For those following along:

The Parker is getting new strings before studio tomorrow (changing them now).

The william-nilliam snipping of wires has worked out alright—tone is great—had to be disassembled & re-soldered, much electrical tape applied.

Piezos will have to wait for NEXT round of repair, possibly by someone other than me. But for now I've got a thoroughly-functional super-strat. Why these were never huge remains beyond me. Plays like nothing else. (OK the body itself only sounds so good if I'm honest—hence the active pickups it came with which I, in my infinite wisdom, replaced with Lollars).

All but one of the folks playing on tomorrow's session just stopped by the house.

We stood around in the yard (in the woods) and talked in the dark for an hour. One of them is a neighbor, the other two I hadn't seen in years—one here from SF, the other from NYC. So good to share space again!

Feels like the music's already started. Improvisation is so wonderful that way.

#Music #Improvisation #Friends

Guitar is working great. Had to open up the back & adjust the springs a bit but now it's in good playable shape. We slammed out an 11-minute Aylerian take on Television's "VENUS" in honor of Tom Verlaine & I am as ready for tomorrow's session as I am likely to be.

#Music #ElectricGuitar #Improvisation

I wasn't gonna do this but I've been enjoying listening back so...

here's that Ayler-influenced guitar&drums jam on VENUS for anyone interested!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/78344500

#Music #FreeJazz #ElectricGuitar #TomVerlaine #Television #Venus #Improvisation

@sj5
Hey 👋🏼 yours and a few live ones are the first #TomVerlaine music I’ve found my way to listening this week

Very nice 🎸

Still pondering what that 🪗 pairing would have sounded like if there’d have been someone who’d have been mutually interesting to have played together 🤔

Hard to amplify accordions is a problem

So it puts his electric in a different realm even if the playing style might be similar

Ah well

@AccordionBruce

Thanks for listening! 🤘

I haven't really listened to Tom yet since he passed. I think I played Television's 3rd LP the night I heard—I have a connection to that record for various reasons—but I haven't done a deep close listen to anything yet. The last time I listened to Marquee Moon was one for the ages tho. 💕

I love your angle of thinking here!

@sj5
#AnneNiepold from #Belgium is a favorite who randomly comes to mind

Their regional folk improv sometimes-composed acoustic style has hardly anything in common with somebody like #TomVerlaine

But he didn’t have anything much to do with the punks he supposedly inspired, so if a bunch of kids had started composing art-music in New York with folk accordions, would that have made less sense?
https://youtu.be/Y2B2OHQrIUM
#accordion

@AccordionBruce

Annie sounds great! thanks :)

I'm not sure what track to point you to offhand but our friend Amy Denio has played a certain amount of accordion over the years. "Truth Is Up For Grabs" & "The Big Embrace" might be decent starting points?

https://amydenio.bandcamp.com/

@AccordionBruce

The thing about guitar, I suppose, is that anyone can pick it up & do something interesting with it, without any technical knowledge or theory. Throw in some pedals & the fact that amps & etc are ready-made for it & there you are. I have a banjo playing friend who spent a decade trying to get the electric banjo to be what he heard in his head. I believe he eventually bought a telecaster. His ideas were solid and SHOULD have worked, but no one who shared his aesthetic was making the instruments he needed. 🤷‍♀️

@sj5
The last section of my #AccordionRevolution book talks a lot about how the #Accordion’s 300 acoustic reeds in a hollow box are harder to amplify than six metal strings and a magnet

And how guitarists have spent 90 years perfecting that

Whereas accordion players are still trying to get past “plug in to an amp without uncontrollable feedback”

The organic chaos of zillions of reeds are lost in all the attempts to make electronic versions of its interface 🤷🏻‍♂️

Http://AccordionRevolution.com

@AccordionBruce

yepp... a good friend of mine who's an excellent engineer likes to talk about what a horrible racket the electric guitar makes (we both love it passionately of course)—it's basically a mangled compressed un-dynamic limited-frequency atrocity committed upon an acoustic instrument. so by extension, it makes sense that (I love how you put this) the "organic chaos" of a more complex instrument would require even further forcible reduction. On the upside, it seems possible that a truly meaningful solution (Wall Of Sound style, with a speaker & pickup for Every Individual Key?) would be ridiculous fun to play...

