Hi, I recently discovered small cute 6-sided mini-accordeen. The type that pirates played, as far as I can tell.
I'm bent on learning to play it. Can you tell me more about it? I located a brand new one, very cool, at $50. Looks like in good shape and it's called "Stages", I believe.
Thanks for all your help.

No mate, you don't want one of the Stages things! You'd be a lot better off with a Hockner. They play a lot better and they're only $49.99 so you save a bit of money too.

Keep away from anything with more than four buttons because they are way too complicated for a beginner.

Oh and mini-accordeens are really called melotrons.

Good advice!
Maybe you could try ebay. You often see those cute 6-sided thingies with only 4 buttons. They have extra holes where you can probably put in more buttons when you learn how to use the first 4.

AND the second-hand ones often have lovely pearloid finishes, too.


Cheers,
John

I'd advise that you watch out for and avoid the cheap toy ones that play a different note on push or pull. If you pay a bit more you can get a proper one that has one note per button. Well worth the extra.

A true aficionado would describe this as 'genuine mother of toilet seat'. Shame on you!

English concertina! Luverly, well nominated. The minority duet players might be a trifle p***ed off though....

The reason pirates liked that sort of instrument is that it made a great place to stash their treasure in the bellowsy part.

So I suggest you slice it open to see what's inside.

Too late. It was already sliced. But neatly sawn back.

You're absolutely right, of course! But it's not always a good idea to confuse beginners by throwing our highly technical, specialist vocabulary at them.

Cheers,
John

But surely it's better to have an intrument with different notes on the push and pull; "more concertina for your money". Or would this additional facility carry an on-cost?

You did well to come to us my friend, because here we all KNOW about concertinas. I can assure you that your assertion is completely without grounds in this instance.

Are you claiming that Pirates didn't play those Coserteens? How bizarre!
Explain than why mine has old rusty dagger sticking through it. I can still read some letters on the dagger, it reads:
Blac...(hard to read)....eard.

Well, the linguistic evidence is that they did! "Concertina" is obviously a corruption of "corsairtina". And "corsair" is another word for "pirate". Uneducated people thought that the 6-sided thingy had something to do with music - as played in concerts - so when pirates went out of fashion, the new name seemed to make more sense.

The inscription on the dagger stuck in yours is easy to fill in. Pirates were at the height of their activity around 1700. They were hunted by the British Crown, so some of them were anti-royalist. The king at that time was William III - universally known as "King Billy", so someone demonstratively erased a "K B" from the inscription. Does that help?

If there's one thing you can rely on when studying the history of musical instruments, its etymology!

Cheers,
John

Might it have once belonged to a Captain Jack Sparrow of the Black Pearl?

Let's stay within boundaries of reality, and not mix in some movie fluff.
The "KB" research was done brilliantly and makes sense.
Linguistic deduction leads me to believe that Mr. BlacKBeard (as is evident from the last part of his name) had a beard, and it was black in color (as is evident from the first part of his name). So naturally, when somebody was playing that Corsairtina of mine, Mr. Blackbeard got curious of such rare instrument and moved his face too close to the bellows. His beard got stuck in it.
Only the green ocean waves know the true scope of the resulting brawl. To tell you the truth, I'm quite happy to own this instrument 300 years after the incident.

OK. There are more pirates active today than there ever were in the 1700s.

But these pirates are bad, those were good.
These don't sing Yo-ho-ho, those did.
We hate these, and we all love those.
But best of all, these are still around.