Ranks
I come from Germany. I play Piano accordeon (Beltuna, best brand in the world), Tinwhistle and Bodhran. I am playing in the Band Crashandoh, which is Irish Party Music with the usual hits, play in Irish Pubs where I play may favourite songs plus the usual hit and more and more I play real concerts where I play what I like and not the bleeding obvious.
I love the session, but as I am playing a lot, work as a freelance journalist and chairman of a football club, I have not found time to learn ABC, though it seems to be deadeasy. I will do so as soon as I find time and then contribute tunes as well.
Concerning folk music, my personal taste is as traditonal as it can be i.e. I can listen to the Copper Family, Sarah Makem, Paddy Tunney and other Fieldrecordings for ages. The new Bands which are aound these days hardly ever mean a lot to me. My favourite tunes are from Northumberland, Scotland and England, though I know you will call 95% of the English tunes daggy. I play few Irish tunes, because I find, that they often do not sound as good as they should on my instrument.
I have a lot of tunes in my tunebook which does not mean at all that I can play them. I mostly sit in front of my PC-Monitor and then rehearse them. Also I am too lazy to delete the tunes, which I did not like so much by the light of the day.
My other musical love is reggae/Dancehall music. I have a collection of several hundred
CDs with Jamaican artists.
I am also a big fan of Flaco Jimenez, the great Tex-Mex accordeon player and Tex-Mex/Norteno Music in General. Also I love American Polka music, which makes me the most hated man in our household when I listen to it. Here I love Jimmy Sturr, Frankie Yankovic, Lenny Gomulka and the versatone or Eddie Blazonczyk and the Chicago Push.
www.ralfweihrauch.de
Tunes in Ranks's tunebook: 554