27 replies to this topic

[David Barnert]

(on the subject of banjos)

...clawhammer pickers...

Isn't that an oxymoron?

I mostly like to play classical guitar, so I think I could play some of those tunes I already know on an English concertina...

If you haven't yet seen this video, I think you'll enjoy it. It is (the late) John Nixon playing classical guitar music on a MIDI english concertina set to sound like a classical guitar.

[halimium]

It looks like a Jedcertina - laid out like a piano - don't think they ever came to much
have a look at www.concertinamuseum.com/CM00308b.htm for a bit more info
chris

Yes I managed to find out what it was, before I was tempted to buy it.

£170 spent and I think I would have been disappointed in it within a short while.

[halimium]

(on the subject of banjos)

...clawhammer pickers...

Isn't that an oxymoron?

I mostly like to play classical guitar, so I think I could play some of those tunes I already know on an English concertina...

If you haven't yet seen this video, I think you'll enjoy it. It is (the late) John Nixon playing classical guitar music on a MIDI english concertina set to sound like a classical guitar.

Thats really cool!

[Mikefule]

Buy the best box you can afford, and don't think that you can choose between an English and an Anglo by applying logicto the decision! And remember that the first box you buy will not be the last, if you take to it.

[Dirge]

If you haven't yet seen this video, I think you'll enjoy it. It is (the late) John Nixon playing classical guitar music on a MIDI english concertina set to sound like a classical guitar.

Anyone know what the piece he's playing is?

[halimium]

Edited by halimium, 18 June 2012 - 03:47 PM.

[MatthewVanitas]

I mostly like to play classical guitar, so I think I could play some of those tunes I already know on an English concertina...

If you haven't yet seen this video, I think you'll enjoy it. It is (the late) John Nixon playing classical guitar music on a MIDI english concertina set to sound like a classical guitar.

English would definitely be better for playing those kind of guitar-like melodies, but isn't (at the basic level) as intuitive to chord and harmonise as the Anglo. I reckon generally a harmonica is the best thing to compare an Anglo to; maybe the best (abstract) parallel for an English would be the mandolin? Easy to do fast and nimble melodies on, but the chords take a bit of finger-scrunching. Depends what sound/style you're prioritising, and of course a skilled player on either can pull off a lot of techniques that a beginner isn't just going to pick up. Again I'd submit that watching some "tutorials" on eBay for each style, and seeing someone slowly explain how each is played, would give you a good feel for your options. Of course, as others have suggested, nothing would beat meeting some concertina players in person.

English concertinas are less common on the used market in the US (and a glance at ebay.co.uk seems to bear that out for Blighty as well). Just glancing around, the new English options in the UK appear to be the Concertina Connection (£370), the Thomann (rebadged intro-grade Stagi, £380 and apparently not as well-regarded as the CC), and the full Stagi £700 at Hobgoblin. I was a bit surprised at the price on the CC English, since they're US$390 (£250) here, but Music Room is the exclusive dealer, and there's trans-Atlantic shipping and Customs and VAT and all kinds of things I'm sure. The Scarlatti (Chinese-made) is £180, but those have gotten rather rough reviews here on CC; though a couple folks have posted that they bought Scarlattis, and didn't regret it because it helped them decide that they did enjoy English. Just be prepared for some real roughness on a Scarlatti and possible breakages and sticking buttons.


Again just one man's opinion, but given the affordability of Anglos, you could do worse than to buy an inexpensive or used Anglo and mess with it, and sell it if you either don't take to concertina or decide English is really for you. Thomann ABS-bodied 20-button C/G Anglos are £85 new (I think they're also sold as "Brunner by Stagi"), and I've seen used plastic Gremlin-Stagis and similar go for £50 or so on eBay UK, as well as some older plastic Italian boxes which you can search here by name to see which are reputable (Silvagni isn't bad). Be prepared to do some minor tweaking of pads or linkages (and there are good writeups here about that) if need be, but so long as the reeds are in tune the rest can be fixed with baling-wire and bubblegum (or whatever the British equivalent phrase would be). So far as reeds, personally I've not been bashful and on several occasions have messaged eBay sellers of melodeons and arranged for us to connect on the telephone so they could squeeze a handful of keys and play them in-and-out for me to listen for sour notes. Alternately, if you're in a good-sized city your Craigslist equivalent (is it Kiji in the UK? nope, Gumtree) might have Stagi/Bastari/Brunner/Thomann/Gremlin concertinas that you can go check out in person for proper functioning. You could also always put up online want-ads on here and at forum.melodeon.net (which is mostly UK) seeing if anyone has an inexpensive starter piece for a noob. One guy on Melodeon sold a beater Scholer for £35 last month; my impression is he buys and fettles beaters pretty frequently, so maybe you can ask him if he has any on the workbench he's tweaking.


