Do you remember your first time? The excitement, pleasure, or hurt and pain for others.... I'm talking about the first time you owned a concertina with concertina reeds of course! This is going to happen to me, if all goes well, next thursday. I'm all excited. A bit anxious. What if it doesnt play as well as my accordeon-reeded instrument? What if I can't last long enough and don't have the dexterity to keep on going for hours and hours? :-)

what sort of concertina is it? keep in mind it can take a bit of time to get used to a new concertina. at first you may be unable to play if you've never played a different shape of buttons (as many have "skinny" buttons), but you get used to it after a few days.

That's a tough one to answer but it's an old concertina, from someone from the old makers... no one knows for sure. It has ivory buttons, and I'm used to bigger buttons on my Edgley. It's been restored in the UK and has new springs and all so it will take some time to break in everything but I'll be patient :-)

Hello Azalin
I am in Montreal and looking for a concertina that I can try before buying.
I have been asking around and everyone reacts as if I'm from another planet ... Concertina ??? ...
Played piano when I was very young, never played anything else, fell in love with the accordeon but can't play it, so I'm thinking this might be my kind of machine.
Can you suggest anything?

I'm not Azalin, but your question is worth of taking on.
Please, reconsider accordion. What do you mean "I can't play it"? Did you expect to play it immediately just because you played piano as a child?
Concertina is NOT a portable cute accordion, it has very distinctive sound, and if you like accordion, chances are you may NOT like concertina. Concertinas are way more expensive, pretty much impossible to try before buying, and the only decent entry level is Jackie/Rochelle, that you take or leave. But any next step upgrade will price-shock you.
Or get as many concertina CDs as possible and listen a few times through (f you haven't done so already, off course).
Others will advice you on players and performers of every possible style.
My personal take is that aside from Irish traditional, concertina playing doesn't come close to accordion school, so you really really have to like the sound that much.
It's like falling for the Guitar, but learning Ukulele instead.

Hi Diane,
On Wednesday nights from 8-00pm we have a session in O'Regan's pub on Bishop, just south of Ste Catherine. I'm usually there with my English concertina (although I'll be away for the next two weeks) and Rae is usually there with her Frank Edgely Anglo. If you're lucky Jim will be there and he has one of each I only know of one duet player in Montreal and she doesn't normally make it out to sessions.

If you could possibly make it down to the Northeast Squeeze-In you would have a huge selection of concertina players to ask opinions of. A wonderful event in a relaxed atmosphere.

If you can't make it to the session, send me a message here and I'll see if we can set you up with something.

Maybe you could put some pictures up?