Yuxin Ding

I wish Gargamel didn't have an account here.

Yang made a super long bellow with about 15 folds for his English-based "duet" concertina, to play sustained chords that last very long. Isn't the bellow reaches that length quite similar to some of the "real" duets? To be honest, I actually feel a little tangled to this kind of improvement, or should say renovation of the concertina, especially to who don't really can play or have a comprehensive understanding of the original instrument. However, for the situation in China, and maybe many countries in the world, this is probably the only option for some needs. And, any great design has to have a way to go!

It's been almost two years since I started paying attention to concertinas. In the past two years I have met many people in China who are interested in the concertina through the Internet. I've noticed that among enthusiasts in this country, there seems to be an idea of reworking the instrument, not just adding or replacing a few notes, but an overhaul where they almost take the Anglo or English into Some kind of duet concertina. Here's the modification by Guoping Wang, an accordion maker from Beijing: The buttons within the red dashed box is his 20 buttons model. Buttons plan generated with Anglo Piano by Luke Hillman. I used to put this layout in this forum at here. And two modifications by Jun Yang, a music composer and professor from Wuhan, one is based on an English: Yang abandoned the air valve and made the button of it a note (C7.) He also rotated his concertina 90 degrees and installed hand rests and straps on it, to play it like an anglo or duets. (The hand rest was made by me, it was a spare for my Anglo.) His next overhaul will be based on an 40b Wheatstone/Lachenal layout Anglo, like this: Wang's layout is a bit like to split a two-row C/B melodeon to two ends, quite similar to a Franglo concertina, except his reversed row for 33b model. And Yang's layouts, according to him, are based on the piano keyboard and his major appeal of such a concertina is to accompanying other instruments. I've read and seen photos that concertinas were made many years ago with piano-like layouts, but I can't figure out why they didn't catch on like those systems are more popular. In some Chinese social media, I have seen more than once that someone has the idea of renovating the concertina. I personally agree with this idea a bit, because the various layouts of anglo are compromises for different needs to some extent, but similar improvements for English are not seems so necessary to me. (I don't play English, please point it out if I'm wrong about this.) However, such a large-scale renovation that completely overthrows the existing system makes me feel a little tangled. I think what Yang really needs is a baritone duet. But maybe he has no choice, because any kind of duet cannot be easily bought here in China.

My apology, I didn't see your post on the 2nd page until I made my post.

It appears that Hohner has indeed withdrawn from concertina. However, it wasn't until last year, when I was just starting to research concertinas, I noticed that an online music store in China still had D40s with Hohner's name on them, but now they've been removed from the list. I guess when Hohner canceled their last order, that manufacturer still had a lot of unfinished concertinas, especially the action boxes with the Hohner name on them, which are now all used up. The successor (maybe) of the D40 sold in China looks like this: Another online music store has a few original D40s in stock, but without a Hohner name on them: What Buttonpusher mentioned could be some of the last batches of D40s, otherwise he's just telling the experiment before Hohner withdrawn from the concertinas.

I assume there is one difference between the bows and bellows, that is the folds of bellows can be freely adding or reducing within an acceptable numbers, but the bows are usually come with fixed length(s), or should say the bows have to match the size of the instruments.

Amazon international does ship goods to China but except for publications, because all the imported publications must go through 34 registered companies under China International Books Trading Corporation. However, it is fine to mail books to China personally, which is what I have been entrusting my friend to do for me. I think amazon.cn used to hold some imported books a couple of years ago (through the Books Trading Corp. of course) but they are now on the way to quitting the business and don't have any paperback books anymore.

I got my copy through a friend who lives in Japan, since the amazon don’t ship books to China (or China don’t allow amazon to?) It cost me US$50 with shipping from Japan included. I got the John Kirkpatrick book exactly the same way last year. Hoping there will be an easier and cheaper way to get Rollston Press books in China🥺

According to price quotes from many resources, vintage concertinas of equal quality, whether English or Anglo, asked for similar prices. Some of the Anglo were even more expensive than the English for those made in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, regardless of the one-of-a-kind special models. In the promotional materials at the time, the price of the Anglo was usually lower than that of the English. I was once told that the Anglo concertina was a working class instrument, so I wonder if the price of the Anglo today is due to the poor living conditions of Victorian and Pre-war British workers, caused many Anglos to be damaged or even destroyed, which raised the price of those survived or refurbished.

