For an overview of all my sites see eltjo.org - Welcome to Eltjo's WWW Sites.

MP3s of a lot of music are in preparation. Please check in also later.

Te Koop: "Muzikantvriendelijk" Huis in MONNICKENDAM
Te Koop: Overtollige Spullen in MONNICKENDAM
Ads by Eltjo.org

Short Info about Eltjo.

Musical Interests:

Traditional Celtic (Irish, Scottish, English and Breton) music and dance, Celtic Prebarock (like O'Carolan), and related music and dance, like traditional English, Grunnegs, Dutch, North American and French; both active as hobby and passive.

Passive also: Blues Rock (like Jimi Hendrix, Gary Moore, Highway Chile), Barock (like Bach, Vivaldi), Experimental/Avangarde Rock (like Amon Düül and Surahoolies), Symphonic Rock (like Pink Floyd), Folk Rock (like Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span), Contemporary (Symphonic) Celtic (like Enya and Loreena McKennitt), Semi-Acoustic Folky Rock (like Jefferson Airplane and Bob Dylan & The Band), Melodic Acoustic Singer/songwriter (like Bob Dylan, Armand, Gerard van Maasakkers, Leonard Cohen, Iris Dement and Elly & Rikkert), Neo-Celtic Barock and eclectic music (like Lisa Gerrard and Patrick Cassidy), Symphonic Gothic Metal Rock (like Within Temptation and Evanescence) and more.

I also listen to Hemi-Sync (is not real music, but stereo sound) as help for falling asleep and astral traveling.

Most Important Influences:

Bob Cann (melodeon, England), Frans Tromp (melodeon, Nederland), Jacky Daly, Johnny O'Leary (melodeon, Ireland), (these melodeon players also for my acordion playing), Josie McDermott, Michael Turbridy (whistle, Ireland) and a lot of fiddle players (I do not play fiddle) like Jimmy Power (Ireland/England), Michael Coleman (Ireland/USA), Egon Kraak, Geert Titsing (Nederland).

Instruments:

Piano accordion, melodeon, whistle, harmonica and mandolin.

Played in the following bands:

"Stendelaar." (1981-1987), "Buskers" (1991-1994), "Shannon" (1995-1998), "Binneas." (2005-2006), "Cathair na Mart" (Westport)(2006-2007).

Plays in:

Sessions.

Origin:

Finsterwolde in province of Groningen, Nederland.

Languages:

Grunnegs (regional language of the province of Groningen, which is very much related to Ostfriesisch in Germany), Dutch, English and German.

Contact info:

Eltjo Toorn
Monnickendam
Nederland
tel.:(+31)/(0)299-651037
E-mail: eltjo@dds.nl (please no unwanted unsolicited commercial e-mail and no mails larger than 100 kbytes without consent (I have an ADSL-connection to the Internet now, but there is no need for a simple email being larger than 100 kbytes).
WWW: http://eltjo.org

STENDELAAR, ©1985 (music cassette tape).

Eltjo plays only piano accordion.
See also the Stendelaar homepage.
See also stendmc.txt for listing.
Side A: Home recordings 1985-03-24, Amsterdam, Nederland with Egon Kraak, Eltjo Toorn, Jos Hindriks and Patti Vaz Dias.
Side B: Stendelaar Live in 't Geveltje, Amsterdam, Nederland, 1984-03-17, St.Patrick's Day Celebration with Egon Kraak, Eltjo Toorn, Jos Hindriks, Peter Broekman and Roel Boumans.

BUSKERS - Kilshannig (CD, BUFO 1001, 1993).

Eltjo plays piano accordion on tracks 3, 11 and 13,
single row melodeon on track 5,
tin whistle on tracks 2 and 9 and
mandolin on tracks 6, 7 and 10.
See also the Buskers homepage.
See also buskcd.txt for listing.
The CD was made end 1992 and begin 1993 and it was named "Kilshannig" after the village in Ireland, where the musicians of the band spent their holiday in the summer of 1992.
For more information and WMAs, see the WWWsite of Kilshannig: BUSKERS "Kilshannig" (the complete CD can be downloaded in WMA!!).

SHANNON - Alive Demo, ©1995 (music cassette tape).

Eltjo plays piano accordion on tracks A1, A2, A5, A6, B1 and B3,
single row melodeon on tracks B5 and B7 and
tin whistle on tracks A3 and A7.
See also shanmc.txt for listing.
Home recordings in Zaandam, 1995-09-08.
Recordings of concert in N.H. Kerk, West-Graftdijk, 1995-11-12.
Recordings of concert in N.H. Kerk, Heerhugowaard, 1995-12-15.
With: Hans den Bezemer, Steve Bradshaw, Trix Hamming, Ton van den Heuvel, Peter Rechsteiner and Eltjo Toorn.

SHANNON - Demo, Live at Radio Heemskerk, 1998-04-19 (music cassette tape).

See shanmc2.txt for listing.
Eltjo plays piano accordion on tracks 1 to 4+6+7 and
A-tin whistle on track 5.

Guest musician on UNDER MILK WOOD - Making Tracks (CD, Tardis Music 001/99, 1999).

Eltjo plays piano accordion on tracks 1 and 16 recorded on 1998-05-22.

