 |
|
|
|
| Text only | |||||
|
|
||||
|
|||||
Text
Only | Main Page | About
| Research |
Publications |
News | Events
| Staff &
Associates
Study Opportunities
| Buchan Library | Friends
of Elphinstone | Related
Sites
Button Boxes and Moothies
A Free Reed Convention in Aberdeen
A unique celebration of small ‘free-reed’ instruments, including mouth organs, concertinas, melodeons, diatonic button accordions, and Jew’s harps, the convention will be just the place to enjoy the appealing music of these delightful instruments from some of the very best talents around, both local to Scotland and from further afield. It will be a great opportunity to find out more about the instruments and their music. You can visit a beginners’ session, join an elementary workshop, or if suitably experienced learn about style and repertoire at a players’ workshop. There are also several opportunities for informal sessions in local music-friendly pubs.
|
Brendan Begley sings and plays button accordion music of his native West Kerry. Born into a famous musical family, the slides, polkas, songs and slow airs all run through his veins. Three solo albums to his name, he also plays with Boys of the Lough and Beginish, and works with TG4 researching and presenting radio programmes. |
|
Donald Black from Benderloch in Argyll is Scotland’s foremost exponent of traditional music on the mouth organ. Self-taught, with his own unique style, he plays the tremolo harmonica and is a master of Highland pipe tunes. He has performed internationally and recorded several CDs. Recent Concerts (PDF) |
|
Norman Chalmers, brought up in rural Lanarkshire, plays concertina and whistle. In 1970s he co-formed Jock Tamson’s Bairns, started Odyssey radio Oral History series with Billy Kay, toured USA in Ossian, and later co-formed Cauld Blast Orchestra. He edits and writes for various music magazines. |
|
George Current is a highly respected moothie player from Edinburgh, who plays regularly in the sessions at Sandy Bell’s Bar and leads an informal moothie group. He specialises in Scottish country dance and pipe tunes, and has wide experience of leading workshops. |
|
Fred Davidson of Banchory is a well-known melodeon player in the North-East. He has played at all the local festivals and won many competitions. |
|
Roger Digby has been playing Anglo concertina for over thirty years. He plays in a fiercely English style, as with Flowers and Frolics, and extends the instrument’s range far beyond its assumed limitations. He has accompanied Bob Davenport and has a passionate belief in the integrity of traditional music. |
|
Ernie Gordon from Alnwick, Northumberland, plays tremolo moothie as well as other mouth organs, Jew’s harp, and bones. He was a great friend and admirer of the late Will Atkinson, and wrote and edited a commemorative book about him. |
|
David Gray and Matt Quinn are melodeon players and have both studied at Newcastle University for the Folk and Traditional Music degree. Matt also sings and plays fiddle. |
|
Bryce Johnstone was born in Leslie, Fife, into a piping family and was introduced to the ‘moothie’ by his mother. For over thirty years he has been a great favourite at festivals in Scotland and an experienced workshop leader. |
|
Dave Lorimer performs Scottish songs and tunes on ‘moothie’ and guitar. He teaches harmonica at SC&T classes and is an enthusiastic busker for good causes. |
|
Mary MacNamara’s concertina music was nurtured within her musical family in East Clare, an area renowned for its haunting music. In country farmhouses she learned her distinctive repertoire and relaxed, uncluttered style. The legendary P. J. Hayes of the Tulla Ceili Band had a major influence on her musical development. |
|
Leo McCann originally from County Tyrone and now based in Scotland since 1992 plays the button box. He has played with Malinky and Iron Horse, recorded with Isobel MacAskill, and Tim O’Brien, and worked in theatre, e.g. ‘The Blind Fiddler’. Leo’s solo album is If Anyone Can. |
|
Pip Murphy is one of the legendary Murphy brothers from County Wexford who learnt to play the mouth organ from his father, Phil. He is widely acknowledged as one of the foremost players of the instrument in Ireland. |
|
Máire Ní Chaoimh (O'Keeffe) is a fiddle player from Tralee in Co. Kerry, now based on the West Coast of Ireland in Kinvara, Co. Galway. She has many different musical interests including the fiddle traditions of Ireland, Scotland, Shetland, and Cape Breton as well as the music of Galicia in North West Spain. She has studied the history of the Irish button accordion and received a doctorate from the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick for her thesis entitled Journey into Tradition: A Social History of the Irish Button Accordion. |
|
Jerry O`Reilly is a singer and dancer from Dublin. A founding member of Brooks Academy, he is still actively involved and teaches a weekly dance class there. He has annually taught dancing in Paris to the Association Irlandaise, at the Willie Clancy Summer School, at Wadebridge, at Sidmouth, and at Whitby. Jerry is also a noted singer and has been involved with the production of several fine CDs of traditional singing in English and also the Irish language. |
