October’s meeting of the Yorkshire Concertina Club brought another treat in the form of Rob Say and his newly acquired Rook’s Manuscript.

Rob took us through a lovely selection of tunes from the Northeast. After spending time looking at the Cheviot Rant, Cawledge Burn Rant, as well as the more familiar Morpeth Rant and his own tune Corsenside Hall, we looked at various marches and hornpipes. The March of the Grahams in amongst those, for our very own ‘Grahams’, Helen and Phil!

His enthusiasm for the music and the style of playing from the region was infectious and we all have some new ideas on how to approach and bring the tunes to life.

Rob has been researching the life and works of John Rook from his diaries and a photocopy of the manuscript. The hardback book, “The John Rook Manuscript: The Life of John Rook 1806-1872 & A Full Transcription of his Manuscript”, is the result of this work and he has also produced a smaller book with the collection of music in the manuscript, “The Music of John Rook: Player's Manuscript”.

Following publication of this, the actual manuscript has come to light, and it was an absolute privilege to be able to see the beautifully penned work with the illustrations and annotations from John Rook himself.

​A huge thanks to Rob Say for an interesting, informative and extremely enjoyable afternoon.
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​The International Concertina Association is planing again for a 'World Concertina Day' in Feb 2023 - we might want to think about what we could do, as we did this year when we played downstairs at the Corner House.

The Yorkshire Concertina Club joined thousands of concertina players all over the world to celebrate the first World Concertina Day on Sunday 6th February.
The event, organised by the International Concertina Association to celebrate the 220th birthday of Sir Charles Wheatstone, the inventor of the English Concertina, and the 70th anniversary of the ICA, included concerts by performers in the United States, Canada, Japan, South Africa and Sweden, and of course all over the UK, including Leeds where the YCC is based.
Our contribution to the celebration was a concert at the Corner House Club, where we played some of our favourite band pieces, and also featured songs performed by Russ Etherington who accompanied himself on a treble concertina.
Graham Heffernan (YCC chair) said that while the YCC met each month in an upstairs room of the Corner House, this was the first time it had performed there for regulars in the public bar. “Corner House Club members put up with the odd noises from our rehearsal room every month, and to say thanks for their hospitality over the years, we thought it would be great to share our music with them as part of World Concertina Day,” he said.
 “We had some lovely comments afterwards, and hope that playing for the Corner House Club might become a regular part of the YCC year.”
YCC members who took part in the inaugural World Concertina Day event were:
Russ Etherington – treble and baritone English concertina
Ruth Flint – treble English concertina
Helen Graham – treble and baritone English concertinas
Phil Graham – Anglo concertina
Steve Griffiths (deputy band leader) – duet concertina
Graham Heffernan (YCC Chair) – treble concertina
Adrian Jackson – treble and baritone concertina
Rhona Stevens – treble concertina
Carolyn Wade (band leader) – treble and bass concertina
 
The playlist included:
American Patrol trad US
Shannon Waters by John Willis
Hymne a l' Amour by Marguerite Monnot
Moonlight Serenade by Glen Miller
Bernie the Ragtime Ferret by John Willis
Harry Bloodgood trad
Only You by Buck Ram and Ande Rand
A Policeman's Lot by Arthur Sullivan
The Little Mouse by John Willis
The Plane Tree trad
Yorkshire Concertina Club Rag by John Willis
Nellie the Elephant by Ralph Butler and Peter Hart
The Great Escape by Elmar Bernstein
Yesterday by John Lennon and Paul McCartney
 
As part of our rehearsal time, we also played a brand new composition by Alan Day, the World Concertina Day March, written especially for the event. We look forward to recording and submitting our version of this piece to the ICA over the coming months, joining other concertina clubs’ submissions as Alan has suggested,
For more information on World Concertina Day and to see what players around the world have been doing to celebrate go to https://concertina.org/world-concertina-day/
 

To celebrate WCD the Yorkshire Concertina Club (established 1992) will be putting on a short informal Concert in the afternoon of Feb 6th. This will take place in the downstairs bar of the venue where we have our regular monthly meetings upstairs. We will be playing a selection of our favourite arrangements in parts, led by our esteemed YCC Band-leader, Carolyn Wade, plus some compositions of one of our long-standing past members, John Willis, beautifully arranged by YCC member Steve Griffiths. We should even have a couple of amusing ditties, ably self-accompanied on the Concertina, from YCC member Russ Etherington. I do need to add, though, that unfortunately the bar is a members-only private venue, so we will not be able to host any non-member visitors. Besides celebrating WCD, the event is providing us with an excellent opportunity to thank the venue, who have kindly provided the room for our meetings over the last decade or so. We are nonetheless anticipating a fun time, with, hopefully, a bit of sing-along participation from the audience and -  maybe - even interest from one or two in taking up our beloved instrument!