@sj5
If you’re interested, I can send you a link to the free version of my book
It’s the Annotated Edition that’s not got the pretty pictures and layout of the print and ebook.

But the plain-text Annotated Edition has 1000 sources and 2000 notes, so the “free” comes at a price!

I worked really hard to make my print and e-book very readable to the popular audience, and people of said it works really well, even though it’s a big fat book

With all the notes it must be more of a struggle

@AccordionBruce

Just waking up & catching up with this. Yes would enjoy the book!! Thank you.

Was talking to Endino yesterday who has recorded Krist Novoselic on electrified accordion a bunch of times. Of course, Krist is after a traditional accordion sound—the feedback with volume & distortion is as you say uncontrollable—basically he has a super nice expensive pickup in there that provides crystal-clear accordion-accurate sound, & then they stick a condenser on each side & it sounds like an accordion. Any texture or whatnot has to happen in post.

We DID get amazing sounds yesterday with Lori Goldston's amplified cello. So that was nice :)

@sj5
Earlier this week I shared a bit about the history of “clean” amplification of the #accordion, which has been a goal for some professionals

Tommy Gumina was a jazz accordionist who founded the Polytone amp company and made influential solid state #jazz #guitar amps like #GeorgeBenson was all over

He started out wanting to amplify his accordion though to play with horns (There’s a bit more in the book about him. He’s kind of a flash over soul player though)
https://mastodon.social/@AccordionBruce/109820592666698095

@AccordionBruce

I'm sure you know that guitar initially was amplified to contend with louder instruments as well... & then the other instruments had to get louder to contend with the guitar, & now we have Marshall stacks & massive PAs & so forth. Nevermind the move to interchangeable parts & mass production for guitars, drums, etc (blame the Beatles for at least some of that, I suspect), thus the loss of the unique aspects of individual instruments or trap (contraption) drum sets.

@sj5
But then the expense and amplification barriers, and the fact that it’s not that easy to play (and we don’t have a stock of conservatory/folk players ready to step up) make it hard to maintain

So it fades again. And a sustained #accordion “revival” returns to the horizon

But it may be due any time now

My predictions:

#Cumbia:
Heaven forbid, some white band creates the Police of cumbia 😧

#LilaDowns - Zapata Se Queda the immortal #CelsoPina on #Acordeon
https://youtu.be/beuRgIqxTnY

@AccordionBruce @sj5

Another possibility is that the rise of YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok make amplification less relevant, particularly for musicians who rarely play live, or only for a small in-person audience, like for NPR's tiny desk concerts. Up to you and the sound engineer how much you want or need to compress the sound.

@skybrian @sj5
This ties in with the style difference between accordionists who primarily play solo or ones who have played with other musicians

I’ve usually thought playing with others probably helps you play better, whether you later find yourself playing by yourself or solo

But I’m pretty much a listener wannabe so what do I know?

@AccordionBruce @skybrian

as a player (tho not of the accordion!) I find that it's important to spend time alone developing my ideas & approach, & then time playing with others in every possible style, to bring the ideas out in various configurations. I am rediscovering this process constantly.

as an engineer of sorts,—after this conversation,—I'm starting to want some accordion tracks to do fucked up ambient remix things with, so there's that! 😂 💕

@AccordionBruce @skybrian

playing solo guitar (true of many instruments tho) I tend to take up more space. I'll play basslines, lead lines, chords, all at once, as dense as I wanna get & it's fine.

in a group, if I'm not the leader (& sometimes even if I am) I have to step on the brakes & focus on single notes, or on one concept/role at a time.

I'd think that w/ solo accordion as w/ keys generally, one can get away with much more self-accompaniment (left hand stuff?) than one can when playing w/ a group, where the bass or rhythm guitar may fill in those areas?

Later J. Coltrane is a good example of him playing ALL THE STUFF & the band working around it.

@sj5 @skybrian
There’s a long tradition of accordionists playing solo pieces starting in vaudeville stage performances and then in competitions organized by #Accordion schools

This led to really flashy playing not very conducive to mixing with others in some cases

Related to classical players struggling when having no score, except maybe more obtrusive?

They learned by rote from sheet music people were trying to sell, in kind of a mass-production model