I'm nearly at the end of my first week learning to play the English concertina. I can play a two octave scale in C or G at a reasonable pace and have started on a couple of tunes. I did have a go at a few tunes I found on a Youtube tutorial but got impatient to play something different. So, the first tune I learnt on my own this week was Persian Ricardo, otherwise known as Galopede. I'm also working on Horses Branzle, a bit tricky with the Bb in the third part, but I feel I've achieved something this week.

Can you remember the first tune you learnt on your first concertina?


Hmmm, I just thought. Maybe I should have posted this in the Learning and Teaching section. Sorry

It was "The Dark Island," and I was living on Loch Broom in the far northwest of Scotland, in a cottage which had no TV, and only radio service from Radio nan Eileann across the Minches in Stornoway. Nothing to do in the evenings except play music by the fireside or go to the pub. Perfect situation for teaching myself to read music and play the old Wheatstone EC!

I think that the first tunes I played were Winster Gallop, Thady You Gander, and Steamboat. We were playing these rather often for dances and I wanted a different sound (or in the case of Thady You Gander a different stress on the muscles--- driving the dancers to a run with bellows was less stressful than the uneven rhythm at high speed on a fiddle).

I'm very fond of thin and incomplete brochure from Concertina Connection that comes with Jackie.
It throws you right in the midst of necessary skills, and at the end of the tutor (quick) you'll be playing a bunch of various folk tunes in different styles, plus some classical pieces. Highly recommend.
It took me something like 3 months to get through, and I'm happy I did.

I started with "Lavender's Green" (Or "diddle, diddle" as it's also sometimes called), then decided that I had to learn "The Lass of Patie's Mill", and so went on to conquer that. Afterwards I realized that "A-roving" (Maid of Amsterdam) was easier, and played that.
St. Patrick's Day in the Morning, Parson's Farewell, A Hole in the Wall, Rights of Man, Old French, Morpeth Rant, Speed the Plow, Soldier's Joy, Liberty (or the Tipsy Parson), Flowers of Edinburgh, Smash the Windows (roaring Jelly), Kesh Jig, Tenpenny Bit, Off She Goes, Lannagin's Ball, Swallow's Tail Jig, and Blow the Man Down followed, although not in that order.
So, that's just some of the ones I started with and that I'm working on now- I started in April.

My "main" instrument is fiddle, I already knew the tunes so I just transferred them on over and it was a pretty smooth switch. (I've also been learning new songs on the concertina and then transferring them to the fiddle!)

Planxty Irwin - I found Carolan tunes a good way to start

Yes, my experience too. I think it has something to do with the fiddle being tunes in fifths and the buttons in the centre rows of the Ec being fifths apart that make the tunes easy to work out. Sumthin' like that anyway

It's also changed the way I play fiddle and learn tunes. After a few weeks with the concertina I started hearing the songs I played in intervals, and not as where I put my fingers on the fiddle. (I can read music, but before when I saw the "dots" I would just see them as where to put my fingers on the fiddle, and not as notes....oops. One disadvantage of learning to read music as a lazy 8 year old! I'm not doing that as much anymore though.)

Merrily Kissed the Quaker, Carolan's Favorite Jig, and Red-Haired Boy...because I can't stand the way they sound when I play them on anglo.