Our February Concert

Our February concert started with Arthur Frankland playing Amandas Waltz, Moonlight and Roses, Land Of Hope and Glory and Edleweiss. Sara Daly took to the stage next playing Get Me To The Church On Time, Surrey With The Fringe On Top, Wooden Horse, Forget Me Not and Snow Waltz. Our next player was Bill Agnew playing Never Ending Love, Never On a Sunday, South Of The Boarder, Polka Dot Bikini, Maigret, Have You Ever Been Lonely, Someone To Watch Over Me, Cuckoo Waltz, Glen Coe, Rockin’ All Over The World, Who’s Sorry Now, Write Myself A Letter and Obladi Oblada. After Bills performance it was time for David Rigby’s spot, David gave us renditions of The Good Old Summer Time, When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, Daisy Bell, Loveliest Night Of The Year, Wild Rover, Red River Valley, Dark Island and Highland Cathedral. It was now time for the break, and lots of chat. After the break we started our second half with Arthur Frankland playing his bagpipes, Bill Agnew playing accordion and Bob Seed playing drums. This group started off the second half with Scotland The Brave, The Rowan Tree, Will You No Come Back Again, Skye Boat Song, Amazing Grace, Flower Of Scotland and Going Home. Jean Southern played Pavements of Paris, Espagna, Carte Postale, Perfidia and Sway. Ann Parker was next playing Beautiful Days, Yodelling Polka and Black Mask Waltz. Graham Driver then performed Jaqueline Waltz, Stop The Cavalry, Upton On Severn Stick Dance and Three Jolly Sheepskins on his melodion. We returned to an accordion with Andrew Baker playing Can-Can, Crystal Chandelier, Beautiful Dreamer and Hey Jude. Myself and Bob Seed then played Jacqueline Waltz, Black Mask Waltz and American Patrol. To finish the night we ended with Bill Agnew and Bob seed playing American Medley, Marching Through Georgia, St Louis Blues, Anybody Seen My Girl, Singing The Blues, Still Bill, Music Music Music, Birth Of The Blues, Let Him Go, Who’s Your Lady Friend, Beside The Seaside, Teddy Bears picnic, Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts, Bachelor Boy, Daisy, Slow Boat To China, Pretty Baby, You Always Hurt The One You Love, You Made Me love You, In The Mood, Alexander’s Ragtime Band and Lady Is A Tramp. What a great variety evening it had been thanks to all the players who entertained us.

David Batty

 

This Wednesday

This Wednesday is a guest artist night featuring a concert with our old favourite Walter Perrie. You know this is going to be a good concert, even before I tell you that Walter has some new material to show us. If you have never seen Walter before then I am sure you are in for a treat. I hope you can all make it on Wednesday to support Walter, he is practicing hard at the moment and says he is looking forward to meeting us all again. Please Remember to bring any friends or family to this entertaining night. Doors open at 7.30 for an 8pm start. Make sure you get there early for a good seat and a good chat. See you there.

 

Frank Marocco

Accordionist Frank Marocco passed away at his home in California on the 3rd March, he had been hospitalised earlier following complications after Hip replacement surgery. Frank was a well know, respected and very successful accordionists, he is one of the most recorded accordionists in America and probably the world, Frank has played in 364 Films, 115 TV Shows or TV Series, 190 Commercials and 8 Broadway Shows. You’ve all probably heard frank in a film or a TV show you’ve watched. Frank turned 81 on the 2nd January this year, He leaves behind his wife Anne, three Daughters and eight grandchildren. He will be missed by all. If you’d like to read a full bio and see the long lists of films, tv shows etc he featured in, they are all listed on his website . www.frankmarocco.com

 

Accordion Forum

On our website we have a forum (a place for people to talk about accordions), I created a second one and recently publicised it to members of the first forum, as a result we had a good increase in the numbers of people looking in there. Over 20 people a day are looking in there, but far fewer than that are posting messages. If you have something to sell, want to talk to other accordionists online or are looking for something accordion related then visit www.accordionworld.co.uk and join in the chat. People are talking about midi expanders, accordions for sale and a lot more.

 

New Musical Express is 60!