|
Liam Robinson is a melodeon and concertina player, singer, organiser and educator, based in Lincolnshire, who has performed in North America and Europe. He specialises in the music and songs of Lincolnshire and the East Coast, and has recently released a CD of this material. |
|
Tom Roche, originally from Mitchelstown, County Cork, but currently resident in Cruden Bay, Aberdeenshire, plays C#/D button accordion. He teaches and plays Irish traditional music and has played at several festivals throughout Scotland and beyond. |
|
Michael Wright is an authority on the Jew’s harp in the British Isles. Passionate about the melodic possibilities of the instrument, he regularly teaches at festivals. He has recorded with the Wright Family as well as Dogan Mehmet, Matt Quinn and Sam Lee. |
|
The Lewis Melodeon Group: The melodeon or button accordion was the instrument of choice for dance music in Lewis until late 1960s, by which time the ‘bigger is better’ trend meant that the piano accordion had taken over. From the late 1980s there has been a revival of interest in the melodeon with the formation of groups, and tuition offered on a voluntary basis in some of the schools. Although school pupils are not given the opportunity to use the melodeon to further their formal musical studies, many young people are achieving a very high standard. In addition, members of the group are fluent in Gaelic and most are accomplished traditional singers. We are proud to present these 12–16 year old ‘ambassadors’ from among those who are carrying the tradition forward. |
|
Theo Gibb, The Box Place Theo Gibb runs The Box Place in Gateshead in the north-east of England. He repairs tunes and renovates melodeons, diatonic button accordions and concertinas and usually has a small selection of second hand and renovated instruments for sale. Visit http://www.theboxplace.co.uk/ |
|
Celtic Chords Traditional Music Shop opened in 2003 in Stonehaven to meet the needs of local musicians in the North-East but has expanded its customer base throughout the UK and further afield. Unlike most mainstream music stores, it specialises in acoustic traditional folk instruments, books and music CDs. It stocks a wide range of fretted and bowed instruments. In addition, it has a great selection of free reed instruments such as diatonic button accordions, melodeons, concertinas and harmonicas. Visit www.celtic-chords.co.uk |
Friday 11 November, 2.00-5.00pm
Maire Ni Chaoimh
The button accordion, first patented in Vienna in 1829, was available for sale in a Dublin music shop by 1831. This is an indication of the speed with which the accordion permeated musical traditions worldwide. The instrument’s ability to adapt to existing traditions was to prove a major factor in its acceptance. However, despite the presence of the instrument in Ireland in 1831, it was to be many decades later when the instrument began the process of becoming a member of the family of instruments on which Irish traditional music is played. By the closing decades of the nineteenth century the accordion had become a new voice in Irish traditional music and began to take on the accent of that music. This allowed for the evolution of an identifiable Irish style of accordion playing. The strength and resilience of the existing tradition – and the resultant openness to new instruments – allied to the accordion’s ability to adapt to changing performance locations and its suitability as an instrument to provide music for dancing, were major factors in the successful assimilation of the instrument into Irish traditional music. Other significant factors included the arrival of new technology such as sound recording processes and radio. The varied musical contexts provided within families and the wider community were also crucial to the development of the accordion in Irish music. Perhaps the most important factor however, was the contribution of accordion players themselves. The power of the individual as an instigator of musical change is widely recognized in musical circles and a study of the pivotal accordion players in the twentieth century illustrates that there were musicians of extraordinary technique and talent who, by their musical activities, moulded and shaped this product of the industrial revolution into an instrument on which Irish traditional music could validly be played. They are central to the accordion’s “journey into tradition”.
Michael Wright
All the evidence we have to date points to the Far East as the origin of what we know as the Jew's harp. Given that is the case, when and how did it arrive in Europe, and become a popular item and staple commercial article for travelling salesmen and merchants from the 13th century? This talk explores the various theories of how the Jew's harp travelled from East to West, leading ultimately to the West Midlands of England becoming a world-dominating manufacturing centre.
