve control, audience control and lots more useful stuff which he has learned the hard way from his 40+ years as a professional. For those of you who don't know him, Steve plays at different venues six nights per week plus day bookings as well. These range from private parties to TV appearances, Radio and a whole host of other weird and wonderful events. Bookings for the 24th of March can be paid at the club nights or can be sent via post to the address on the bottom of the newsletter. Cheques are to be made payable to Leyland Accordion Club.

An Amateur Guest Artist

After receiving his last newsletter I was told off by Colin Ensor, who had been looking forward to a write-up and photograph from an event he attended in December. I did not mention it previously but I promised to put it in this newsletter due to popular demand! Last January I did a talk at Kirkham for an organisation, the subject was the accordion. I educated them, showed them how the accordion worked and played for them. Afterwards they asked if I would play for their Christmas party as a guest artist. I said I would do it for them, after all from January to December gave me a long time to become good at playing! About six weeks before the event, I started practising for the concert! To do this I made a list of all the decent things I could play and those that, given a few weeks, I would be able to play well. I then inserted all these notes or pieces of music in a folder and went through them from the start to the end, after a week I had moved certain pieces from this folder to another one which was my final programme folder. Only pieces I was totally happy with ended up in this folder. Gradually over the weeks more and more pieces moved from one folder to the other until in the end I had about 30 instrumentals or songs to choose from. I then forgot about the first folder and started playing the stuff in the second one over and over, moving pieces around to give variety. I also put some easy pieces in at the start including songs with a small vocal range to give my voice time to warm up. More difficult songs were moved to later on in the programme. Instrumental pieces were scattered between the songs to give more variety. A couple of days before the event I decided to spend some quality time practising this programme. I spent about 5 hours the day before playing through the programme and again about 5 hours on the day of the booking. I was not nervous at all on my way to Kirkham, the place was a catholic club similar to our own Priory Club. When the doors opened, I headed straight for the stage and set up my equipment, amplifier, microphone etc., and had a sound check before leaving the equipment and sitting down while the room filled up. There were about 70 people in the room by 8pm. The night started off with a buffet. After this it was my opening spot. I remembered what we had learned at the workshop, "Let em have it" which I did. I soon brought the room down to my level with songs, instrumental pieces, jokes and some great audience participation. I have seen Steve Roxton working an audience many times which came in handy, I also watch every guest artist we have and those I see elsewhere. The audience had a great time and joined in singing at the tops of their voices. My first spot was 30 minutes long after which they had a 15 minute raffle, then I was on for a second spot of 30 minutes again. The night ended with great chorus of singing from myself and the audience along with lots of arm waving to pieces like Jerusalem, Land Of Hope And Glory, There'll Always Be An England, Auld Lang Syne, Now Is The Hour and God Save The Queen. I received a great round of applause at the end and it felt great that I had gone through with doing a one hour guest artist spot. It took me about 20 minutes before I found my seat because of all the people talking to me, telling me how much they enjoyed it and asking how I knew such old songs and tunes from memory. One group of ladies said it was just like being at the Last Night Of The Proms with my ending. They said they were singing their hearts out.
Despite only being an amateur player, I had played 20 pieces from memory, ten of them singing and ten instrumental. I had about another half an hour of material prepared but did not need to call on. I believe I could do all this because I practised well, if I had not practised enough I know I would have been nervous. Knowing you have done enough practice is brilliant for getting rid of nerves. I think nerves are simply nature's way of telling you that you were not adequately prepared. I practised the pieces until it was difficult to make mistakes. I hope this biased review of my performance gives other players inspiration, if you want the unbiased view then you will have to see Colin Ensor who took the above photograph.

Our Internet Website

Our internet website has had 34132 visitors as at the 19th of February 2001, that's 1564 visitors since last month. Last month's visitor count was 1441, so you can see visitor numbers are doing well. There have been quite a few improvements to our web presence this month, firstly I added more pages to the site, I then added a service to the site called ICQ. Visitors to the site can see my ICQ number on the site. This number (106787612) is a sort of phone number that people on the Internet can use to communicate with me in real time when they are on the Internet and using the site. If I am online they can ask to chat to me, if I agree to the request that arrives on my screen a window is opened on my computer and on their computer, we can both type and see what the other is typing at the same time. I can answer their questions, guide them to information they are looking for or even take their address online and have a newsletter in the post to them before they have left the Internet. One visitor to the site caught my eye with their email address, they were from Pixar. For those of you who are saying 'Who', Pixar is the company that has produced the film Toy Story, Toy Story 2 and many other animations featured on TV. The person was looking for information on the validity of using egg cartons to soundproof his office within the company so he can play his accordion at work. He had heard that egg cartons provide soundproofing but did not know if this was a fallacy. I sent him details of the acoustic properties of egg cartons including a report from a sound testing laboratory and a graph of frequency versus attenuation. He was pleased with the results I sent him and later told me that the director of the company had also approached him with a view to taking up the accordion. Don't you think that accordion playing should be encouraged in our own workplaces? How many bosses would allow an employee to cover the walls of an office in egg cartons and play the accordion? We are lagging behind the USA on this one. The latest improvement to the website was the creation of The UK Accordion Scene Webring. I wanted to help other sites who are either starting out or not visited as much as our site is, I thought it would be nice to share our 900 to 1500 visitors with them. I sent out invitations to major and minor organisations and players in the UK accordion scene about a week ago inviting them to join. What happens is, they are given a bit of code which goes on their page, visitors to any of the sites in the webring see this code as a box with forward, back and random buttons they can click on. Clicking one of these buttons transports them to another site in the ring which is guaranteed to be UK accordion specific. Each of these sites has the same navigation bar on it's front page and so they can tour round all the sites in the ring without having to look for them. In one week, half of those I emailed have signed up, inserted the code on their site and are now part of this network, I have just sent some more invitations out yesterday and I will continue to do so whenever I see another new site appear such as a UK accordion band, shop, player, MIDI manufacturer or club. I have to approve the sites that join but the only criteria is that they must be UK accordion sites or sites directly connected to the UK accordion scene.

Accordion Competition

An Accordion Competition and Festival will be held in Kells, Co. Meath, Ireland on May 6th 2001. This will cater for solo classical and traditional Irish accordionists (beginner to senior and concert artist), accordion groups and orchestras of all levels. In addition to the graded sections there will also be classes for age related groups. The competitions are open to accordionists from around the world and all music performed will be the competitors own choice. There will also be sections in solo Irish Traditional music for concertina, melodeon, concert flute, violin, piano and tin whistle as well as a classical solo section on piano. Over 2,000 people are expected to attend the event, organised by the Oristown Accordion Orchestra, Kells, Co. Meath. Further details are available from the Festival Secretary who can be contacted via her email address of kellsmusicfestival@eircom.net, I wouldhurry because competition entries close on April 2nd 2001.

This Wednesday

We have a great night lined up for Wednesday at our new venue. Our own Tom Bennett is holding the first leg of his comeback tour on Wednesday night. He sounded happy about this when I spoke to him, he was laughing while he was telling me that he is practising Three Blind Mice. I told him that we look forward to hearing how it should be played. I look forward to seeing you there.