Stiamh

My main point is to say built in limitations of instruments can shape the music that gets played upon them. To me this music can be beautiful and valid unto itself even when compared to music played upon "superior " instruments by virtuosos. My banjo example is the rhythmic, downstroke banjo playing that evolved into today's old-time, mountain clawhammer styles and is still primarilly played (with some exceptions) from the 9th fret down. The advent of fretted banjos in the mid 19th century enabled classical and ragtime virtuosity; More notes and chords and arrangements higher up the neck. Developement of the tone ring and resonator helped the banjo hold its own in a multi instrument band and set the stage for the aggressive and fast, punctuated bluegrass music of the 1940s to present. (I wonder if Earl Scruggs would have developed his distinctive and "jazzy" backup style up the neck on a fretless banjo?) I play and love old-time banjo but enjoy listening to where the banjo has gone since 1900. Are old time and bluegrass music capable of being beautiful and an expression of their cuture and their times? I think so. And I think a thoughtful player can render beautiful music from a 20b Lachenal. Do they need or "deserve" a 38b Jeffries? Oops!! We are back to where we started! Greg I'm with you all the way Greg (even to the last statement). I was only boggling at the idea of frets on fretless banjos. Not quite sure why, but this reminds of a Québécois joke: - I'd like a coffee - wihout cream, please. - I'm sorry, sir, we don't have cream. I can give you a coffee without milk if you like. Steve

Saw quite a bit of rapper at various events in the late 1970s during my brief involvement in playing for Morris. The only tune I ever heard played was The Rakes of Kildare: I deduced that no others were permitted!

Since the proportion of concertina players among the population remains (mercifully) small, the neural pathways of concertinists might be an interesting aberration for Sacks to consider in one of his wonderfully entertaining pieces of writing. "The man who forsook his wife for a concertina", perhaps? Steve

I like the other one.

I'm pretty sure these thingies have been imported into Irish music from GHB technique - most of the people I hear doing them regularly are highland pipers. They have a name Jim - the "double-cut roll"! (Wait for more sandwich asides...) Steve

Bruce, I agree with the second part of your statement. The problem is that very rarely do I hear anything produced on any kind of squeezebox that really does sound like a roll on fiddle or flute. If three repeated notes squeezed into a quarter note sound like anything, it's the fiddler's "treble", which no fiddler could possibly confuse with a roll. I call what I described a "fake roll" because (see Jim's post above) the second instance of the main note is graced, i.e. has a sound to provide the articulation (and possibly a silence preceding it), and the third has only silence. Calling it a fake is not to disparage it. It's been around a long time and is a staple device used by Anglo and button-box players. As I said in my first post, and as Bill and Jim have echoed, all the devices we are talking about are very effective and pleasing. Call them rolls if you will - after all (Grey Larsen's treatise notwithstanding), terminology is ultimately of no importance in playing music. But I don't think many will agree with you. Steve

The sequence you describe is not a roll and as Jim pointed out it contains no grace notes. What's more, it could only be called a triplet if it occurs in the space of a quarter note (crotchet), as a substitute for what is called a "short roll" on most instruments (dunno about the tina). If it is used in place of a "long roll", you are merely playing three eighth notes (quavers), so you couldn't call it a triplet, a roll, or any other ornament. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, though. Many accordion players do this to great effect. If you grace the second of these three eighth notes, however, you could call it a tina or box player's "fake roll" - maybe it has a real name, I don't know, but it sounds great. Miko Russell did an analagous thing in place of a roll on the tin whistle, probably because he spent most of his life listening to concertinas. Steve

I think you're in the potatoes, as they say up here, with this account of how accordions came to be so called. The first instrument to bear the name Akkordeon was patented by the Austrian Damian in 1829, and AFAIK it did in fact play only chords. The history of the name melodeon doesn't seem to be all that straightforward either. Here's an interesting instrument I saw in a folk museum recently:

