Linota Anglo Wheadstone

[Jaco]

I have a linota anglo wheadstone a very wrere one what doe jou think ots worth

Edited December 28, 2016 by Jaco

[cryptastix]

I count 15 reeds, so its a 30 button?

 

also google has a fantastic language translation, it has helped me in the past

[Jaco]

Yes it is a 30 button .alen green (konsertiena builder) changed the c/g toe a c ,its sound quality is amazing yet still original reeds

Edited December 28, 2016 by Jaco

[Stephen Chambers]

I replied to your personal message first when I logged in Jaco, to tell you that:

 

 

Linota isn't any particular model of Wheatstone, it's simply the brand name that Wheatstone's used for their Anglo range from the early 1900s (when they first started to build Anglos) up until World War 2. It could be anything from a cheap 20-key with mahogany ends and bone buttons, up to a 40-key (or more) Aeola, and it would still be a Linota.

 

But, whatever it is, it should still be a decent instrument - as long as it hasn't been messed about with too much.

 

And now I see you've started a thread about it anyway, and that it is a cheap model, with mahogany (probably plywood?) ends and plastic buttons, made in 1938 or 1939 when Wheatstone's were still at West Street, Charing Cross.

 

It should still sound well though, and be much better than post-war models that were exported to South Africa - but it already incorporates the "hook action" levers that Wheatstone's inherited from Lachenal in the mid-1930s, instead of the much-superior "riveted action" that earlier versions would have had

.

Yes it is a 30 button .alen green (konsertiena builder) changed the c/g toe a c ...

 

I'm puzzled by this and not at all sure what you mean. In an Irish music context a concertina in C is a Bb/F, but converting a C/G to Bb/F would not be a wise move, especially if you want to sell it...

[Gan Ainm]

In an Irish music context a concertina in C is a Bb/F

 

Not necessarily the case. Some of us still play Irish music in the old style, "on the row", like Kitty Hayes, Ella Mae O'Dwyer and lots of the previous generation of players did. When we say C, we mean C. I understand from Dan Worrall that this style of playing is also popular in South Africa, so it might be that the OP actually meant C, as in C/G or F/C.

 

Pat

[ben]

Jaco...I will send you a private message.

 

Note: I speak/write Afrikaans so I will try to find out more from Jaco as to the pitch/keys the concertina is tuned to.

Edited December 29, 2016 by Ben

[Stephen Chambers]

In an Irish music context a concertina in C is a Bb/F

 

Not necessarily the case. Some of us still play Irish music in the old style, "on the row", like Kitty Hayes, Ella Mae O'Dwyer and lots of the previous generation of players did. When we say C, we mean C. I understand from Dan Worrall that this style of playing is also popular in South Africa, so it might be that the OP actually meant C, as in C/G or F/C.

 

Indeed I met both of those delightful ladies Pat, both Kitty Hayes and Ella Mae O'Dwyer, and in their younger days virtually the only concertinas you could get in Ireland were the old 20-key German ones. But you couldn't rely on them being in C/G and had to take "pot luck" with whatever key the shop had in stock - so much so that Mícheál Ó Raghallaigh reckons he can tell what key Mrs. Crotty's ones must have been in at the time she learned various of her tunes...

 

But I can confirm that Ella Mae O'Dwyer's last (3-voice) German concertina is a C/G because I gave it a "check up" a couple of years ago, and I still have the tuning chart for it. Only that instrument became redundant many years ago when her daughter bought two concertinas from me, a Jeffries and a Lachenal, for her mother and herself.

 

It's unusual for West Clare that Kitty Hayes played in C though, because I know (from some of them) that Stack Ryan (the man in Cree who taught many of the old players) taught his pupils to play almost exclusively on the G row (to be able to play with other instruments "in concert pitch") ...