Piano Accordion:

R.I.P. 2002-12-26, Reanimated 2009-01-18 "Weltmeister Stella", adapted by myself for playing Celtic music
Melody side:
26 keys and 3 stops (standard pitch, little bit higher causing tremolo and octave lower, with 5 possible choices).
Bass side:
48 bass buttons and 4 stops (fixed).
3 x 8 basses: normal (4 stops or 2 low stops or 2 high stops), third higher (4 stops or 2 low stops) and normal (2 high stops). I made modifications in the mechanism.
3 x 8 chords: major, minor and modal (2 stops). I made modifications in the mechanism.
The basses are Bflat, F, C, G, D, A, E, B.
The G normal 4 stop bass button had a dimple (instead of the C on most accordions).
I made this bass sequence by moving all the 4x12 reed plates 1 position.
So under the C button is now the G, under the Em button is now the Bm, etc.
Together with the repair of 2009-01-18 I moved the button with the dimple to the real C, because I was used again to the C-button with a dimple after playing on the "Unisella" more than 6 years.
See also about fingering technique.

Piano Accordion:

"Weltmeister Unisella"
Melody side:
34 keys and 2 stops (standard pitch, little bit higher causing tremolo, fixed).
Bass side:
80 bass buttons and 4 stops (fixed).
2 x 16 basses: normal (4 stops) and third higher (4 stops).
3 x 16 chords: major, minor and major septime (2 stops).
The Amajor and Emajor are changed into Amodal and E modal (modal = do+so).
The C normal 4 stop bass button has a dimple (like on most accordions).

I followed a workshop by Gerry Murray in De Glind in Februari 2003 in "Het Ierse Weekend" of Stichting Volksmuziek Nederland.
He is a great Irish accordion player from Belgium. He plays in Shantalla.
It appeared, that I teached myself a complete different fingering technique of the right hand than he has.
Adding his technique to mine makes playing tunes possible, that seemed to be impossible previously.
But I need a lot more practising to implement that technique based on piano playing with crossing-over with the 2nd and 3th finger going down and crossing-under with the thumb going up the scale also within musical phrases.
I teached myself jumping between the phrases and crossing-over with the 3th and 4th finger going up and crossing-under with the 4th finger going down the scale. This is difficult on the piano, but possible on a piano accordion due to the vertical keyboard. I do not play piano or keyboard and when I try it, I get pain in my wrist. I also use the weak 4th and 5th fingers a lot, which is very handy for playing the melodeon, while he avoids this by crossing. I very often hit a black key with the thumb, while he tells, that you must avoid that. I avoid hitting a black key with the 5th finger.

Single-Row Melodeon:

"Hohner"
Tuning: G
Melody side:
10 buttons, 2 octaves + a little more,
4 stops (standard pitch with the 440Hz A under button 7, little bit higher causing tremolo, octave higher (piccolo) and octave lower, with all possible choices).
Bass side:
2 spoon valves with 2 basses (G and D) and 2 chords (G and D).
I usually played in the higher octave, but later I learned to play in the lower octave too.
The problem is, that the lowest A on the E-string of the fiddle is missing.
If I play in the lower octave, then the lowest E on the D-string of the fiddle is missing.
Tunes in D-major, transposed to G-major, give no technical problems, but I am still not used to the fact, that the upper octave differs from the lower octave (I am more used to the upper octave). This is caused by the fact, that the number of notes in an octave is odd (7).
Perhaps it is a good idea to build a melodeon with 8 notes in an octave:
so for instance a D melodeon with extra C-naturals.
I am interested in the ideas of other people about this subject.
I discussed it with Marcel of Rapalje and he modified a single row melodeon in such a way.

Double-Row Melodeon:

"Castagnari Lily"
Tuning: D/G
Melody side:
10 buttons on G row and 11 buttons on D row, 2 octaves + a little more,
1 stop (standard pitch with the 440Hz A under button 3, so the same as the piccolo of the Hohner).
Bass side: 4 bass buttons and 4 chord buttons (I "taped" the C# in the A-major chord and the D# in the B-major Chord).
On this instrument the lowest A on the E-string of the fiddle can be found on the D row.
I now learned to play in the lower octave on the G row by using the low E from the D row. That is less difficult than in the high octave with using the upper A and the sound is better in the lower octave because of the piccolo tuning.
I play in a one-row-melodeon style, but I discovered that it is sometimes handy to use the other row too (especially for repeated drone-like notes like the B in part A of The Glass of Beer) and for triplets in hornpipes.

Whistles:

Tunings:
D low, "KWL Chieftain", aluminium.
E low, "Chieftain", aluminium (not in picture).
G low, "Chieftain", aluminium.
A 440 Hz, "Shaw", special silver/steel alloy.
Bflat, "Generation".
C, "Generation".
D, "Feadóg".
D, "Aura/Generation" self-made (modified) block whistle (head of recorder on tin whistle tube.
Eflat, "Generation".
F, "Generation".
I am not able to play on a high G whistle, because my fingers are too thick.

Mandolin:

"Unknown", old flatback model, bought 1980 on Waterloo Plein flea market.
Afterwards it appeared I bought it from Søren, who has now a shop on the Amstel, opposite my favourite pub Mulligans in Amsterdam.
Tuning:
Standard G/D/A440Hz/E.

Tip!!:

It is possible to play with a slower tremolo on a melodeon or accordion (without tuning your instrument) if you open the slightly higher stop only half. This gives a sharper tone than only with one stop.
On an accordion this can be done by first pressing the single standard pitch button and then pressing the tremolo button slightly.

Törf / folkmusic from the Netherlands.

This group sings in the regional language of the province of Groningen (my native language).