I've discovered an alternate way .

Marakanetz & Frogman: I was kidding in regard to my comments. The joke (to me anyway) stems from a poster that was taped to the refrigerator @ Rudy Studios (owned by Graham Nash) which I frequented during the late 70's as I had access to it through a friend when they were in down time. The poster portrayed an accordion surrounded by a large circle with a line across it and read "Play an accordion, go to jail." I spent my youth accompanying popular music on the piano, clarinet and guitar and even attempted a professional musical career for some 15 years, off and on. The main problem with this being my lack of talent along with a later accident which damaged my left hand. When cassette players/recorder came about (mid 60's?) I received one from my grandfather, as a gift, which also had a radio, a mic input and a speaker self contained in the unit. I used to record a piece of music from the radio, calibrate the tempo to a metronome (from our piano), cover the erase head with thin plastic and then multi track my own playing on top of the recorded music. I had no way to "monitor" the original music on the tape as I was recording (due to the basic design of the player/recorder) which is why I had to cue the tape and sync it to the metronome (which was my only clue as to what I was accompanying). I later on made many (more sophisticated) recordings of the bands that I played with over the years as we could not always afford studio time. So, yes, I do understand the joy level of what you are now doing. Am I "down" on the accordion as an instrument? Well, no, as some of our favorite music is of Basque, French cabaret and Italian folk origin in which the accordion (or one its predecessors) plays a major role. Have fun while you can (even if others may feel that you are making a fool out of yourself:-) as when you get older this type of behavior will hardly bat an eyelash. On a side note here is a rather melancholy tale of how music (or the playing of it) can effect us. In 1993 I was very disgruntled following the death of my 18 year old Tom Cat (a 23 LB part Maine Coon cat by the name of Pete who had shared much of my bachelor life with me). My wife and myself were at the Long Beach, CA flea market early one Sunday morning and without any forethought I picked up a vintage hollow body guitar from a vendors wares and proceeded to sing and play "Woolly Bully" to my wife. Those familiar with the history of this song will understand it's relevance. I had not played, let alone performed on an instrument, since my late 20's and this one act alone set me free in a way that I was much better able to cope with the passing of my dear pet and companion of many years. My wife and myself both embraced and cried for many minutes following this action. The onlookers on the other hand were totally confused by this ritual. Music, other than reaching the masses, can also be a very personal thing.

dekay: what a great story. and what a great feeling that comes to me from seeing your humor and insights here again. we've missed you. as they say in iowa, please don't be a stranger. -kelly

Amen to that, cfb. Hope to hear more from you soon, DK.