Weltmeister wizardry

[maugein96]

Was in northern Greece recently and was looking forward to maybe posting some accordion music from there.

No such luck, as the place was full of Serbs, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Romanians, and Bosnians from across the border.

However, I came across a band, named Avangard, who are variously based in Athens, Serbia, and I believe the band also contains Armenian members! They play a mixture of material from all over the Balkans, as well as Armenian music.

The accordionist, Nikos Eleftheriadis, also doubles up on Korg (if thats what theyre called these days), and electric bass, so it seems he has to make do with a Weltmeister.

Here he is playing Guerrini Waltz, composed by the Bosnian composer, Edo Krilic, from Sarajevo. Krilic has a penchant for composing French musette type waltzes, and I know Balkan music will not do much for most members, so here is a French Cafe type number (admittedly with Balkan undertones) played to excellent effect on a Weltmeister. Goes to prove that it is the player, and not just the instrument, which makes the music.

 

[Geronimo]

Here he is playing Guerrini Waltz, composed by the Bosnian composer, Edo Krilic, from Sarajevo. Krilic has a penchant for composing French musette type waltzes, and I know Balkan music will not do much for most members, so here is a French Cafe type number (admittedly with Balkan undertones) played to excellent effect on a Weltmeister. Goes to prove that it is the player, and not just the instrument, which makes the music.

Uh, on a Weltmeister is similarly specific to on a Hohner. Weltmeister instruments range from machine reeds on plastic reed blocks and plastic bass levers to cassotto instruments with hand-made reeds (and polished wooden reed blocks and cassotto enclosures) and aluminum bass mechanics, partly with converter (I think the current model range after insolvency may be without converter instruments which always had to outsource part of the mechanics).

I cannot reliably see the model name but it could be Supita which would be pretty much the best piano accordion you could get in the former East bloc. Either that or a Cantora which created cassotto sound by an interesting redirection mechanism in the grille, making for a better serviceable instrument.

It does not exactly look like he has to fight the instrument, either...

 

[maugein96]

Id seen quite a few Eastern European players playing Weltmeisters, although I do believe that was the first time Id seen a Greek player with one. He probably acquired it elsewhere, but it has a great sound, wherever he got it.

Youll probably know better than I do that the top of the range instruments with Balkan tuning are/were made by Guerrini, Dallape, and more recently by Beltuna with their Balkan Star range. Siwa and Figli from Castelfidardo are also currently involved in the manufacture and supply of both PA and 6 row B system Serbian Balkan accordions. I know other makers cater for Balkan players, but Im not really familiar with any of them.

I suppose it stands to reason that Weltmeister would have grabbed a chunk of the Balkan action, and that instrument certainly sounds as good as the other makes I have mentioned.

Here is a plug for recent Siwa and Figli instruments as played by Edo Krilic from Bosnia and Ivana Stanojlovic from Serbia on the CBA. The violinist is Dina Krilic, Edos wife. I never realised until I visited Bosnia and Hercegovina fairly recently, that the PA rules supreme in almost all of the former countries that made up Yugoslavia, except Serbia.

 

[Geronimo]

Id seen quite a few Eastern European players playing Weltmeisters, although I do believe that was the first time Id seen a Greek player with one. He probably acquired it elsewhere, but it has a great sound, wherever he got it.

Youll probably know better than I do that the top of the range instruments with Balkan tuning are/were made by Guerrini, Dallape, and more recently by Beltuna with their Balkan Star range. Siwa and Figli from Castelfidardo are also currently involved in the manufacture and supply of both PA and 6 row B system Serbian Balkan accordions. I know other makers cater for Balkan players, but Im not really familiar with any of them.

The usual Balkan-specific instruments are Serbian CBAs. Balkan being a Western market, Weltmeister did not actually cater to them. The PA here has the usual 120 basses. A player coming across a Supita at reasonable pricing will be hard-pressed to pass it up either way. They were the East blocs answer to Gola PAs, and players accustomed to them will not easily be persuaded to swap them for a Gola: the Gola is still somewhat superior in overall quality but decidedly differently designed concerning the bass disposition. So if you developed your playing style around that...

I suppose it stands to reason that Weltmeister would have grabbed a chunk of the Balkan action, and that instrument certainly sounds as good as the other makes I have mentioned.

