A couple of new-ish jigs. The first is ‘Tunnock Law‘ which was written for my wife and a long running birthday tradition. No matter how small the Hebridean island the (tiny) local store will always have Tunnock’s teacakes by way of a birthday cake and they have to be eaten on the beach. A ‘Law’ is is also a hill round these parts and a veritable mountain of Tunnock’s featured at one significant birthday!
‘The Man Who Laid an Egg‘ was written for fellow musician and very good friend Mark Bazeley.
Here’s a wee little schottische written for our 25th (silver) wedding anniversary. Composed on the concertina – it fits really nice on pipes and fiddle as well.
Recorded in the loft whilst in COVID isolation – the room service was excellent ..
Refubished: 2009 by that nice Mr Gibb @ theboxplace – incl pads, valves, thumbstraps & retuning
The concertina came to me (~2008) from a lady who was sorting out her grandfathers effects – the only history I have is “he’d had it all his life” – but I doubt that was from new. You can see in the photos that the fretwork has slots for bowing levers. There is no mechanism and indeed there are no airholes in the actionboard base or the reedpan (i.e. it was built like this). Leather case is OK for storage but I’d recommend a new case if you’re you going to be taking it out.
Right Hand End
Serial Number
Endplate, Reed Pan & Bellows
It’s an excellent player – classic Aeola versatility, ready to go and just looking for the right person to make beautiful music with.
Those lovely people in Germany invited me over to the Blankenheim Osterbordunale again this year. It’s a great week with expert tuition in French pipes, Hurdy Gurdy, Song, Button Accordian and Dance. I was there principally to play and teach the smallpipes .. but then they discovered I played Concertina. My good friend Wim Dictus (Button Accordian, Guitarist, Singer and outstandingly good dancer!) managed to capture a couple of the sets from the Friday concert and offered to put them up – so here’s Caller Herrin’.
It’s a tune attributed to Nathaniel Gow and the song incorporates the fish wives calls to buy the fresh fish and the carillon of the bells in town (still working on those!) It’s been around in Northumbrian piping circles for a long time and morphed in to a fine air – some of the other versions on youtube are really quite different.
There’s another excerpt of a set of mine at the same concert which you should be able to get to from this one – thanks Wim!
