About 12 months ago, give or take a week here or there, I went to a live music event for the last time.
I didn't know, as most of us didn't, that this would be the last occasion of going anywhere much for the next year or so - infact the event itself was very much a precursor to another event: my friend's Folk Musical
I have to say that I hadn't been previously aware that you could have an entire musical written in the style of Folk Music, but if anyone can do it then KF could - one of those people that you know who is just annoyingly talented and nice with it so that there's nothing you can actually get grumpy about as a lesser talent.
But the point of this story is that one of the people making up her band was the wife of a friend who plays accordion....
Now, if you're not a musician then you may not be aware of the following equation: n+1
This, mathematically speaking, shows the correct amount of instruments that you should own - where n = what you have now and, at the point during which i was watching the performance, my collection was sadly lacking in the accordion department.
To be clear here there's several instruments of different types that are often referred to as accordions:
* Hand-held squeeze box often with eight edges to each side panel comprising buttons on each side as often used threateningly by salty sailor types before they launch headlong into a forty verse sea shanty about mermaids
* larger instrument usually with one shoulder strap and buttons on both sides usually used for Cajun music where moving the bellows in and out creates a different sound
* the basic piano accordion - which is the one I was looking at. These sit on both shoulders with a strap, make the same noise whether going in or out (essentially a loud screech to the untrained ear) with a piano keyboard for the right hand and buttons for the left hand. To extract sound one has to: squeeze the bellows in and out, press the bass buttons (left hand) and play the notes (right hand) whilst somehow still singing said forty verse sea shanty
The amount of buttons available varies from instrument to instrument from 8 to 120, as does the amount of piano keys from around 40 to requiring two people to lift from the floor
It is quite the hardest instrument i have ever tried to learn - a fact that has not been helped by the fact that three lessons in we went into a national Lockdown and have been learning via zoom lessons ever since where the sound is deliberately set up to make everything other than human speech sound like a robot from 80s science fiction programmes
I'm also having to learn the bass cleff in music in order to try and fathom out what buttons my left hand should be doing and there has been much use of fruity language since we started but i am now able to play a broken version of Green Green Grass Of Home, a dodgy version of Tennessee Waltz, a version of Dirty Old Town in an uncertain time signature and a version of I Walk The Line that sounds like it just fell off said line....and it's only taken me a year
Still - it was something to do during lockdown, where i've found myself with lots of time to practice and no reasonable excuse not to....
What new skills have you/are you learning?
2 comments:
Oh my goodness. I hope your better half has somewhere to be during all of this ruckus! I feel like we might need a video, or at least an audio - please include the fruity language.
I myself have learned nothing new. Wait, that's not right - I learned a new crochet method. Woo hoo! But I've had to continue to go to work as usual, so there's been no time to bake sourdough bread & such.
Such a long time to go without live music!
I have learned some new tech stuff, by necessity, since I had to buy a smart TV, new phone, and new laptop in the last eight months. It was waaaay too much a learning curve and I wish the replacing had been spaced out better. Aside from that, I have perfected my capacity to sleep like death. :)
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