Jubilee

What better way to spend a completely grey, cold, torrential Jubilee double bank holiday weekend than at an accordion orchestra summer school by the sea........heaven....

At tea break I like to admire all these magnificent instruments. We learn 10 pieces of music in 3½ days culminating in a concert. Yes 37 accordions are loud and yes sometimes we do bash each others elbows.

"The Box"

Learning about the bandoneon

"The Box", the peoples instrument, is of course the accordion, but speaking of the box, TV is rubbish - I only have 5 channels so hurray for i player and here's a series that's a dream come true from BBC Scotland, 'The World Accordion to Phil", 4 one hour episodes about the history, travels and evolution of accordion music. Episode 3 is my soul home; France, Bucharest and Russia. Episode 2 is all Celtic and I could skip that one but episode 4 is the Americas ending in Buenos Aires with the tango. The 1st episode starts with the original instrument, China and the accordion factories of Italy. It's a fascinating trail and a lovely host, I think I shall watch them all again, only 6 days left so hurry.

Favourite Music Days

Two of my favourite days each year are the (free) concert days of our Accordion Orchestra at Morley College - that's right, it's an orchestra made up of accordions only. Yesterday the audience didn't want to leave - we actually left them hungry for more!  I started classes there 4 years ago and joined the Accordions at Morley club fairly soon after. Our musical director and conductor Ian Watson was very patient with us beginners. Anyone out there wanting to start learning; we need more beginners to secure the survival of the beginners class, it's on Mondays at 12.30- 2pm and Julie North is a great teacher.  Adult Education colleges really are the seat of civilised life - they're full of people who choose to learn more. I'm learning Japanese there at the moment too and I've done Photoshop, welding and Portuguese in the past, all fantastic courses. The music department is particularly well developed and varied, many famous composers have worked there; Gustav Holst, Michael Tippett, Vaughn Williams.
Ian just contributed to a very interesting BBC radio 4 programme about the reputation of the accordion called The Big Squeeze, it's well worth a listen and you'll hear classical accordion playing not tinny folksy oom pahs!

Italian Job

Today I have a big distraction from work......a new accordion. I've traded in the first accordion I owned, so off goes my little green Weltmeister on a new journey and I've brought home a lovely 2nd hand Italian accordion with loads more buttons, keys and couplers. I dont think I'll ever need to upgrade again!
Allodis has to be one my all time favourite shops. It's jam-packed with accordions and a workshop where Emilio has years of repairs waiting. There are some really ornate accordions on offer. Mine isn't at all but you can't have everything, it sounds lovely which has to be more important than the bling! The shop feels like a hidden secret, but it's not at all, it's so busy and trying out an accordion in front of inevitably better players is quite daunting.



Playing my new accordion back in the studio where I'm familiar with the acoustic I can tell the difference better, it has a lovely resonant woody sound. I'm sure I'll practise more now I have this one. It's a very difficult instrument, I took it up on a random hunch a few years ago and I have to say it's one of the best decisions I ever made.