The continuing national lockdown meant that our 21 March meeting was again online, and this time we welcomed leading UK concertina tutor Alex Wade who ran a workshop from her home in the North East.
We always enjoy her workshops as she likes to challenge us with something a little different, and this time it was with a Danish piece Den Toppede Hone Fra Vensyssel, sometimes called The Peat Dance, a popular session tune in parts of Scotland. 
A rough translation is "The topped hen from Vensyssel", though whether this means a hen with an impressive comb or a headless chicken we are not sure - what we do know is that it was a great tune, a bouncy jig with three parts, arranged for band playing by Alex.
This workshop focussed on technique for getting lift into a dance tune, and giving it shape.
The notation is available on The Session here, and a version of it played by Random Quartet, a Danish string quartet, here.
While online workshops are not ideal, as we can't get a real sense of band playing on our own at home, it was good to have a go at something new and really drill down into technique.

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White Rose Morris' concertina player Adrian Jackson (second from the left) led the YCC February meeting with a workshop on the history and technique of playing for Cotswold morris dancing.
In a fascinating meeting he explained what the Cotswold dances were, where they came from, how to interpret the traditional tunes and accompany the dances, many which have an irregular musical pattern.
The group were able to play along and add a few new tunes to their repertoire.
The meeting, on 21 February, was mid lockdown, which meant we were all online, and Adrian's workshop worked really well in this format. He was able to share pictures and videos of morris dancing - a bit more difficult to do in our face to face gatherings. 
Having access to online resources meant that we could get a good idea about how the music worked with the morris stepping, and we could each play along at home.
Adrian is a member of YCC, and also a dancer and musician with White Rose Morris, which is based in Huddersfield. The dance team perform all over the UK, and have their own Facebook page @WhiteRoseMorrisMen where you can find information about where they will be dancing over the summer.
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In an attempt to beat the lockdown blues, the YCC has been experimenting with music software which allows musicians to jam together.
We have struggled to meet to play since lockdown, a situation faced by many musicians all over the country, and while we have managed to chat over Zoom (pictured above), this particular meeting platform isn't great if you want to play live as a band, there are delays in the transfer of the sound information (latency) which means that any attempt at group playing results in a dreadful cacophony.
At our October meeting one of our members suggested taking a look at JamKazam, free software which he had heard was designed for band playing and dealt with the latency issue. Over the last month, a small group of us have been meeting to work out how to use JamKazam and evaluate its usefulness to us at the YCC.
It is fair to say we have had mixed success. After a couple of weeks investigating how to use JamKazam, three of us have managed to jam together in our test sessions, and played a recognisable rendition, in three parts, of a popular folk tune The Plane Tree. However, when we gathered in a larger group at our meeting on 15th November, things started to fall apart a bit as some of our members struggled to access the JamKazam platform fully - the audio feed was a bit glitchy. JamKazam is really designed for people who work with music technology on a regular basis, so we are all doing a bit of upskilling at the moment in trying to get it to work for our concertina band.
We intend to take a look at each individual set up to work out the techno-kinks and have another go next month, but thought it worth sharing our findings so far.
To use JamKazam successfully we have found:
1. You need to download the JamKazam app to your computer
2. It doesn't work particularly well over a wi-fi connection, you need to be connected directly to the ethernet
3. You need to take some time to set up your audio correctly, and this requires a bit of technical know how
4. Headphones are an essential if you don't want a lot of feedback when playing
5. Planning ahead is important as you need to make each other your "friend" within JamKazam so that you can accept an invitation to a YCC session.
6......patience is helpful!

JamKazam does have potential, and it has been useful to investigate whether it could work for our group. We continue to explore technical solutions to playing as a band while socially distancing, and also to meet via Zoom until we are able to get back into the band room at the Cornerhouse Club.