The score is in Jianpu(literally means "Simple Score,") a kind of moveable-Do tablature. The numbers 1 to 7 in that meaning the tonic to the leading note of a major scale, or Do Re Mi to Ti. For this kind of tablature, you can't tell the key from notes, but it is defined at the beginning, and it also only shows tunes in major keys, for all the minor tunes, it just define as the related major. Back to the score in this thread, it's a Dm tune, and it defined as 1=F. Or should say "6=D," but that's not a standard. Jianpu is only used in China, Japan, and maybe Korea and Vietnam, and it almost only use for traditional musics and instruments. It also used for the basic level recording of other kinds of music nowadays. Jianpu can be considered a modernization of East Asian old tablature "Gongche." Here's a sample of Gongche, the tune is Shepherd's Hey: "工凡六工凡凡, 工凡六工尺, 工凡六工凡, 工凡六合上." You can read it here if you are interested. The Chinese traditional music usually focusing on the solo melodies more but not accompanying, that's why the Jianpu works here. But when the work goes complicated, its readability will goes down. I've seen someone use Jianpu to write some BWV works down, you can imagine how it looks like......

I assume that I'm probably the friend that Luli talked about who "doesn't care the duets." Quite the contrary, it's not that I don't care about the duets. I just realized that any kind of duet is unlikely to be acquired easily, as Don Taylor said. In China, except for those entry-level concertinas sold directly by the workshops, any kind of concertina must be purchased from abroad. And also, for the duets, there are very limited tune books and tutorial materials that can get through the internet, unlike for anglos (appreciations to Gary Coover.) But I think maybe mastering duets, especially Hayden, because the button layout is more reasonable, so it doesn't require too many tutorials for someone with a certain musical background(?) Chinese makers mainly produce English and Anglo, and maybe the Elise that Don Taylor mentioned is also made in China, but as far as I know, no retailer has one of those. Concertina may be an unfamiliar instrument to the vast majority of the world, and even more so to the Chinese. I guess that there are only a few hundreds of people in China who own one and can basically play the concertina. There are seems slightly more anglo players in China than English players, but I haven't heard of anyone who can play or own a duet.

Since all of Flying ducks concertinas are accordion reeds Hybrid with anglo fingering system, so they are still anglos to me. Although Ducklings and Dabblers are using wooden actions with a common pivot for a row of buttons, like German concertinas, but I think it's a unique design and actually shares more similarities with Stagi/Bastari style of action, only in wooden.

I wonder can the kind of 20 buttons concertina in this video be considered Anglo? I assume it's a German design based on Jones's Anglo (the hexagonal shape.) I've opened up and see the inside of one of this kind of concertina (Scholer,) and it has no reason to make it hexagonal except to make it looks like concertinas from England, which makes it a huge thing.

This is indeed an impressive playing but I think it's more like just for fun, but not a efficacious scheme that benefit left-handers. The air button located pretty awkward in this way to me, and the thumb seems can do nothing. I've tried playing in this way somewhat badly before, but I'm probably not as smart as the guy in the video to get this done. Other than playing upside down, accordions or melodeons that are constructed to target left-handers from beginning seems to be rare, or even exist? As I found, they are either modified from ordinary box or unparalleled work up to very specific order, but still remains a lot of ordinary designs, or let's say for right hand users. I found something related in this thread on The Accordionist Forum. I'd also like to reiterate that for keys/buttons-pressing instruments, handedness is not as important as strings. Here's a good example: the free bass chromatic accordion, which has a wide variety of key layouts. The commonly used system of such instruments in Russia and east Europe is the B system (Bayan), and the commonly used in central and south Europe is called the C system (probably shorten from Chromatic), these two layouts are completely mirrored, moreover, some of them are the high notes on the both left and right ends that are close to the lap, and some are from low to high from left lap to right lap. All of these systems, layouts and combinations have tremendous players, on both quantity and their skills, and they just used to what they practiced since they started practice. I believe those who play the instrument upside down can do wonderful works, and maybe even achieve some unexpected special effects that ordinary way can't do. But since that's not what those designed for, it's still questionable to me whether it's an efficient way to play.

There are instruments designed for left-handed people like lefty guitar or bass, I think it is because these instruments require players do the different things on both hands, i.e., pressing or picking. I've played bass and violin, but I'm right-handed, and I'm guessing that string-picking and bow works require the player to use their dominant hand for those subtle manipulations. But for piano, keyboards and all the squeezeboxes, except pulling and pushing the bellow, all needed to do for both hands is just press the buttons or keys, and that makes the question "which hand is better for what" less necessary. Perhaps the accordions and melodeons are easier to play for lefties because they requires the player to operate the bellows with the left hand, and the dominant hand is usually stronger. And for those squeezeboxes that don't need to be hung on the body, like concertinas of course, bandoneons, etc, the bellow operating can be assigned to either hand at will, or switched at any time while playing.

