Bali Hai!

It has been some time since my last trip away from "Riverbend" but I have now booked my flight out to Indonesia.

Apart from spending some time in Surabaya with Padma's parents, I'll be for most of my three weeks away in North Bali, which is as far away as one can get from the tourist hordes at Kuta.

Not being one to sit aimlessly at bars or on beaches, I hope to do some volunteer work at the Kupu-Kupu Foundation at Ubud which supports mentally and physically handicapped children.

I have already set up their website at www.kupukupufoundation.org to help the Foundation with the raising of funds through donations and sales from their handicraft-shop at Ubud.

The Chicken Dance

The "Chicken Dance" is a real oom-pah-pah tune originally composed by the Swiss accordion player Werner Thomas. It was hugely popular when I lived in Greece in the early 80s and I remember the Brindisi ferry rocking from side to side as the passengers started flapping their arms and breaking out in song.
Here are my numeric notations: (which are explained in a previous post )
5 5 5 5 4 4 5
5 5 5 5 4 4 5
5 5 5 5 6 6 6 6 5 5 4
4 4 5 5 3 3 4
4 4 5 5 3 3 4
4 4 5 5 6 6 5 5 5 4 4
5 5 4 4 5 7 7 7 6
5 5 4 4 5 7 6 6
5 5 4 4 5 7 6 6 6
7 7 6 6 6
6 6 7 6

The gorgeous GIORDY

My accordion-addiction is growing and I ordered a new and much smaller and lighter accordion some months ago from Italy. It's a hand-made CASTAGNARI Giordy which weighs a mere 1 kg and measures 14 x 9.5 centimetres! I ordered it in the same scales of G and C as my second-hand HOHNER accordion to allow me to play the same tunes on both. As it is hand-made, the delivery time is around three to four months and I expect delivery of it sometime in late February or early March. Don't even ask me how much this little beauty costs. All I am prepared to say is that it is very, very expensive!

You see me here trying a demo model. It's a truly small button accordion that packs the power of a larger model melodeon (the "proper" name for a button box!) into a tiny, tiny package.

My new (old) accordion

I have been busy learning my new button accordion. Not being able to read music hasn't helped. It means I have to have the melody in my head before I try to play it on the instrument. Then, as I find the right notes, I write them down as numbers. Number "1" is the first button from the top, number "2" the second button from the top, and so on. As a button accordion has two notes on every button, one on PULLING the bellows, the other on PUSHING, I am using regular numbers to indicate PUSH, and bold numbers to indicate PULL.

Here's "Advance Australia Fair":

5 6 5 4 5 6 6 6

7 7 6 6 6 7

5 6 5 4 3 5 5 5

7 7 6 6 5 5

5 5 6 6 5 5 4 4

5 5 6 8 7 7

5 5 6 6 5 5 6 6

7 7 6 7 6 6

7 8 7 7 6 6 5 5

6 7 6 7 6 6

I still have a big problem playing the chords with my left hand as I need to move the fingers on my left hand independently of what the fingers on my right hand are doing and somehow both hands always insist on doing everything in unison. Having a split personality would probably help! (but I'm in two minds about it)

In Memoriam

25 years ago to this day my father passed away. I lived and worked in Athens in Greece at the time and had visited him in Germany five months earlier. I had spent a week at his bedside and while we were never very close and found few words even on that occasion, I like to think that my visit had meant something to him. Far too soon, on the 31st of January 1984, he passed away and I flew back one last time to Braunschweig to attend his funeral.

Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn's rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

Rest in peace, Vati! Your picture is on my mantelpiece and I look at it often and wonder why we had so little to say to each other when in fact we were so much alike.