Gail_Smith

well i did have a plastic tube/bag over the bellows. Just not over the ends.

Even if you play a concertina under an umbrella it is going to suck water in. After a very wet Morris Federation day of dance recently, I had"lost" several notes and one sounded continuously. The problem was the leather valves sticking - and then eventually drying out in contorted ways. It has taken me a week to sort out all the problems, which I did partly by very gently re-damping the offending valves and stroking them flat while they dried. Two questions arise... 1. Does anyone have a better way of solving this problem? Next time should I take the instrument apart as soon as possible to do repairs, t=rather than waiting more than a day before I could get it home? Should I try to dry it out faster to protect the reeds, or slower to protect the valves? 2. I hate the number of times I have taken the ends of the concertina off and re-assembled them during this process. Is there a shortcut to reassembly in order to check out whether or not a reed "sounds" ? No only is it time-consuming, but I also worry about what mutiple unscrewing and rescrewing is doing to the threads on the screws. thanks Gail

hello. I would like to better understand how to use the fiddle-specific marks on written music to improve my english concertina playing. I think i know how to approach slurs - but there are also bowing marks, various turns (where i don't think i could manage a whole turn in the time available - and I'm wondering if the fiddle players do) and various bowing marks. It seems that some will translate sensibly into playing more staccato. And others will translate into getting more "attack" by using the bellows differently. Any thoughts (other then listening to fiddle players, which im trying to do but doesn't seem to help)? Resources ? thanks Gail

thanks for replies. I have a couple of Lachenal concertinas - one is a wooden-ended standard job and the other is a metal-ended ediophone that i use to compete with melodeons :}

Does anyone have any useful tips on adjusting how much oomph to use on the bellows to get the volume right when playing a chord or counterpoint melody as part of a tune? It's hard to hear yourself- but i have been told that I tend to over-do the volume when I'm pressing down several keys. I'm not sure if its subconscious overcompensation or just because its easy to accidentally push or pull harder when lots of fingers are involved. Practice with a phone? Or is there another way? Thanks.