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How not to do French tuning

  • Thread starter Thread starter maugein96
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maugein96

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A while ago I read a French article about the best known accordionists (pre Galliano), and various names were mentioned.

Among those names, who were considered as the best ever to have come out of France, was Gilbert Roussel from Calais.

He was indeed a fantastic player, but he woke up one day and discovered somebody had tuned his accordion like this:-   



It was described as tarte, which I understand is French slang for naff, or crap if youre North American. 

His older Cavagnolo had slightly weird tuning as well, but it was amateur naff compared with that one. 

Please thank me for posting a clip which ran for less than 2 minutes!
 
Corsaire said:
That is truly awful !  Thanks a bunch, John, ha ha !
Thanks Sally,

The account was written by somebody who had the job of selecting suitable tracks for a compilation album of top French players. I should have put a link to it on the forum, as I now cannot remember the reviewer's name or the album title. 

Mind you, if it has stuff like that on it nobody would want to bother with it. His earlier material on an immediate post WW2 Cava was a lot better, although he did have a register on that one which was rather "tarte" as well. 

At least he wasn't wearing a miner's helmet! My sense of humour with that one wasn't meant to offend, but I realised I was going OTT, and decided to move to Italy for a few posts to take any perceived heat off. 

Just looking for an 8.34 clip of Gilbert on that album if you're interested. ;) He did a lot of orchestral work with "Roger Roger", sometimes using that "tarte tarte" register. 

Glad you are getting on well with your new "diabolic" accordion!
 
I haven't heard the expression "tarte" for that tonality, more like "aigu" !!  That tuning sounds really sharp - thank goodness we don't hear it much !

The diabolic's going swimmingly !  Finding the notes is not so hard, just have to remember to get the push-me pull-you right  :D  I'm having a lot of fun with it - fortunately the tuning is a wee bit drier than the usual little Hohners !
 
Corsaire said:
I haven't heard the expression "tarte" for that tonality, more like "aigu" !!  That tuning sounds really sharp - thank goodness we don't hear it much !

The diabolic's going swimmingly !  Finding the notes is not so hard, just have to remember to get the push-me pull-you right  :D  I'm having a lot of fun with it - fortunately the tuning is a wee bit drier than the usual little Hohners !

Might be Parisian slang. An old bus driver workmate of mine was from Paris and he educated me in several fine examples of the patois, most of which I've forgotten. He hates French accordion but is a devotee of Flaco Jiminez. I never really took the language to heart, as I have terrible problems with what passes for English, and even if my life depended on it I could never pronounce an "r" like that. I had an uncle who had a speech impediment and his name was McGrath. It was painful listening to him say his name with that "burr" he had.

His workmates were Robert Richardson and Ralph Turner, and he turned down a house at number three Riddochill Road, Blackburn. I wonder why?
 
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