Tripwire

Just a little update from me about my forays into concertinas. Thanks to Jim Lucas, I got to try out a concertina the other day. My concerns about noisiness seem to have been unnecessary, and I found the concertina to be interesting and worth trying out. I've decided to buy a Jackie concertina. At the moment I'm trying to find somewhere to buy it in Sweden, or somewhere that will ship to Sweden. Hopefully I will have it in my hands soon and be able to start playing.

Johanna: Thank you for the informative explanation. I am saving this somewhere for future use. Lots of terminology I'm not entirely familiar here... but I think I know what kind of accordion you're referring to. I've seen them played and they look very handy. But aren't all of those accordions diatonic? Having a chromatic instrument is pretty important to me and is why I started looking into the Jack/Jackie. I'd like to be able to play with friends and having to constantly transpose songs would complicate that, I think. ...I think you lost me there. You seem to be talking about chromatic instruments here? (or maybe I'm just getting confused... damn my dubious English skills!) Do you have any examples of this kind of accordion? Maybe it'll be easier for me to wrap my head around if I can google around for a bit. Those weights seems pretty okay -- I think the ones I've tried were a bit heavier. Once again, I don't think I am knowledgeable enough to understand all of this... I know you can change the voice configuration on most accordions, but isn't that usually only on the treble side? From what I've seen you can't change the bass, which is always pretty dominating. Thanks for your answers, they are very helpful if a bit hard to understand for my musically-not-very-knowledgeable self. I seem to be learning a lot of new things here.

Interesting! I'd been wondering about the reason for the size difference. I guess it makes sense. It's not really something that bothers me -- it's still more portable than most instruments. Thank you, it's good to have specific information about the model I'm interested in. Seems like practice is a big part of this, but I wouldn't be picking up a new instrument if I wasn't prepared to practice. This is excellent information I'd been googling on ways to muffle the concertina, but found nothing. This way seems pretty painfree. Good to know you can muffle it without taking it apart. As for internal baffles -- I don't think I'll want to go poking at the innards much, not being very confident in my technical abilities. But it would be interesting to see your solution, if it's not too much trouble. kevin toner: Whoa, long post! It seems you are lucky to have such a good instrument, and unlucky to have such a frustrating aural environment. I hope you find out what causes the exacerbated noise. Noise pollution is certainly a testing thing to live with...

Your replies are both very helpful, and seem to say that the concertina may suit my needs. As for a good concertina being able to play quietly, I am not sure what constitutes as a "good" one. If I'm getting one, it'll probably be Concertina Connection's Jack/Jackie. I can't afford anything more expensive as a beginner's instrument and from what I've seen, concertinas get amazingly pricy very fast. I've noticed that these two are a fair bit larger than the average -- do you think the additional size contributes to the sound level?

Hello! Total newbie here. A while ago I started looking into accordions as a second, portable instrument (piano is my first). Quickly I discovered two gripes: firstly the weight and unwieldiness, which was what made me start thinking about a concertina. My second gripe is the sound level: it doesn't seem like the kind of instrument you can pull out and play at a park, or in a company, in good conscience (unless you are a very evil person). Unfortunately I think it will be hard for me to find a concertina that I can try before I buy where I live, hence my question. Is the concertina a good park instrument, or would the sound get on people's nerves?