Our October concert started with David Rigby playing Snow Waltz, Loveliest Night Of The Year, The Wild Rover, When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, Daisy Bell, The Spinning Wheel, After The Ball Is Over, Highland Cathedral and Now Is The Hour. Our next player was Patrick Halpin playing Country Roads, Bonnie Naks Of Loch Lomond, Galway Bay, My Old Irish Home and Silver Threads Among The Gold. Arthur Frankland then took to the stage and played Irish Eyes, Moonlight and Roses, Armada's Waltz, Land Of Hope and Glory, Edelweiss, Midnight In Moscow, Banks Of Loch Lomond and Sarah's Waltz. To take us up to the break we had Ann Parker playing Chopsticks, Finger Polka, Narcissus, La Paloma, Dark Eyes and Beautiful Days. During the break we saw a lot of chat going on, its nice to see people walking round finding others to chat to, that's one of the reasons I run the club. After the break we started the second half with Bernard Bamber playing Blackpool Belle, When The Saints Go Marching In, I Belong To Glasgow, Green Green Grass Of Home, Please Release Me, Happy Wanderer, Que Sera Sera, Your Cheating Heart, You Are My Sunshine, Lassie From Lancashire, It's A Long Way To Tipperary, Pack Up Your Troubles, Don't Dilly Dally, Lambeth Walk, To Be A Farmers Boy and Too Old To Dream. Our next player was Rebecca Parker who played Glamour Girl, Moon River and Valse D'Amelie. Colin Ensor followed Rebecca, Colin played Island Of Dreams, Leaving Lerwick Harbour, Out Of Reach Of My Empty Arms, Vaya Con Dios, More Than you Know, Yesterdays Dreams, Once In A While, Lilly Of Laguna, Beautiful Doll, Who Were You With Last Night and Sweetheart Of All My Dreams. To finish the night we ended with Graham Driver playing Weasel's Revenge, Jaquelines Waltz, Three Jolly Sheepskins, Much Wenlock and Caroline's Waltz. As usual, we had enjoyed a great local players night with quite  a buzz about it and had a nice night catching up with each other.

David Batty

The next meeting of the Wyre Club is on Wednesday 28th November 2012 at The North Euston Hotel on the Esplanade at Fleetwood, FY7 6BN. Further details are on tel. 01772 864887.

This club is on every Tuesday at The Place In The Park, Lisgard Road, Wallasey. The night starts at 7pm. The format of this club is a playaround circle where people sit in a circle and play in order round the circle.

This Wednesday we have George Zuchowski as our guest artist. George played for us earlier and is now back by popular demand.

Remember to bring any friends or family  who might like a night out.  Doors open at 7.30 for an 8pm start. Make sure you get there early for a good seat and a good chat before the concert starts. See you there.

We put a video of Julie Best playing Cuckoo Waltz in 2010 on ot the Internet, it has now had over 100,000 viewers. At the time of writing, this one  the video has had 113,870 views in less than 2 years! www.youtube.com/accordiontv

Leonard Brown 21 from Tyneside has won the All Scotland Senior Traditional Accordion Championship, Leonard was up against 18 other accordionists and is the Second Englishman to win the Jimmy Shand Shield, the first was Robert Whitehead who won in 1968. The competition started in 1950, this year was the 63rd Year.

Stefan and Denise Andrusyschyn appeared on the Alan Titchmarsh Show on the 22nd October, they were part of a group of guests invited on the show as part of the Paralympics, Denise was asked about her experience of singing at the opening ceremony at the Paralympics, she then gave a short performance while husband  Stefan played the Accordion. The show is available on ITV Player www.itv.com/itvplayer/video/?Filter=326909 The video runs out on the 21st November.

BBC Alba have produced a show called Buskers It's a series of 4 Episodes, following buskers in Glasgow, each episode follows a handful of buskers and takes a look behind the scenes.  The episodes can be watched online at www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01nm0ns/Buskers_Episode_1 You have until the 19th November to watch the episodes on BBC Iplayer.

Foster and Allen have a new television show on the Showcase Channel (Sky 191, Freesat 400) The show is on every Monday night at 7pm. You can also watch online at www.information.tv The show features Mick Foster and Tony Allen talking and making links to tunes and songs selected from their video and dvd collections along with links to other interesting videos and interviews with other musicians.  This is a good show with some nice music and videos that should give you ideas for stuff to play.

