Tunes by Anne Gregson for the ICA Music Supplement

About this page

The Internation Concertina Association has kindly printed 20 of Anne Gregson's tunes and arrangements in the Music Supplement accompanying the Concertina World for December 2007. Our thanks go to the ICA for doing this (particularly to Jon McNamara, who was enthusiastic about the idea even though he had to do the donkey work of actually preparing the Music Supplement for printing, and a lot of work it was too ...).

This web page is intended to complement the Supplement by making available recordings of all the tunes for the musically illiterate (like Chris) and for those who want to hear how Anne plays them. If you're looking for a specific tune just go straight to the lower reaches of the page as much of the text below is in the Music Supplement..

Biographical Notes

Anne writes: Ever since I was a child I’ve been a songwriter but while I found melodies came naturally to me I had to work at the words. I find singing much easier than playing an instrument, so songs were easier for me to perform than tunes. I’ve always been fascinated by folk music and song and searched out folk clubs and sang in them as soon as I was old enough.

In the late 1970s I decided to learn more about composing music and began a series of evening classes and private tuition. The teacher who ran the first evening class I went to remained a very good friend even after we’d both moved to other parts of the country. After his untimely death earlier this year I realised that I hadn’t done very much with my music in all that time. It was just at that time that I received the ICA music supplement which included Jon McNamara’s invitation for us to send music to him for the supplement. The tune ‘The Music Teacher’ in the slow airs section is in memory of my friend Stuart.

I’ve selected 20 tunes, 2 of which are in 3 parts. I intend to write a book including these and other tunes at some time in the future, and perhaps a separate book of songs. Chris Timson, my partner of more than 30 years, has recorded me playing the tunes so that you can access them here. Sometimes the ‘dots’ can’t tell you everything about the style of a tune and it’s a good idea to hear it played as well.

Notes About the Recordings

In the music supplement the tunes are grouped by type and we have followed the same ordering here. For convenience the first two tunes, which are multi-part epics, are taken from our CD Peaceful Harbour. What you will hear is not quite the same as the score, but should give you a good idea of the overall sound. When we get the chance we'll record them anew.

The rest of the recordings were made in December 2007 and are of Anne playing her Wheatstone Aeola. Click on the mp3 links to hear or download the tunes as mp3 files. We have also provided the scores as pdf files. These are formatted a little differently from the Music Supplement and may be more useful if you want to print out a tune on a page.

For the technically minded I used a Rode NT1A condenser mike, recording into a Fostex D90 hard disk recorder via a Soundcraft Spirit SX mixer. Mixdown was onto a PC using an Emu 0202 external interface, again via the Spirit SX with effects provided by a TC Electronic M300 unit. I used Audacity to record the final mix.

Copyright

It need hardly be said that copyright in all these tunes remains with Anne Gregson. Having said that we would be delighted if you play these tunes, and even more if you send us an email to let us know you have. Click here if you want to use our email form.

Cheers,

Anne & Chris