Another important difference that nobody has mentioned is the fact that typically accordions have multiple reeds per button, at least two and up to six (or more - have you seen this baby currently on eBay?) No doubt concertinas have been produced with more than one reed per button but I'm not aware of any - assuming that the bandoneon (or band-onion as some websites would have it - does it make you cry when you cut it?) is not classed as a concertina. (Although it seems to me to meet all of the rules for admission that have been set out here.) I don't know owt about Chemnitzers but haven't seen any references to multiple voices on the websites linked to in this thread. Can anyone enlighten us on multi-voice concertinas? And is the bandoneon a concertina, or an accordion, or just something else? An accordion's multiple voices, and a concertina's single voice, can both be either a curse or a blessing, in my view. But I dislike the honking sound of single-voice accordions like the Castagnari Lilly - as far as I am concerned they don't deserve admission to the accordion club! Steve

Well, bear, isn't the concertina in fact a type of accordion? But let's not go there. I'm sure you know about the different types of concertina. Well there are quite a few species of accordion too. The main difference between accordions and concertinas is that accordions are mostly rectangular and in general the right hand plays the melody line while the left hand plays buttons that produce a bass accompaniment - notes and chords. "Button box" usually means a diatonic accordion, which is basically a harmonica with bellows. Like a harmonica, it is "single action" -each button produces a different note on the push and pull. The simplest kind has one row of melody buttons. Like this one: Diatonic accordions can also have two rows of melody buttons, like this one - a type popular in Irish music or three rows of buttons, like this monster Then you get chromatic accordions, which are double action (same note on push and pull). They come in two main varieties, the piano accordion and the chromatic button accordion which despite its appearance has much more in common with a piano accordion than with a diatonic accordion. No doubt this is a gross simplification but hope it helps. Steve

Thanks for the vote of confidence Az but no need to overdo it! OK then enough about me and him. Is the concertina easier to master than the box, and at what stages? I think I know what the challenges facing the would-be ½=step box player are - what are they for the Anglo player? Steve

I'm well aware of all those issues, Theodore. Repertoire is not an issue for either of us, or for our instruments: we both play to a pretty good standard on other instruments and know the material. And both instruments have proved their suitability for the repertoire because they are both standard systems (even if B/C box is still more common than C#/D). If repertoire were an issue, it ought to work in my favour, 'cos I've been at this Irish music caper for about a quarter century longer than Azalin. (He's about 30 by the way Bill.) I used to be his teacher, in fact, so there are mixed feelings when you feel your ex-student is outpacing you: a certain amount of pride at having put him on the right path, competing with the old lion's fear of being pushed out by the young one As for a community in which to learn, for the music, again it's not an issue, and for the instrument, we're both in the same boat: trying to figure it out for ourselves because there's nobody else within a few hundred miles from whom either of us could learn very much. So, although maybe Az does get more time to practise (and sleep), and maybe his brain cells are less tired, my question comes back to the instruments. I agree, it can't. It's one of those things you know. Any musician worthy of the name who comes across someone better than himself knows it instantly - even if he won't admit it to himself let alone anyone else, deep down, he knows.

A couple of questions that are I hope) of general interest, but not too serious. I am a box player, not a very experienced one (C#/D for Irish music), and while I have no particular desire to play the concertina I do like listening to it. And I do like reading you chaps and chappesses ranting on about them. A young friend took up the tina (30-button Anglo C/G) at about the same time as I started the box - two years ago - and insists on dragging me into a (generally friendly) rivalry not only about our respective instruments but about our respective proficiency on them. I can't help getting sucked in - all in good fun but at some level my pride is at stake. Contrary to my initial expectations, from the word go and still now he appears to be progressing at a much faster rate than me. I'd love to be able to conclude that this means the Anglo is easier than the half-step box, but of course there are many other possible explanations (our ages, the time we each have to devote to the instrument, the way we are approaching the instrument, and painful to contemplate, just plain old talent). So I thought I would ask you all, especially those of you who play both concertina and accordion (esp. Anglo and ½-step) what you think about the relative difficulties of the instruments. Is either one easier all round? Or easier at the beginning but harder as you progress? Where do the complications come in? All responses awaited with interest and curiosity. (Don't hesitate to contend that my ineptitude that is the cause of my slower progress.) The other question concerns the concertina-playing community. The impression one gets from internet forums etc. is that concertina players are much readier to talk and argue at length about the finer points of their instruments than box players, who seem a tongue-tied, taciturn, monosyllabic bunch by comparison. Is this to do with the type of person attracted to the instruments? The scarity value of concertinas? Or is it a false impression? Please discuss Steve Jones

