Concertinas And The Sea

[Lester Bailey]

On the BBC today there was an interesting 10 minutes from John Kirkpatrick on concertinas and the sea. Can be listened to Here, about the last 10 mins of the programme.

[spindizzy]

On the BBC today there was an interesting 10 minutes from John Kirkpatrick on concertinas and the sea. Can be listened to Here, about the last 10 mins of the programme.

 

Excellent - thanks for the tip off (In fact a lot of the rest of the program was interesting too :-)

 

Chris

[Animaterra]

Wonderful!

[yankeeclipper]

Fascinating discussion! It knocked down some favorite romantic myths, of course. A few weeks ago on this forum, I questioned the appearance of an English concertina in an "1840" American pub scene in the film Moby Dick, because I doubted such an early (pre-1844 patent) example would have made it across the Pond in the hands of an impoverished old mariner. It never occurred to me that the squeezebox might have been flat-out unsuitable for the sea!

 

But is Kirkpatrick right? Certainly the small size of the instrument would make it attractive for traveling folks. And I've been told that it was popular in the army for that reason. Matter of fact, in 1982 I found my own concertina on a shelf amongst rusty swords and dusty helmets in a militaria antique shop in Glasgow. The shopkeeper said it came in with a consignment of odds 'n ends from the heirs of an old soldier.

 

Weaving the romance of faraway places and days of the Raj, the crafty salesman extolled the old concertina's history. He was anxious to sell it - he said - and offered me a 'bargain' only because he didn't normally handle musical instruments (although he claimed concertinas occasionally turned up among soldiers' estates). I knew nothing about concertinas, had never so much as touched one before, but all of the buttons seemed to work and the little instrument was appealing, so against my wife's better judgment I agreed to his price.

 

That's how I got 'stuck' with a 1915 metal ended Wheatstone English treble, in very good condition - for £100!

Edited May 30, 2007 by yankeeclipper

[Stephen Chambers]

Fascinating discussion! It knocked down some favorite romantic myths, of course.

We've had a few "fascinating discussions" of the topic and "knocked down some favorite romantic myths" on C.net too. For example you should check out the old threads Concertinas and Sea Music, Concertinas aboard sailing ships and Young Sailor Ready to Play.

 

Edited to correct links.

Edited June 11, 2007 by Stephen Chambers

[Dan Worrall]

Fascinating discussion! It knocked down some favorite romantic myths, of course. But is Kirkpatrick right?

 

Well, not really...if you mean his statement that the concertina was not played at sea.

 

But he was right on some things, of course. There has been a tremendous effect of the A L Lloyd/ Alf Edwards recordings of the folk revival...which made lots of people think that the concertina was an integral part of nautical music, including shanties and the like. Anyone following the folk revival in general, and the concertina revivasl in particular over the past three decades can see that the current image of the maritime concertina is a bit of revisionist hype, and JK was right to point that out.

 

But to go from there to a sweeping statement that its use at sea was a complete myth, largely because it was 'too expensive' to subject to such corrosive conditions, is not correct. With only a little scratching, I found documents of several instances of shipborne concertinas in the late 19th century (see http://www.concertina.com/worrall/anglo-in-united-states/ for details):

1862: Confederate navy sailors from the raider Alabama play one in Liverpool harbor

1862: emigrants on board Manchester report "concertinas in full blast", though the emigrants may have been doing the playing

1878: sailors in their forecastle quarters of the English ship City of Chester play concertina and dance a jig

1880: crew of the City of Brussels play concertina and banjo for passengers

1891: bargemen in NY harbor playing concertina instead of working, causing accident

1898: sailors of US Man o' War playing concertina

1902: sailors on US Naval training vessel play concertina

 

These were found in a scan of digital American newspapers; a trawl through digital English papers might find more. There were clearly sailors playing concertinas on board ships. There needs to be a bit more work on documentation before assumptions become stated fact; we tend to throw out the baby (concertina playing at sea) with the bathwater (its nautical use has been overhyped as a result of the 1970s folk revival). Its 19th century use is well out of living memory, so we must resort to sporadic and scant written accounts for information...just as we do for its 19th century use in the Morris, for example (see Chandler's book for his thoughts on that).