 

But it's not unusual for "cross-row" players of the button box or concertina to describe an instrument in terms of the man across-the-rows key, and not just in Irish music, and hence my point was to enquire if there was some similar convention in Boer music, since Jaco's words were "... alen green (konsertiena builder) changed the c/g toe a c ...", and I'm very puzzled (as a tuner) how somebody can change C/G to a C ?

 

By the way, I'd similarly play my D/D# Paolo in D or Eb, whilst Finbar Dwyer did amazing things playing one in F...

[Jaco]

Sorry guys ,what I meant with the notes , if I play my konsertiena alone with no backtrack it sounds fine but when it's with a backtrack it sounds false so toe play with the konsertiena as the pitch was the instruments should be tuned differently four the konsertiena so mr alen changed the over all pitch so if I play with a band now it's vine .sorry Stephen chambers im knew to the group and I didend See your personal message

[ben]

I have corresponded with Jaco and confirms that his concertina is tuned to the standard C/G keys.

 

Jaco is selling the concertina to me..once I have it in my possession I will be able to analyze it better.

Edited December 29, 2016 by Ben

[Gan Ainm]

We're gone a bit off topic here, but I think I know why Kitty Hayes played in C. I sat with her in her kitchen and played for hours on two Stagi G/D concertinas, which is what she played from the time she returned to music until she made the CD. When the idea of her making a CD was mooted, someone advised her to dump the Stagi and buy a "standard" C/G anglo. I, for one, would have much preferred if she had been recorded her on her beloved Stagi octave box, to which she had a strong emotional attachment, because of who purchased it for her. When she switched to the C/G, she continued playing up and down the row, the same way she had always done, so it came out in C. I think it was a missed opportunity to record one of the last remaining old-style players on an octave box.

 

I'm aware of the C/G octave box that was circulated among six Clare women to make the "Tripping to the Well" CD and I also held it in my hands. But, I am somewhat surprised that it's in C/G - all of the recordings that I have been able to find of Ella Mae O'Dwyer are in F, played on the outside row of an F/C box, a photograph of which I have framed in front of my desk, having got it from Neil Wayne some years ago. If anyone has a recording of Ella Mae O'Dwyer playing in G, I'd love to get it.

 

> But you couldn't rely on them being in C/G and had to take "pot luck":

If you wanted to play up and down the row in D & G, you needed a G/D, but the pot luck element remains.

 

By the way, in the meantime, I also ditched the Stagi and I now play up and down the row on a custom-built three row octave box in D/G/F. The F row is so that I can play along with Ella Mae O'Dwyer in the key she recorded in - I'm a big fan!

 

Pat

 

 

 

Indeed I met both of those delightful ladies Pat, both Kitty Hayes and Ella Mae O'Dwyer, and in their younger days virtually the only concertinas you could get in Ireland were the old 20-key German ones. But you couldn't rely on them being in C/G and had to take "pot luck" with whatever key the shop had in stock - so much so that Mícheál Ó Raghallaigh reckons he can tell what key Mrs. Crotty's ones must have been in at the time she learned various of her tunes...

 

But I can confirm that Ella Mae O'Dwyer's last (3-voice) German concertina is a C/G because I gave it a "check up" a couple of years ago, and I still have the tuning chart for it. Only that instrument became redundant many years ago when her daughter bought two concertinas from me, a Jeffries and a Lachenal, for her mother and herself.

 

It's unusual for West Clare that Kitty Hayes played in C though, because I know (from some of them) that Stack Ryan (the man in Cree who taught many of the old players) taught his pupils to play almost exclusively on the G row (to be able to play with other instruments "in concert pitch") ...

 

But it's not unusual for "cross-row" players of the button box or concertina to describe an instrument in terms of the man across-the-rows key, and not just in Irish music, and hence my point was to enquire if there was some similar convention in Boer music, since Jaco's words were "... alen green (konsertiena builder) changed the c/g toe a c ...", and I'm very puzzled (as a tuner) how somebody can change C/G to a C ?

 

By the way, I'd similarly play my D/D# Paolo in D or Eb, whilst Finbar Dwyer did amazing things playing one in F...