Thanks, Alice. OK I will just phone next time! Here is a link to the Opera help page on the warning I received. http://www.opera.com/support/search/supsearch.dml?index=798 The issue with the Americart page is no. 3 on the list: "Key exchanges are performed using RSA or Diffie-Hellman (DH) keys less than 900 bits long." (According to the warning dialog, the keys Americart uses are 768 bits.) Perhaps the security threat is pretty low for the moment, but it would appear from the quote that follows that Americart ought to upgrade, and perhaps you should suggest this to them, rather than assume that the warning is an error on the part of Opera. Cheers, Steve

Well Rich, I may have an explanation for this phenomenon. I don't generally worry about using a credit card to buy things over the net but earlier this week I ordered a couple of CDs from, yes, the Button Box website, intending to pay with my credit card. I changed my mind when my browser (Opera 8.52) informed me that the checkout page used an outdated encryption method that is not considered secure. Steve Jones

May I add my best wishes to you Nanette for steady recovery and progress. The rest of you - nobody else has had the tactlessness to mention this so let me (bad taste a speciality). Some of you need to brush up on your Antipodean slang - telling someone in Australia that you are "rooting" for them is something I would think it prudent to avoid Steve

Both tina and button box can be marvellously exciting instruments and I wouldn't try to argue the superiority of either one over the other. But it's interesting look at the question sideways and ask which of them has the greater potential for irritating. I and a friend of mine both took up new instruments at the same time almost two years ago - he a concertina, I a button box. We are each getting a lot of mileage out of mocking the failings of the other's instrument, not to mention our playing abilities. I'm sure I have the upper hand but then so probably does he. Friendly rivalry aside, I've found there is nothing in the trad world that can hurt your eardrums more than a strident anglo. A few years ago I used to play often with a man who had such an instrument and I would take care not to sit next to him. (I've encountered plenty of box players whose sound makes me want to leave the room, too, but not because of physical pain in the ears.) It seems that the concertina's peculiar sound production, those sitting next to player cop its full piercing potential. There's also a question of posture and proprioception. However much I love to hear great concertina playing, I could never see myself balancing one on my knee and twitching about with those fiddly little buttons. On the other hand the fellow with the piercing concertina has been heard to refer to button boxes as "Newfie typewriters"! Steve

* emerging from lurk mode * Hi Pep, What you have is not a concertina but a "diatonic button accordion" of a very common type. Sometimes called a "Vienna accordion" or (in England and Australia) a "melodeon". Hohner must have produced hundreds of thousands of these boxes in the past century. What it is worth depends on its age and especially its condition. Itt is hard to tell much from your photo, which seems to be truncated below the keyboard. If all the notes sound correctly, the bellows do not leak significantly and there is no significant external damage, it will be worth considerably more than $10. At least $200 and possibly up to $400 or more. If it is not in good playing condition, it will only be good for parts or restoration, so you would have to expect much less. Boxes like this crop up on eBay all the time - go to eBay.com and search for "Hohner accordion" and you'll find a few. To sell it, it would be helpful to know what keys the two rows are in. You can find this out by testing the note made when you squeeze the bellows closed while holding down the third button in each row (third button from the top, or chin end). Most likely candidates for keys are C/F, G/C (preferred by French players) or G/D (preferred by English players). The first of the two notes customarily refers to the outer row of buttons. Steve Montreal PS Having seen a bit more of the box on one of your photos $400 seems a bit optimistic. Take Paul's advice in the other thread and ask your question at http://melodeon.aimoo.com/