 

As for being 'too expensive' to risk taking to sea, that too misses the mark. Because serious players today get an expensive high end or hybrid instrument, we assume that is what was mostly played then. The bulk of evidence is that the backbone of the concertina trade (in sheer numbers) was the German and Anglo-German concertina....in the US, in Ireland, and even in England. A 1907 interview with an Englishwoman named Hawkes, a high class type who played the EC, derided the "cheap German atrocities with which Bank Holidays make us all too familiar"...and remember that the boy playing for the London ferryboats in 1856 played a succession of expendable German made concertinas (PICA vol 1). Given that sailors were poorly paid on the whole, those who did own a concertina would have played on of these....hence there was no impediment in price nor particular concern about corrosion to using them at sea; the German concertinas were by their nature expendable.

 

Finally, check out the sailors on board the HMS Endurance, Shackleton's ship en route to Antarctica, with their concertina (picture taken from The Concertina Library). This has surfaced earlier, in the threads Stephen mentions.

Cheers,

Dan

 

[David Barnert]

On the BBC today there was an interesting 10 minutes from John Kirkpatrick on concertinas and the sea. Can be listened to Here, about the last 10 mins of the programme.

Just heard it, and really enjoyed it. If anyone's still trying to find it, I'd add that it runs from index times 17:00 to 23:00 at the above sound link.

[geoffwright]

Not wishing to shoot the argument down "in flames". but I noticed on a trip around the "Cutty Sark" and the Greenwich Maritine Museum that not one concertina was in evidence in photos.

 

My grandfather was born on a barge with 12 brothers but had room to play piano accordion rather than concertina. Funnily enough, he lived in Mexborough and took me in the Concertina Club on a weekend from me being a toddler (early 1950s), I saw brass bands in there, but never a concertina band.

[Stephen Chambers]

With only a little scratching, I found documents of several instances of shipborne concertinas in the late 19th century... :

1862: Confederate navy sailors from the raider Alabama play one in Liverpool harbor

1862: emigrants on board Manchester report "concertinas in full blast", though the emigrants may have been doing the playing

1878: sailors in their forecastle quarters of the English ship City of Chester play concertina and dance a jig

1880: crew of the City of Brussels play concertina and banjo for passengers

1891: bargemen in NY harbor playing concertina instead of working, causing accident

1898: sailors of US Man o' War playing concertina

1902: sailors on US Naval training vessel play concertina

Dan,

 

But I find it interesting that of your seven examples, three are of navy sailors, one of bargemen and one of emigrant passengers, leaving only the City of Chester and City of Brussels to represent the use of the concertina by merchant sailors, and the latter example (at least) was for the entertainment of passengers. None are of whalers or Cape-Horner men playing in the foc'sle as we have been led to expect by popular legend.

 

The bulk of evidence is that the backbone of the concertina trade (in sheer numbers) was the German and Anglo-German concertina....in the US, in Ireland, and even in England. A 1907 interview with an Englishwoman named Hawkes, a high class type who played the EC, derided the "cheap German atrocities with which Bank Holidays make us all too familiar"...

Christina Hawkes' comment should probably be considered not simply as snobbishness, but in the context of other contemporary evidence:

 

By the 1880s the image of the (English) concertina as a "serious" instrument had been badly tarnished by association with the cheap German instrument and rowdy players of it. In 1889 George Bernard Shaw in praising the English concertina, wrote that it was not to be confused with "the Teutonic instrument of the midnight Mohawk" (notice the fleeing cat and watching policeman in the background of the picture of a trio of "midnight Mohawks" below):

 

 

By the 1890s the reputation of the concertina had fallen so low that the subject of calling the English instrument something other than "concertina" was being seriously discussed by teachers and manufacturers (and hence the introduction of new "artistic" models called not "concertina" but Æola and Edeophone). The image of the German concertina "disturbing the peace" in that era could perhaps be compared to the "ghetto blaster" of more recent times, as witnessed by these (and other) turn-of-the-century postcards from my collection:

 

 

And note the association with the consumption of Bass' beer in both these pictures! (Nothing new there then... )

 

Whereas the next one is less specific about the alcohol imbibed (but probably the demon gin):

 

Edited May 31, 2007 by Stephen Chambers

[Robin Harrison]

What about his comment that Wheatstone invented the concertina ? Was that completely accurate? I thought he invented the English concertina and the type of concertina probably played on any ship,barge etc. would be an anglo ( or German concertina ) ?

Robin

[JimLucas]

Not wishing to shoot the argument down "in flames". but I noticed on a trip around the "Cutty Sark" and the Greenwich Maritine Museum that not one concertina was in evidence in photos.

Shoot down the argument? How?

(And for that matter, which argument? The claim that concertinas were not found/used at sea, or the argument in this thread that they were?)