I dont really know how the market worked. From player meetings in Germany I know that GDR players could not just buy a Supita but had to get one allotted. You had to be pretty good for that, and there were probably similar allotments going to other East bloc countries. More open markets did not exist all that long before the collapse of the GDR, and Yugoslavia wasnt East bloc I think. Certainly Greece wasnt.

I really just think that he got hold of the instrument and wasnt going to pass it up, never mind whether it was Balkan market destined or not.

 

[maugein96]

Hi Geronimo,

Looks like it is a "Supita" right enough. I watched him playing a few other clips where I was able to get a look at the model name (briefly), and when I paused the screen I could just about make out the word "Supita".

 

[Stephen Hawkins]

Hi John,

These guys are very much better players than I am, but are they happy?

I like the Weltmeister range of accordions, and am aware that the "Supita" is their flagship model. Whatever has been said about their antecedent history, Weltmeister certainly appear to have rectified whatever problems they may once have had.

The Galotta (as I understand it) was made by Weltmeister. My own Galotta dates from about the sixties, and is a well built and sweet sounding instrument.

All The Best, Old Scout,

Stephen.

 

[Geronimo]

These guys are very much better players than I am, but are they happy?

Happy or smug?

I like the Weltmeister range of accordions, and am aware that the Supita is their flagship model. Whatever has been said about their antecedent history, Weltmeister certainly appear to have rectified whatever problems they may once have had.

Uh, Weltmeister. Not Hohner. Harmona (which owned the Weltmeister brand) crashlanded in capitalism and passed ownership through several vultures (including a brief Hohner ownership) that scavenged it for parts. The husk managed to drag on for a few decades but a few years ago it went into receivership. Now they have been renamed into Weltmeister Akkordeon-Manufaktur. Their problems were primarily of financial and existential nature, they were bleeding out. There were some problems with their use of plastics, like bass mechanisms becoming brittle eventually. But the upper range models were basically reliable over all of their history.

After the Post-GDR collapse the upper range did not include much more than the Supita but they had several reasonably good model lines (like Consona and Cantora) before.

The Galotta (as I understand it) was made by Weltmeister.

The Galotta was made by G.A. Schlott in Zwota and Brunndöbra, a company likely closed in GDR times and folded into the Harmonawerke. They relied on similar parts as the accordions produced under the Weltmeister brand and were produced only a few dozen kilometres away, but they were not the same company.

 

[maugein96]

These guys are very much better players than I am, but are they happy?

I do believe that people who achieve mastery of any musical instrument often play them with a degree of automatism, as theres nothing they cannot do.

When I graduated as a maestro of the triangle and penny whistle I couldnt wait to get my hands on a tambourine as I found the first two very boring after years of perfecting my skills on them.

I think Geronimos smug may well be appropriate as they are effectively showing off what they can do, which would have applied to me as well if I could have mastered the accordion instead of it mastering me.

Are they happy? Probably not, as I dont think many accordionists these days would make a lot of money out of playing in the Balkans, especially if they were part of a large ensemble. Nikos only plays the Weltmeister occasionally, and his main instrument is the ubiquitous Korg.

 

[Geronimo]

These guys are very much better players than I am, but are they happy?

I do believe that people who achieve mastery of any musical instrument often play them with a degree of automatism, as theres nothing they cannot do.

Uh, the automatisms free you to think about the music rather than its execution.

Are they happy? Probably not, as I dont think many accordionists these days would make a lot of money out of playing in the Balkans, especially if they were part of a large ensemble.

I feel that I am out of touch with my time. The perfect equivalence of money and happiness is something that seems questionable to me. Which is a good thing as my supplies of the former appear even smaller than of the latter.

 

[maugein96]

A Scots guy once said that he couldn't afford to be happy, as happiness cost such a lot (he was referring to the price of whisky!).

 

[Geronimo]

A Scots guy once said that he couldnt afford to be happy, as happiness cost such a lot (he was referring to the price of whisky!).

Ah, that reminds me of The Third Guest, a story by B. Traven where a woodcutter with a dozen children makes something akin to if only I could eat a whole capon before I die, Id be the happiest man alive his motto. So his wife saves silently and after a long time has the means to buy and prepare the bird, and he takes off into the woods, away from his wife and children, to fulfill his lifelong wish and he knows she will understand. As he wants to eat, God/Jesus passes by as a hungry wanderer and asks to share, and he refuses. Then the Devil passes by and asks to share, and he refuses. Then Death comes around and asks, and he shares the bird with him. Death asks him if he knew who the other travellers were, and he explains that God would be able to to feel sympathy with his long with, and that he is wise to the wiles of the devil and does not fear him. But it would have been pointless not to share with Death as the latter could have killed him on the spot, leaving him none. The rest of this story runs roughly along the lines of Grimms Godfather Death fairy tale and with enough whole capons to make up for the loss of that particular half bird.