I think the statement "Anglo-German concertina is a German fingering system concertina" is not exactly accurate. It's surely true all of the Anglo systems have, or partially have the two rows of Richter bisonoric scale that introduced from early concertinas made in Germany, or "Konzertina," but some of them are have more buttons that can be considered English inventions (by G. Jones, and later other makes.) Later, the Anglo system was further improved into instruments that could play at least one full chromatic scale. At this point, the name Anglo-Chromatic Concertina was created by some dealers. According to Dan Worrall's book, we know that the "German" from "Anglo-German" was cut off due to the war, but I rather believe before the war people were already using the shorter, more convenient name "Anglo" to refer to all the instruments that have English style action and German-based button layouts. The hybrid systems like May Fair, Clover, Mores, etc. just substituted the reeds, they don't have anything to do with German concertinas to me, either the action and the way of reed mounted. The cheaper hybrid instrument like Stagi/Bastari/Concertine Italia and some China-made concertinas are more questionable these can be described as Anglo, but I still don't think they are related to German concertinas. Because the construction with assembling all the metal levers onto one metal unit has more similarity to the left-hand side of accordions, and I assume this level of concertina was by-products of accordion manufacturers at the very beginning, but not grabbed from German concertinas' action. The same goes for those very cheap Duets (probably only Hayden, by Stagi and Concertina Connection) and Englishes. By the way, there is a kind of 20-button concertina was made by DDR maker Scholar, and still actively making by Stagi/Bastari/Concertine Italia, which the hand rest and buttons are horizontal to the long diameter but not short diameter to the hexagonal ends, and with huge buttons, can these instruments considered German concertina?

Are they mostly do the wholesale rather than retailing? My friend used to contact them for only one concertina and the price they gave her was even more than many other retailers. I assume "Concertine Italia" the certain name will not be on any of their instruments. Is it like Volkswagen AG, Volkswagen and Audi?

By the way, I think the transportation and rebranding are also have something to do. There are some 30b entrance level Anglos sold with brand "Blazefine" in China, it's very similar to Wren and the original Rochelle with a poorer external, and the price is about US$200 or £165.

The price comparison between concertina and accordion is more a matter of economics IMO, but the construction and cost of the instrument itself is rather secondary. Unlike concertinas, accordions (especially piano accordions, that's one of the most commonly used squeeze box of course) have a stable demand from all over the world, so the accordion production lines are always constantly active. However, the supply and demand relationship of concertina is seems more volatile and mostly from few parts of the world, so cheap concertinas can be way overpriced due to the occasional orders and small batch production. I'm guessing that the prices of those antique and handmade concertinas have also raised expectations of consumers for the price of all kinds of concertina. Another thought that is maybe one day the number of Anglo Concertina players increases, say few times more, and the price of those Rochelle-2-like concertina will be much lower. But I doubt will that happen.

Thank you for your reply Malcom, and please say spasibo to your friend for me also. I noticed there is a universal melody that used in some of the similar performances (in my second movie clip, and some of Nikolay Bandurin's Youtube Shorts,) which is really an interesting fixed form of playing.

Thank you for your reply Geoff! I was troubled with this for a really long time and I finally know how to find more performances like these. Although there is a tradition of playing English in Russia, it seems that there has never been an English concertina produced in Russia.

Yes David, it was dubbed into Chinese as I mentioned in my post. I'm not sure if the music has been replaces or not because I can't find the original Russian version of this show. But I don't think to do anything with the soundtracks other than the dialogues is what the importers usually do.

To me the Russian musics are not bundle with any kinds of concertina, and they seem to be keen on bigger squeezeboxes more. But I've seen some scenes in film and television where they play concertinas, they're all English concertina along with a guitar, and it looks like they're telling jokes with the rhythm they play. I don't know what this form of performance is called, and maybe some of the squeezers in this forum can shed some light on it. Check out the two videos below. (From "Seventeen Moments of Spring," 1973 television, dubbed and subtitled into Chinese. Obviously it's not a sound of concertina but from a larger instrument.) (From "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears," 1980 movie.)

I acquired this Wheatstone 40b Anglo and it's finally delivered to me after couple weeks of transportation. As the ledger here says it was finished on Dec 21, 1925. It cost me a fortune but I think it's worth. As I knew there are few Wheatstone Englishes holding by Chinese players or collectors, but for the Anglo, mine is very likely the very first one ever appeared here in China. Although it's possible that British people carried some concertinas here due to the concessions like in Shanghai, Tientsin, etc before 1949, the People's Republic formed, but it seems not a single one was left here after they gone.

I asked an expert about this, and he said the fourth factory you've mentioned may be the "Parrot(Yingwu)". They used to made some D40 for Hohner but they ran out of the business about a decade ago, and only the piano and Bayan accordion chain of them were took over by other merchants. I believe the CC budget concertinas are from Rowell(Yuewei) which is in the northern city called Tientsin(Tianjin).