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Steve Schulteis

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Chatty concertinist

Chatty concertinist (4/6)

  1. After only 4 months, that sounds completely reasonable. Your friends probably didn't expect anything more when they invited you to join them; they just wanted to share their love of music and encourage you in your playing. Everybody starts at the beginning. One of the best things you can do to improve is to keep playing with other people. It's a different thing from playing solo, and it forces you to fix weaknesses that would be easy to ignore otherwise. Playing with recordings or a metronome can help build some of the same skills. Recording video of yourself and watching it later is also great for revealing the truth of what you're doing. And hang on to some of those early recordings - in a few years, you'll be able to look back and see how far you've come. You should also ask your friends what they think you should focus on in your practice. They've actually observed your playing, and while they may not have a clue how to play a concertina, they can probably tell you what you need to work on to mesh more with the group and develop a better sense of musicality. There's tons to learn from players of other instruments.
  2. Back on the subject of raised ends... It seems to me that raised ends make a lot of sense in the context of metal ends. They add structure that makes the sheet metal more rigid. They make room for a bushing board while minimizing the perceived bulk of the instrument. If you're already using a press to form the edges of the sheet metal, they perhaps don't add a huge amount of extra labor to production, at least at scale and compared to carving or laminating wooden ends. This leads me to wonder if raised metal ends appeared first before being copied in wood. Anybody have historical evidence to support or reject that theory? I'm not familiar enough with vintage models to have a clue.
  3. I don't think anybody said the single change by itself was significant. What was said is that many similar small changes may add up to a noticeable total. It's the same idea as an ultralight backpacker sawing half of their toothbrush handle off. It only saves a few grams, but if you can save a few grams in many places, it can result in a worthwhile total weight reduction.
  4. Assuming small differences add up to a bigger total, I've found that a lighter Anglo is significantly easier to play standing up. While some are content to play only while seated, for others this is an important practical difference. In my opinion, many of the differences in the construction of quality instruments (not just concertinas, but any musical instrument) are more for the enjoyment of the musician than the audience. And why shouldn't they be? After all, people become musicians because it's fun. So why shouldn't they want an instrument that maximizes that, even if it doesn't make an audible difference?
  5. Not hypothetical at all. Shorter button travel has already been identified as desirable in this thread. If making the holes larger allows shorter pad travel with a similar tone, that in turn allows shorter button travel. Increasing pad size isn't "simply impossible" either, although it may require a larger instrument or some other compromise. Looking around a bit, I rediscovered a relevant blurb at https://www.concertinaconnection.com/concertina reeds.htm:
  6. HansQ, I'm well aware of the construction characteristics you mentioned. What I'm asking is if anyone has experimented with how the hole and pad diameter interact with the shift in tone that Alex described when adjusting pad height. Is it the same effect? Does increasing the hole size allow a lower pad height with the same tone, up to a point?
  7. How does hole/pad diameter affect the required vertical clearance?
  8. I don't think this is universally true. Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne appears to use the air button frequently in his playing, and I would consider him to be highly proficient. I use the air button quite a lot myself (whether I'm proficient is for others to judge). I expect the importance of the air valve to individual players depends somewhat on style and repertoire. Harmonic-style playing probably forces more frequent air button use, since it reduces the availability of bellows reversals. Choices in articulation and dynamics could influence this as well. In any case, I wouldn't neglect learning to use the air button on Anglo. Whether you use it frequently or not, being able to use it when you judge it appropriate is something I would expect from a proficient player. Then again, the music is the real goal, so if you make good music, you're proficient in my book, regardless of what you can do with the air button.
  9. The distance from edge of hand rest to the center of the bottom-middle button of my Edgley is ~47.5 mm.
  10. Thanks for sharing. I wish I could read the text in the video. Even without knowing the language, it's a great demonstration of what a huge step up the Clover and Carroll are from the red cheapie. Ryo's a good player, and he's struggling with that thing. I'm glad the low-cost instruments exist, lots of people get their start with one, and they can make pleasing music, but this shows why the standard advice is "buy the best you can afford".
  11. Have you tried increasing the height of the hand rest? Placing a bit of padding on top of it is a low-risk way to get some extra distance between the buttons and your palms.
  12. I'm stepping outside my pay grade here, but is this graph what you're describing?
  13. My memory is kind of fuzzy on how I got here. I vaguely recall discovering the instrument online during college and thinking it looked interesting, but I didn't have the money for a concertina (even a poor quality one) at the time. I forgot about it and focused (or not) on other things. Some years later, I decided I really wanted to play some kind of musical instrument and that I was ready to dedicate time to actually practicing. I ended up playing penny whistle, because it was cheap, relatively simple, I had been listening to a lot of Irish trad music at the time, and I could experiment with making my own whistles as well. I got to where I could play music that other people enjoyed, but I'd still describe myself as a mediocre player. Continuing to listen to Irish music brought me back in contact with the concertina. I also realized that while I enjoyed the whistle, I really wanted something that allowed me to play and sing at the same time. I started lurking on this forum and learning about the instrument. Around that time, the game "Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild" came out, featuring the delightful traveling bard Kass, who played a cartoony sort of squeezebox, which added to my interest. Having watched the buy/sell forum for a while, I finally saw a deal that was too good to pass up, and purchased a square Herrington as my first concertina. I picked up a copy of Gary Coover's "Anglo Concertina in the Harmonic Style" and had so much fun learning to play. There's been a lot more in my musical journey since then, but that's more or less how I ended up with a concertina, and I'm sure glad I did.
  14. Count me in that number. Chris, thanks for the heads up about your site going away. I do often rely on the Internet Archive that Richard mentioned, but I nabbed a copy of the actions PDF for myself.
  15. In pondering this further, I think I read the McNeela quote backwards. They must be using "elasticity" to mean "not stiff" rather than "springy", as I initially interpreted it. If we're talking about a bellows that springs back open on its own, then probably the top runs of leather are stretching tight as the bellows closes. In that case, keeping them stretched by storing the bellows in a compressed state makes sense to me, and I suppose that's probably the scenario being talked about here. For bellows that stay closed on their own, I remain skeptical of the necessity of holding them that way.
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