Lester Bailey

I've registered, just waiting for approval and reading the beginners guide in the meantime You will be more than welcome and receive masses of contradictory advice - just like here really See you over there!

If you go to melodeon.net you can find more info on these concertinas, and some melodeons, they appear to be legit. melodeon.net thread

As it is a cheapy accordion reeded boxI would use vinyl valves easiest sourced from Charlie Marshall http://www.cgmmusical.co.uk/CGM_Musical_Services/Reed_Valves.html

Various nice looking concertinas from the estate of Ruth Askew Gardiner Houlgate

Katie and John Howsen who were both in the Old Hat Dance Band can be contacted through the East Anglian Traditional Music Trust

I like using a polishing block for the final cleaning. These have a gentle action, but can remove quite heavy rust and leave a nice clean and smooth finish, and no fibres to get stuck in the reed or in your lungs. I'm with Theo, just finished sorting a badly rusted set of melodeon reeds with one of these blocks. Quick and provides good finish.

An English does not "need" an air button but may well have one. Useful at the end of tunes for closing the bellows but I just press a big handful of buttons, less elegant but everyone knows I've finished

You must go to different English sessions to me then, seems alive and well where I am :-) Don't recognise this either but this tread seems indicative of the ranting that always surrounds Irish music and its proponents (combatants)

I try my best to stay out of ITM discussions but this is probably the condescending statement I have read here in years.

Emmanuel Pariselle plays his native music on a Franglo. http://www.concertina.info/tina.faq/images/dipp.htm

Al What we used is a behind the ear inductive loop from Connevans powered by a Skytronic Battery Guitar Amp. The amp just connects to a standard dulciner pickup. Hope this helps.

My lady wife is a hammer dulcimer player and wear hearing aids. She is quite happy to play on her own with just the aids but gets lost when other players join in. So I have miked up the dulcimer and connected an inductive loop box to it and she plays with one aid listening to the world and one on the loop and that seems to solve most her problems.

Will the app run on a version 1 touch via headphones?

Try here Might be the answer

At the bottom left of the page there is a drop down that allows you to select a LoFi version which fits better on a mobile and loads faster

Melodeon.net does http://info.melodeon.net/info/layouts/2row

I'm also using Firefox and sometimes I get the overlay and sometimes I don't.

Probably been done to death, but why is an Anglo a "Traditional" instrument for Irish music when most of it was written long before the instrument was invented

I also find this term ETM horribly grating. If you ask me what I play in sessions I'll say English music or English dance music. I'd never say ETM because it's, well, just ghastly. Chris PS it's also dreadful, hideously offputting and, well, just ghastly. Spot on Chris, definitely ghastly but thankfully, other than in this thread, never been used in my earshot (eyeshot?) and long may it remain that way.

Stick to the melodeon then!

Thanks guys. I do indeed paly English as well but the recordings seem to have disappeared when I revamped my web site

Some of the guys over on melodeon.net have started the melodeon equivalent; Melodeon Database

It would have originality looked something like this The end with all the holes should have the keyboard on it. It is almost certainly a commercially produced box. You will be more than welcome over on mel.net where everyone is most helpful, might even meet me there :-)

It is (or perhaps was) a melodeon. Unfortunately the treble end keyboard/pallets etc are missing so it will need real work to make it function again.

If you want "play along" for morris tunes you can try THIS Modesty prevents me saying who is the player and I also apologise as it appears to be played on a melod**n