Dave Weinstein

Marked Safe From Temptation

There is a stylistic risk to over-avoidance of bellows changes, depending on the genre of music, because bellows changes can be desirable even if there are options without them being required. It'd be interesting to see what they full contraint set could look like (making sure to balance the bellows to minimize the need for air buttons, but also to try to be consistent on phrases, and to include bellows changes for emphasis and how much genre awareness the constraints need for that)...

Has anyone got recommendations for instrument coverage in the US? I'm moving on from Heritage (their underwriter turns out to get very cranky if you buy new instruments at more than the rate they approve of), and have requested a quote from Andersons. Anyone have any experiences?

That is a much lower pitch than I would have expected for an instrument of that size.

So very very tempting. Do you have a sound file of it being played?

Pretty much that. You aren't going to be able to learn a lot of the C/G specific technique tips at music camps and the like. It's not a trivial restriction, but it's not the end of the world either.

With a combination of humidification and dehumidification, we're fairly stable between 47-52% (running right around 50% most of the time) each day. We had a room that was running around 60-65% for months on end, and ended up having to replace the soundboards on hammered dulcimers that had warped.

The new CITES change for instruments only affects the Dalbergia rules.

Does anyone have an agent they can recommend in the UK that they trust to handle the paperwork to bring an instrument containing Ebony into the United States?

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The layout I play is centered on D/E just above Middle C, and optimized for the keys of G and D, so I almost always play across the three columns closest to the index fingers.

I have a pair of D/G instruments (one by Bob, one by the Dippers), G in the middle, D as the inner row but down a 4th rather than up a fifth.. The biggest challenge (other than the lack of instructional materials) for an Irish sound is that you can very easily play very long runs in one direction across the rows, which gives less of a bounce than Irish concertina tends to have. Oh, and you have to commission the instruments separately, and you can't really play other peoples' instruments. The enforced quasi-immunity to Gear Acquisition Syndrome may be construed as a benefit in some circles.

All my instruments are in a room kept at 45% Relative Humidity, so that should be ok.

We are approaching the traditional three months of sunshine in the Pacific Northwest, and there are weekend places for rent along Puget Sound (salt water). The question is, assuming playing inside, on a dry day, but within 100 meters of the salt water, how much risk to the instruments are involved?

If you're considering the risk of salt air to Concertinas, how far is safe? Just stay away from being on the water? Be careful being within a few dozen feet of the water? Stay a few blocks away? Coastal towns are a bad idea?