 

How many other instruments were in evidence in those photos?

E.g., how many fiddles, banjos, and melodeons?

Do you think what are found in those photos are the only ones that ever went to sea, or even necessarily represent the actual relative frequencies across the whole naval/maritime spectrum?

 

To reiterate one of the fundaments of logic, known at least from the time of Aristotle:

Absence of proof is

not

proof of absence.

On the other hand, the HMS Endurance photo seems proof positive that however rare they might have been, concertinas -- even relatively expensive ones like the Edeophone in the photo -- were not entirely absent among sailors.

[JimLucas]

Just heard it, and really enjoyed it. If anyone's still trying to find it, I'd add that it runs from index times 17:00 to 23:00 at the above sound link.

"Index times"? I don't see any "index times" on my screen.

I see buttons which presumably (I haven't yet tried them, as I'm currently listening) will increment or decrement the listening point by either one minute or 15, but I see nothing to indicate where in the timestream I'm actually listening.

 

Could this be a function of my browser?

[yankeeclipper]

Jim: Just below the ">> 1 min." button on my browser, there is a small running time indicator. I punch the button to get to "18:16:48" where the excerpt begins.

[David Barnert]

"Index times"? I don't see any "index times" on my screen.

I see buttons which presumably (I haven't yet tried them, as I'm currently listening) will increment or decrement the listening point by either one minute or 15, but I see nothing to indicate where in the timestream I'm actually listening.

 

Could this be a function of my browser?

More likely a function of what helper program your browser is using to play back the audio. I use realplayer and this is what I see in the top left corner of the screen when I click the link in the first post above:

 

 

(Except substitute "Loading 0%" for "Paused')

 

Sliding the lefthand open circle along the long linear track causes the "0:00" to increase to any desired time stamp up to the length of the program, 28:59. I apologize for assuming everybody had the same interface.

[JimLucas]

What about his comment that Wheatstone invented the concertina ? Was that completely accurate?

Accurate, but not complete.

 

I thought he invented the English concertina and the type of concertina probably played on any ship,barge etc. would be an anglo ( or German concertina ) ?

I think that's closer to the "complete" truth.

 

It's been suggested time and again that the anglo derived from English concertina makers (George Jones, in particular?) attempting to capitalize on the already existing popularity of the German instrument. And the oft suggested source of both German "concertinas" and their popularity in England is sailors, of which there must have been a great many (hundreds? thousands?) supporting the commerce between Britain and the European continent. Fishermen, too. A Scottish friend here in Denmark tells me that the Danish and Scottish fishermen on the North Sea spend so much time in each others' ports that the coastal dialects in Eastern Scotland and Western Jutland are essentially the same. The distance between England and Germany (direct, or via Belgium or Holland) ranges from somewhat less to somewhat more.

 

Interestingly enough, I don't recall hearing any competing theories regarding the appearance and popularity of German concertinas in England. Perhaps because there are no "reasonable" alternatives?

 

Note that in the days of sail a Cape Horn or whaling voyage might last months or even years and an Atlantic crossing at least a week or two, but I'm pretty sure that there were far more ships/boats and sailors involved in local shipping and fishing than in the military and merchant navies on the high seas.

[Alan Day]

It was said to me in the past that sailors did play the concertina at sea, but they were so inexpensive that if they had a problem with a reed etc it was thrown overboard.By a strange coincidence I was clearing out my loft and came across an old battered encyclopedia, on looking up concertina the picture was an Anglo and the description was English Concertina ,but it did say that "The Concertina has lost it's popularity and has been given a bad name due to the influx of cheap German Imports,but good quality concertinas have quite a sweet tone". I wonder if many sailors woke up to find that their concertina was lost overboard.

Thanks to all for the initial link ,some lovely pictures and a very interesting discussion.

Al

[JimLucas]

Jim: Just below the ">> 1 min." button on my browser, there is a small running time indicator. I punch the button to get to "18:16:48" where the excerpt begins.

"Index times"? I don't see any "index times" on my screen.

...

Could this be a function of my browser?

More likely a function of what helper program your browser is using to play back the audio. I use realplayer and this is what I see in the top left corner of the screen when I click the link in the first post above:

(Except substitute "Loading 0%" for "Paused')

 

Sliding the lefthand open circle along the long linear track causes the "0:00" to increase to any desired time stamp up to the length of the program, 28:59. I apologize for assuming everybody had the same interface.

