After I bought a Lachanel & Co English concertina recently I was informed by a concertina player and seller that I should have the traditional thumbstrap and metal cup holder thingy for the pinky (little finger) removed, and instead have a wriststrap fitted, which apparently is much more comfortable and allows one to use your pinky when playing. However, if I look at the concertina I fear that with my hand held in place by a wriststrap I will probably struggle to hit the buttons for the higher notes .. though it's difficult to tell.

Does anyone know of this practice, or is this a load of .. nonsense?

I thought you had a Crane to learn? Putting time into an English is a backward step. Just sell it and have done.

It's a load of nonsense.

Well, Sir Don,

never change a running system. If you don´t have any difficulties playing with strap and rest there is no need to change that. Since I play the EC I never had any problems reaching any of the buttons and I can use as well both pinkies without any diffulty (if needed).
It would be a bit different being a member of a marching band for example, but than as well a little neck strap will do the job.

I would leave it as it is.

Christian

Hello Sir Don,

i try to play my EC for over a year now. At the beginning a got very sore thumbs. So after looking around on this site and mailing to some people i decided to remove the pink rests, and put a wrist strap on the EC (using the thumbscrew and one of the pinkrestscrews to install it) I cut the strap out of an inner car tire which proved to be slippery-proof. So you understand my thumb straps are still installed.
The result is very satisfying for me: no more pain in the thumbs, a lot of control over the bellows, enough power on the pull. Hope this explanation is clear enough to you

Dirk De Bleser

..................I think what the guy meant to say was "have a wrist strap fitted AS WELL AS using the thumb strap and little finger rest"
There's a very long thread here C.net.....about them. I use them all the time but others don't but they are always used in conjunction with the other two supports.However their is an exception to this here Goran Rahm
[Goran Rahm[/url],but I doubt that what he's talking about.
Cheers
Robin

Once you get your thumbstrap "moulded" into your playing shape, with a couple of weeks practise, you should be able to lift your pinkies off to play low notes and still be in control.