Tiree

Ah, yeah, I have been using an electronic one, and had no problem with the other reeds, but I'll give it a go by ear, thank you!

Thank you for the suggestions! I can't see any sign of a crack and they bend around just fine, so I guess I'll just persevere and get them really clean.Thanks again

Okay, I test them insidthe instrument, I'm filing the end to sharpen them. I've managed to tune almost all the others just fine so there's no problem with the reedplan, and the reeds fit fine in the slots. The tongues are set right and are clean, the valves are new and in the right position. They are on the chambered side of the pan so it has nothing to do with valve pins. I've managed to tune the other reeds, and have been trying with these for a while but they still do the same thing so I thought it would be best to ask before I wear them away too much since, as you can see with the d#/eb thing, I am pretty good at missing glaringly obvious things. The action board is all fine too, and the adjacent notes in the same chamber are both fine. I also can't see any cracks or damage to the tongue, and they have not been filed a lot, so I'm pretty sure it's not fatigue/damage causing it. (Reeds are steel, by the way.)

Hahaha, nope, not even a wind-up, I just have the worst musical theory of anyone ever and never even thought about that (yes I do know I'm an idiot) Thanks for the heads up! I'll keep on trucking with it then.

I'm tuning a 30 key lachenal at the moment, and having some trouble with 2 of the reeds on the top row right side - I keep trying to sharpen them but it gets flatter. Both are long enough that it's not because of filing in the wrong place by mistake. On the charts I've seen, both should be d# in a lachenal, but the ones in mine are both eb, I don't know if that has anything to do with the problem. ANyone have any idea why this might be?

Thank you everyone! I have a copy of David Elliot's book, and a wrecked concertina for that matter, that I can practice some surgery on, though it is a very cheap style one, with the straight rows of pads inside instead of radial, so I don't know how wel anything I learn from that will be useful for a 'proper' instrument. So far, on my scholer, the 'best' repair I have managed has been glueing pen springs underneath the buttons since all the horizontal springs are joined to gether and not made for replacing. The amount of ballpoints that have been sacrificed for this insturment... Thank you everyone for the help! I'll keep poking away at the ones I've got and hopefully manage to get my hands on a decent one to have at later!

Arepolska is a gorgeous swedish one! And in finnish there is a song called On Suuri San Rantas Autius (Sung here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoZwHkYu6aM&index=1&list=FLrBo1QuewDhBuvVr9O7jQ3w, very soupy) which I tink would work quite well on concertina - the only version I can find online are very soupy singing, but the melody just played more plainly I think is quite nice, and very melancholy (being finnish and all.) And on the subject of melancholy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc5M2Pa2rOQ is pretty cool too. The bounciness of scandinavian tunes is so appealing to play with on concertina 8D

I know of a couple of very sweet, slow polskas that I think would work quite well, though maybe better on the english as when I try Arepolska on my anglo it sounds a bit crass. http://abcnotation.com/tunePage?a=www.folkwiki.se/pub/cache/_%C5repolska_1f300a/0001and another one called Kerstins Brudpolska which I need to save the sheet music for from my tablet. Both have been recorded by an (freaking amazing) band called Hoven Droven if you wanna hear them.

Hey! I'm new here and a very wet being the ears player, I've been learning anglo for nearly a year now on a secondhand scholer (cue sounds of fainted bodies hitting the floor), but am absolutely in love with this instrument, and harbouring a bit of a silly pipedream about learning to build or at least repair them one day. It seems a bti of a difficult world to get into though, Does anybody have any advice on how I might get into learning short of travelling to Castelfidardo for some years? I live in north wales now and the nearest concertina maker seems to be in Newport. I am trying to learn a few thigns just by messing about with the ones I have (sort of a necessity when it breaks every month nowadays), but since I think they are built differently to most concertinas I guess that's not much use. Any advice? Do apprenticeships run anywhere? Google's brought up nothing.