Hmm. I also have RealPlayer as my default for playing audio, but here is what I see while the audio is playing:

Note that the arrow button to start playing is still displayed, not the pause button. And I have now discovered that the buttons are non-functional. If I click on any of them, nothing happens.

 

If I can find time later, I think I might try to research this. For now, though, I've already listened through to the end, so I'll spend my time on other things.

[Dan Worrall]

Dan,

 

But I find it interesting that of your seven examples, three are of navy sailors, one of bargemen and one of emigrant passengers, leaving only the City of Chester and City of Brussels to represent the use of the concertina by merchant sailors, and the latter example (at least) was for the entertainment of passengers. None are of whalers or Cape-Horner men playing in the foc'sle as we have been led to expect by popular legend.

 

Christina Hawkes' comment should probably be considered not simply as snobbishness, but in the context of other contemporary evidence:

 

Stephen,

The radio piece was not nearly so specific; it led with a quote from a fellow named Keith who said something to the effect that it was a myth "that sailors ever used it", to which JK responded, 'Spot on". Most working men at sea, be they in the navy, on a merchant boat, or a passenger boat, are called sailors. All my illustrations are hence valid, in my opinion.

 

But then, let's go for the gusto. How about a concertina on a bonafide English sailing ship, from the great age of sail, sailing near Cape Horn? Would that work?

 

W.P. Snow wrote of a trip to Tierra Del Fuego aboard an 88 ton English schooner, leaving England 1854, and arriving at Tierra del Fuego, an island at at the southern tip of South America, in 1855. A picture of it is below, as well as a link to Snow's later account (written in 1861 or so). It had a crew of eleven on what was a voyage of exploration. As they met with the Fuegian natives, "They did not like a looking-glass when shown to them, but the music of a concertina delighted them exceedingly."

So...gen-yew-ine sailing ship near Cape Horn with a playable concertina in 1855, having survived an ocean voyage of many months without rotting completely (the concertina, I mean). I believe the tennis term is 'game, set, match'!

 

Here is another sighting, on another English sailing ship named the Suffolk, as reported in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle of January 5, 1879. The Suffolk was sailing home to London from Melbourne with a load of passengers.

"The crew had formed a band of minstrels, and they often beguiled away many hours on board. One seaman had made a tambourine from a sheepskin given by the ship’s butcher; another had an old concertina, another the bones and a triangle. Sailors like they at once consented to take part with their negro dances. So I christened them the Ocean Christy Minstrels."

 

This little description is full of other interesting information. Stan Hugill, the acknowledged leading expert on shanties in the age of working sail, put together a lot of documentation in his book that many shanties had African-American origins, and that the the shanty repertoire is full of tunes that began in minstrelsy. In my article on American anglo playing, I included several examples of minstrel groups using the concertina; this one is a two-fer...sailors doing minstrel songs with a concertina at sea.

 

And another sighting, this time an American Man o' War, from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle of 18 1898, article entitled Jack Tar’s Christmas Dinner (about Christmas on American warships in foreign ports):

"Sometimes on ships having large crews, there is enough talent among the sailors to provide a very good theatrical entertainment….Soloists on the violin, cornet, and concertina are always to be found on the programme…."

 

About the kindly Miss Hawkes, my point was not her snobbishness, but the fact that her comment helps establish just how common the German instruments were in England at the time, which I think you agree with. Thanks for the postcards...they are wonderful!

 

But back to JK and the common and erroneous 'new history' contention that sailors never played concertinas. The problem here is that many if not most of us who learned to play during the concertina revival never knew an older generation of players. The mid 19th century heyday of concertina playing, and as well the heyday of the sailing ships, were both long out of living memory when the revival began in the 1970s. Because few to no sailors (or anyone else, for that matter) played concertinas in the years just before A L Lloyd and ALf Edwards started to record, it was erroneously assumed by 'experts' that sailors NEVER played them, when in reality there were just no players still alive from the mid-nineteenth century to speak up...and few pre-revival players in general to remember the generations that had preceded themselves. If one starts to look carefully through newspaper accounts and diaries, however, a clearer picture emerges. Yes, certainly sailors played them, and they may even have been common. Rather than there being a distinct 'nautical' style on them, however, it would seem that they played the same sort of popular music they heard on shore...but then perhaps adapted it to their own context (like the minstrel music)...we'll likely never know the details.

 

Cheers,

Dan

 

ps here is the link to Snow's article on sailing to Terra del Fuego:

http://books.google.com/books?id=CRUwAAAAM...JAEt4#PPA160,M1

Edited May 31, 2007 by Dan Worrall