But the fairy tale that presumably inspired that short story did not contain the steadfast equation of (some) comestible with happiness that reminded me of your Scotsman.

Alas, whisky tends to be more affordable than an accordion tuning, but then the latter tends to last longer.

 

[Stephen Hawkins]

Hi John & Geronimo,

Happiness is an elusive goal, mainly due to the fact that it keeps shifting. Contentment, however, can be attained, though only by people who see the good in small wonders.

As previously stated, I am fully aware of the fact that picking up an accordion for the very first time in one's late sixties does not represent the ideal, yet this is precisely what I have done. I know that I will never achieve the success I may have done had I started at 18 instead of a couple of months before my 68th birthday, but I am nevertheless quietly pleased with what I have accomplished.

Kind Regards,

Stephen.

 

[maugein96]

Stephen,

I picked up one of my late father's harmonicas when I was about 6 or 7 years old and he had me playing it in a few months.

By rights I should have been a Scottish Larry Adler, but I bet most people on the forum have never heard of him. In any case I had trouble with the chromatic harmonica with the slide, and it got a bit of a chore playing the big double sided ones in C/G so you could swop keys and get an F# if you were accurate enough.

Lip balm in the winter made the whole experience a bit more bother than it was worth, and I eventually left the playing to my father, who played with the harmonica "upside down".

Everybody in our family could play various instruments (after a fashion) and we all had a lot of fun trying each others' instruments out. That's how I ended up playing guitar, and two of my uncles taught me to play rockabilly and blues.

One of them also played PA, but he was a bit of a wizard on it and he wouldn't let any of us young kids near it.

The TV killed all that stone dead, and we often all sat round the TV enjoying the alternative entertainment. We only had one TV between 4 families and it was a bit of a squeeze. My old Irish grandfather was asked by a friend of his if he enjoyed watching the TV in our house. He said it all depended on where he could get a seat, as with 17 of us in the house on TV nights some of us had to sit round the back of the TV and couldn't see the screen! His friend actually believed him until somebody put him straight.

Those were the days.

 

[hais1273]

Going right back to the original post on this thread. Broadly speaking I rather like Balkan music, although sometimes it gets a bit fast and a bit messy. I take my hat off to anyone who can play well in 7/8 or 11/16. (almost the same I know) or any "odd" Balkan/Eastern times.

As for happiness and contentment. Nail on the head there Mr Hawkins.

 

[maugein96]

Going right back to the original post on this thread. Broadly speaking I rather like Balkan music, although sometimes it gets a bit fast and a bit messy. I take my hat off to anyone who can play well in 7/8 or 11/16. (almost the same I know) or any odd Balkan/Eastern times.

As for happiness and contentment. Nail on the head there Mr Hawkins.

Hi Hais,

Unfortunately I do have a terrible tendency to go off topic.

You also get 9/8 and other ridiculous times, but very few Balkan players actually learn from the dots, at least for the local fare. The rapid switches from major to minor keys takes a bit of getting used to, as well as the old Turkish type scales, which come as second nature to Balkan players, but which we have to make a conscious effort to play. Its like forcing yourself to do what Les Dawson (an English comedian) sometimes did with the piano, and deliberately play a wrong note or two.

I do believe you would have to play along with other Balkan musicians to get comfortable with the music and the timing. A few years ago in Mostar, Hercegovina, I listened to the local sevdalinki music, and that took me back to the time when I made one or two impromptu guest appearances playing electric guitar in a nightclub in Istiklal Caddesi in Istanbul, in the 70s, when it was a pretty rough place. I do believe they have tidied it up a bit recently.

I would just jam with the band and theyd let me play my own version of a Turkish taksim or solo, which I had picked up by listening to the old saz players in the streets around Kapali Carsi (where the Grand Bazaar is located). I was in the Navy at the time and was stationed there briefly. Thats where I got a taste for Turkish music, which had a very strong influence on the folk music of the Balkans. I dont often play it on the accordion, as the fingering patterns required go against those normally used for western material.

I regularly listen to Balkan accordion, but on the very few occasions I have posted clips of it on here it scores nul points.