Your probably wondering why we are writing about New Musical Express. The history of how it was born is very relevant to the accordion. Lets start at the beginning with the Accordion Times, accordion times was first published in 1935 while the UK was in an Accordion boom, by the mid 40’s the Accordion interest was declining, which forced Accordion Times to merge with a brand new black and white tabloid called Musical Express it was launched on the 4th October 1946. In 1952, the Musical Express was in deep trouble and was haemorrhaging money, the paper was bought by music promoter Maurice Kinn, who then Re-launched the paper with the new name of New Musical Expresson 7th March 1952 NME started off in Newspaper format and then in the 80’s it then moved over to magazine format. I think It’s fair to say the Accordion was the basis for what is now one of the biggest music magazines in the UK, although I don’t think you’ll find much about the accordion in the magazine nowadays.

 

Postage Increase

The Price of postage will be going up, second class stamps may rise to 55p. If Royal mail decide to increase the cost of Second Class stamps to 55p, the £5 membership fee will not cover the cost of postage over the year for those who get the newsletter by post. We expect the price increase to be put in place from the beginning of April. Thank you to those who have moved over to getting the Newsletter by email, it still costs us to send out the newsletter by email (We pay a fee to a company to send out the emails to over 260 people) but the cost is not as much as the cost of postage. Saving on postage helps pay for guest artists etc. Keep an eye out for the announcement and remember to buy your stamps before the increase to save money.

 

How To Play A Scale On The Bass

By Rebecca: Learning to play a scale on the bass probably sounds hard and not much fun, It’s actually not that hard, Its just a case of learning a pattern. Once you learn the pattern you can play a scale on the bass in any key. Your accordion needs to have the counter bass row to play this scale. Accordions over 40 Bass will have the counter bass row. I will be using the C Scale as an example, the diagram to the right is colour coded like the rainbow so C ( Red ) is where you want to start, It’s up to you what fingering you want to use but I’ll will tell you what fingering I use to play the scale. The way I number the fingers is going from thumb then 1st finger, 2nd finger, 3rd finger and then little finger. Here is how to play the scale starting on C (Red) 2nd Finger, D (orange) 1st finger, E (Yellow) 2nd finger, F (Green) 3rd finger, G (Blue) 1st finger, A (Indigo) 3rd finger B (Violet) 1st finger and back to C (Red) 2nd finger. Practice doing the C scale for a while until you get the pattern.

Once you feel that you’ve got the pattern on the C scale just move up one and start on G (pictured below) It’s just the same pattern and fingering.

When you’ve got the pattern going forwards then try going backwards, it is the same fingering it’s just a case of learning the pattern in reverse to go backwards. I play scales on the bass because It gives my fingers a workout, It strengthens my fingers and I’m more comfortable playing with the bass now compared with when I didn’t know how to play a scale on the bass. I also play a chromatic scale on the bass, A chromatic scale is playing every note, instead of playing CDEFGAB in a C Scale You play C,C#,D,D#,E,F,F# and so on. I’ve only managed to go forward so far, I haven’t quite got the hang of doing the chromatic scale backwards yet. A chromatic scale brings the little finger in to play. If you’re interested in learning more about the bass there is a tutor book by Palmer Hughes called Melodic Adventures in Bass Land available from… http://amzn.to/adventurebassland. If you come to the practice/social nights your welcome to come and chat to me (Rebecca) about playing a scale on the bass.

 

Britains Got Talent

We have some more news related to the Accordion on TV. Nancy Petulengro who we wrote about a few months ago when she was on the show “A Gypsy life for me” has entered the Britain’s Got Talent Auditions in Blackpool. This is the first time the Britain’s got talent auditions have visited Blackpool. We have heard that Nancy got three yes’s and means she is through to the next round. It will be interesting to see what kind of talent Blackpool has. The Jimmy Blair Accordion Orchestra auditioned for Britain’s Got Talent on Sat 11th February In Edinburgh, the Orchestra reformed with New Accordionists in August 2009 and are led by Gary Blair (Son of Jimmy Blair) hopefully the producers of Britain’s Got Talent will put both Nancy’s and the Orchestra’s auditions into the final cut of the programme. Britain’s Got Talent starts next Saturday 24th of March 2012.

Ireland West Music TV

Ireland West Music TV launched on the 3rd October 2011 on Showcase TV (Sky channel 201) (Freesat channel 403) the show is shown every night Monday to Thursday at 10pm and is an hour long. They mainly focus on playing Irish folk/country music. If you don’t have Sky or Freesat you can watch the past episodes on their website at www.irelandwestmusictv.ie