The 148 Year old department store John Lewis, sell an accordion on their website and in their high street shops. This is a childs toy accordion with 7 Buttons on the right  and 3 Bass buttons, The accordion has the note names printed above each button on the right hand, there are 14 notes named (2 per button) which suggests that it plays a different note in and out, we would think of this as more of a melodeon rather than an Accordion but it's great to see the instrument for sale in a big department store. The reviews on the John Lewis website about the accordion are all positive, mostly from parents and grandparents saying how much their kids enjoy playing with the accordion. The accordion is being sold for £15 which is a good price for a Christmas/Birthday present for a young child.  

At our last practice night in October I had a copy of the latest Accordion World magazine which featured Steve Roxton and Jean Dauvin on the cover, but I did not have it at the end of the night.  I normally bring in old magazines for people to read and I leave them on the table for people to take away. I think that someone must have thought this magazine was one of those and taken it to read. Its normal for old magazines to be brought to the club for others to look at or take away and read so I can see how someone would not have a clue it was not one of those. If you are reading the magazine could you please bring it back so I can read it too, thanks.

Remember that now is the time to brush up on playing Christmas Carols, either for playing at the club or for friends or any events you might be invited to? Christmas is less than 40 days away now!

I received a call from a Blackpool hotel last month asking if I could supply a player for a murder mystery evening based on the Allo Allo TV series. I gave them a quote for playing which I later found out was far cheaper than the £250 they had been quoted by someone else! I later found out that the event was organised by Granada TV Weatherman Fred Talbot (pictured left) and the attendees were mainly from Granada TV or local Radio. I recognised a few faces as I was playing, although with their great outfits they were all heavily disguised as characters from Allo Allo. There were some great outfits there, all the characters from the TV series were represented with a lot of effort going in to making the place look like you were really at Renés Café. A woman sat nearby had sticks of dynamite on the seat next to her! The hotel was so pleased with my playing they asked to book me again for another similar event.

I recently gave up my work as a college lecturer in computers and have instead spent my time sat at home writing computer games, mobile phone games and designing a course to teach Computer Science to IT teachers in schools.  Teachers who teach computers at school have in the last decade or so been required to just teach wordprocessing, spreadsheets and other similar office skills.  They have not been required to know about programming, computer hardware or computer science, until now.  That's where I come in, with 30 years computer experience and 20 years teaching experience I decided to deliver my own courses to train computer teachers to deliver more exciting and more relevant classes. This gives me a lot more control over my time than I had before, with running two jobs (teaching and working on software at home) I had little time to practice the accordion and was always leaving the club to be up at 7am to deliver a class.  Now I am getting some practice in and its amazing that a bit of practice makes the accordion so much easier to play. Now I know you already know that you have to practice to be any good, but for the last few years (apart from a few hours a year) I have only played at the club or at the practice nights.   Now I am digging out old tunes I used to play, and brushing them up.  Its amazing how many tunes I know (and used to play) but when I get to the club I only remember the titles of a few of them.  I have now started making lists in categories, tunes I know well, tunes that I could play well with a bit of practice and tunes I would like to play. The second and third lists are very large so I keep the lists on a spreadsheet. I practice tunes from each list and then later move tunes from one list to the next as I learn them. Ideally the tunes will all end up in the Tunes I Can Play Well list which will later be subdivided in to categories eg. Irish, French, Singalong. Now I just have to keep up this momentum and play at the club as well as I do at home!

Leyland Accordion Club is a club based in Leyland Lancashire England.

We have our concerts at

The Priory Club
Broadfield Drive
Leyland
Lancashire
England
PR25 1QN

Our postal address is  

39 Wray Crescent
Ulnes Walton
Leyland
Lancashire
England
PR26 8NH

You can find our website at www.accordionclub.co.uk  

Buy CD's from our shop at www.accordionshop.com  

Find out about UK festivals at www.accordionfestival.co.uk

Join out Accordionist Forum www.accordionworld.co.uk

Listen to accordion music at www.accordionradio.co.uk  

Follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/accordionclub

Join us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/accordionclub

All the best...

  David Batty

Leyland Accordion Club