Roger Digby
This presentation takes a look at 'English Country Music’, the place of the Anglo concertina within that tradition and the role of William Kimber in particular. This will be a broad-brush approach, but will not paper over the cracks. The focus is to present an introduction to the tradition with some of the key issues involved in understanding and carrying on the music.
Directed by Ian Russell with generous help from Alex Cadogan, Genny Burton, Simon Harbord, Dave Lorimer, Tom McKean, Jimmy Mitchell, Pete Murray, Tom Roche, Norma Russell, Alison Sharman, Jenny Shirreffs, Ron Taylor, Alex West, and Steve Williams
To book on-line, visit the On-line Store
Please use the downloadable form and send it with a cheque made out to ‘The University of Aberdeen’, to:
The Elphinstone Institute
University of Aberdeen,
MacRobert Building
King’s College
Aberdeen
AB24 5UA
E-mail: elphinstone@abdn.ac.uk
2.00–5.00 Registration & Seminar at MacRobert Building,
King’s College, Aberdeen AB24 5UA
7.30–10.30 ‘Three of a Kind’, Concert at the Blue Lamp, Gallowgate, Aberdeen
(Norman Chalmers, Roger Digby, Mary Mac Namara; Donald Black, Ernie Gordon, Pip Murphy; Michael Wright; Brendan Begley, Liam Robinson, Leo McCann)
Informal music at the Blue Lamp, till late
All workshops are at the Salvation Army Citadel in Castlegate, 28 Castle Street, Aberdeen AB11 5BG
9.30–10.45 Session 1: Workshops
11.15–12.30 Session 2: Workshops & Meet the Artist
12.30–2.30 Free lunchtime concert at the Lemon Tree (George Current, Bryce Johnstone, Fred Davidson, David Gray, Matt Quinn, plus other artists)
3.00–4.15 Session 3: Workshops & Meet the Artist
7.30–10.30 ‘Wheezin an’ Squeezin’ Concert at the Blue Lamp
(Ernie Gordon, Liam Robinson, Roger Digby, Michael Wright; Norman Chalmers and Donald
Black; Pip Murphy, Brendan Begley, Mary Mac Namara)
11.30-2.00 Late Night Extra, the Blue Lamp (Tom Roche; David Gray; Matt Quinn; Dave
Lorimer; and surprise guests)
10.00-11.15 Session 4: Workshops
11.30-12.45 Session 5: Workshops & Meet the Artist
1.00-5.00pm Informal session with solo spots at the Blue Lamp
Details of Workshops, Meet the Artist, and the Seminar will be available from early October.
The Friday afternoon seminar will take place at the Elphinstone Institute (Room 040), University of Aberdeen, MacRobert Building, King's College, Aberdeen AB24 5UA (Tel: +44 (0)1224 272996). This is also the place to register for the weekend if you arrive on Friday.
The workshops will take place at the Salvation Army Citadel in Castlegate, 28 Castle Street, Aberdeen AB11 5BG. This is the place to register for the weekend if you arrive on Saturday.
The Friday and Saturday evening concerts are at the Blue Lamp, 121 Gallowgate, Aberdeen, AB25 1BU.
The Saturday lunchtime concert is at the Lemon Tree, 5 West North Street
Aberdeen AB24 5AT.
By Air
Aberdeen's international airport is served by a number of major carriers. There is a frequent bus link to the city centre, and taxis from the airport to the city centre cost around £18.
Aberdeen Airport
By Rail
ScotRail has a number of low cost fares available including for small groups of three or four people travelling together. To book call 08457 55 00 33 or visit the Scotrail website.
Buses in Aberdeen
There are a number of regular buses that travel between the MacRobert Building at King's College and the city centre. From Union Street, the city's main thoroughfare, the numbers 1, 2, 13 and 14, travelling east, all run along King Street and pass the University. Alight after the King's playing fields on your left. Aberdeen buses require exact fare, so have change ready.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Button Boxes and Moothies facebook event
Page last updated: Monday, 07-Nov-2011 16:59:37 GMT
The Elphinstone Institute
University of Aberdeen · MacRobert Building · King's College · Aberdeen · AB24 5UA
Tel: 01224 272996 · Fax: 01224 272728 · Email: elphinstone@abdn.ac.uk
© 2005 Elphinstone Institute.
University
Home · Prospective students
· Prospectuses · A
to Z Index · Search
Email & Telephone Directories · Contacts/Help
· Maps · Privacy
Policy & Disclaimer · Accessibility
Policy