Hope I'm not overwhelming you with pricings and names, but this is the kind of dorkery I enjoy doing, and it's always exciting to see someone looking to branch out and try an instrument outside of guitar.

Edited by MatthewVanitas, 18 June 2012 - 10:59 PM.

[Johanna]

One guy on Melodeon sold a beater Scholer for £35 last month; my impression is he buys and fettles beaters pretty frequently, so maybe you can ask him if he has any on the workbench he's tweaking.

Something to be careful of with Scholers - the one I have (that I bought for $35 for the purpose of tinkering with it until it breaks) is tuned somewhere in between D/A and Eb/Bb, and I think somebody here said once that they're all like that? I don't know if the guy on Melodeon.net tunes them as a part of his tweaking, but if not (or if you get one from somewhere else), that could be frustrating if your aim is to play with other instruments.

[Anglo-Irishman]

It looks like a Jedcertina - laid out like a piano - don't think they ever came to much

Yes, it's a Jedcertina all right. JED are the initials of John E. Dallas - that's me! However, the Jedcertina is associated with my namesake (no relation), who had a musical instrument manufacturing and music publishing business in London in the early 20th century. He also made classic 5-string banjos, which have a good reputation, and I have a banjo tutor published by him.

Apparently the Jedcetina was J.E. Dallas' idea, and he had it produced by Lachenal. I suppose it was an attempt to cash in on the market when the concertina was cool, and everybody wanted to play one, and most middle-class people had had piano lessons. So old JED sold them a concertina that they could play from sheet music straight away. A similar thing happened when the banjo was cool - hence the ukulele banjo, the banjo-mandolin, the tenor banjo and the guitar-banjo. A cool sound with fingering from a more familiar instrument.

A restored Jedcertina came up on eBay some time ago, and I bid for it, just to have an instrument called after myself, but it went well above a 20-button Anglo in price, and that was too high for me, just as a neat curio. With a chromatic scale on 20 buttons, the range is only an octave + a fifth (C - G, I think), which is not much. Even the smallest Crane duet, with 35 buttons, has 2 octaves + a fifth, and I decided on a 48-button Crane when going duet because I found the 35-button too limited for my purposes. Apparently a lot of people felt the same about the Jedcertina, which is why it didn't catch on!

Cheers,
John

[MatthewVanitas]

Something to be careful of with Scholers - the one I have (that I bought for $35 for the purpose of tinkering with it until it breaks) is tuned somewhere in between D/A and Eb/Bb, and I think somebody here said once that they're all like that? I don't know if the guy on Melodeon.net tunes them as a part of his tweaking, but if not (or if you get one from somewhere else), that could be frustrating if your aim is to play with other instruments.

Good catch; the guy did mention that good Scholers are in-tune with themselves, but not in A=440 (standard pitch). So a Scholer (assuming it's in working condition) would be okay for playing on one's own, but not so much for jamming with others. In any case, I haven't hands-on experience with Scholers, and I don't think their "standard fixes" are as easy as the Italian boxes. So personally I stick to the aforementioned Italians as my beaters and to pass off to newbies. I think a Gremlin-Stagi is/was going for 50 quid on eBay UK recently, but glancing at the "Completed Listings" option to see that past 30 days of auctions, there aren't as many affordable Italians as I'd hope to see. Tons of Scholers and other German cheapies, and the usual Chinese and a few high-end quality vintage (and a few modern high-end), but not necessarily a ton of Italians. Someone had a Bastari red plastic, but at the same price a Thomann-Stagi runs. So while eBay may be a good option, Italians don't come up every single day there.