Dirge

Well if that's your attitude I'm not going to take up the Anglo now.

You're right they're excellent. I reckon the little girl is one of the others' little sister. I bet Mum said "Well all right, but only if you take your sister." (They do that. I remember.) Mind you she's very jolly.

I'm sure CA would do a PX and you could come away with an instrument that was exactly what you wanted for a modest extra investment, but I understand the sentiment angle too (It hadn't occurred to me before that there were downsides to inheriting an instrument.) You don't think Father-In-Law would understand you trading for a similar but better instrument though? Wouldn't he just be pleased you were playing? I added a brass reeded 46 to my bigger instruments last year as a portable 'rough' (well you know what I mean) instrument. (for walking and sailing and beach barbequeue type events) and I understand completely the point about having to lift the tune an octave higher than sounds best. It's a bit obvious I know, but sometimes you can drop an octave if you take the lowest couple of notes into the LH and thus avoid using the 'dog whistle' notes; or there's always transposing a fourth or fifth; that means adding or subtracting an extra accidental but may well solve the problem. Now probably is a good time to buy another one if you are going to; pity we're all broke or sitting cautiously on our money, eh?

And my congrats too. I'm sure it will give you great pleasure, and I think having a nice instrument encourages you to play it more, and hence practice! That looks a good buy, doesn't it? Is the English market also approaching saturation? It looks like the duet market is stagnating because of the effect of the economy on the tiny group of potential purchasers. Is this happening to EC's too? A huge pool of players relative to duets of course, but still not vast in global terms.

Look 'ere Gov'ner, that there squeezebox is giving you no end of trouble. 'Ow about I slip you a couple of grand to take it orf yer 'ands? Can't give you wot yer paid fer it OF CORSE, because she needs so much work. Ga'an, do yerself a favour. Yer can put the money to a nice noo one. That's wot yer really want innit? Got the loot 'ere in me pocket. Just say the word.

I wouldn't agree with that one. Concertinas are tough. A basically sound vintage instrument will give very little trouble unless abused. You surely aren't going to guarantee that new Morses and the like never need adjusting?

Sold for £550, Which was a bargain. Just a shame that I have to keep my instrument collection thin at the moment. Elegant actual example of one of the effects that I was suggesting is depressing the duet market at the moment Rod! We'll only have some spare money to buy another one once the prices have already started rocketing again, I'll bet you! There really do seem to be some serious bargains around recently. I don't care because I'm sorted and not out to offload any of my stable, but anyone wanting to sell is going to have to bite the bullet and price to tempt, I think.

It's a Russian thing. the red army Choir do it. (hoorah! I like the RAC!) That's all I remember at the moment. They might have used it for 'the huint for red october'

I wonder if the price is falling back. I am sure there are more duets on the market now than there were a few years ago. Better instruments and more of them hit Ebay these days. I reckon this is easy to explain if you believe, as I do, that a lot of them used to get bought by players of other systems (or players of other instruments even) who acquired them in less straightened times. They tried them, didn't apply themselves sufficiently to maintain enthusiasm and went back to the old instrument, whatever it was. The duet is then left to sit in the cupboard, literally in the 'too hard box'. Then times get hard. People have a look at their assets to see what they can raise a few bob on and , "Oh yes, there's the duet, that's worth a bit." The trouble is there are very few people in the market for a good Wheatstone duet at any time, and probably in easier times a fair proportion of the more expensive ones would be bought by existing players upgrading or acquiring a spare instrument. The players can do without for a while, they have an instrument and don't want to spend money, while the speculative buyers ("Will I get on with it?" they think as they write the cheque) can certainly do without too. Both ends of the buying spectrum are suddenly very much smaller than they were. I wonder if the market is simply saturated, all the slack has gone, and selling a duet at all at the moment is a good trick, not easy to achieve, and requiring hard nosed discounting or a lot of luck.

Another factor is that a 48-button Crane is quite useful, while I believe that Maccann players don't usually recommend a Maccann with less than 57 buttons. Now that’s not true Daniel, some may but they are probably the ones attempting to play it like a piano, that is to say harmony in the left hand and melody in the right hand. Some of us, especially when we play the smaller instruments, play it the way it was designed to be played. I was told this when buying my first one but I don't agree either. More notes gives you more choices and is worth paying for of course, but I have a 46 as well as my 'concert grands' these days and I like it a lot. It's a horses for courses matter. I manage to play chords in the LH and tune in the RH so I don't understand your last comment, Tony, especially as I thought the ability to do exactly this easily was the major selling point of all duets. I haven't noticed a price premium for cranes and I'd have guessed a ratio of 10 or 12 Wheatstone duets to one Crane myself. Top flight Cranes with decent ranges are disproportionately rarer because many (most?) of them were made for the Sally Army. Only a few Crane players seem to have commissioned their own instruments.

He's got that piano in again, yet I'm sure AP could easily have played all the notes himself instead. I don't think the piano adds anything, just detracts from Prince's playing. You almost feel that 'a concertina has to have a piano backing' was taken as read, perhaps unchallenged since the early days of the concertina. Maybe it wasn't worth challenging bacause the piano doubled the noise to carry in the music halls?

Fair point.

Wow!** Tks Jack - Had no idea about this amazing woman. talk about prolific: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofia_Gubaidulina Can Dirge compete at the bottom and top ends? - surely yes! ** Dunno. Don't like it. CBA to try...

Sorry, been away. I think you've slightly misunderstood. It's not the relative ease of finding a vintage duet, it's the relative ease of finding a decent Maccan compared to other duet systems. There are not nearly so many duets around as Englishes so they are rarer. Despite that, duets are significantly cheaper note for note. A situation that can't last. They are there but you need to look in the right places. Start at the concertina FAQ site for contacts for dealers and ring a few. You'll immediately find you have a choice, I promise. If you don't like the sound of any of them give it a week or two and ring again. A fair few quite nice Maccans have been surfacing on Ebay too; the moment you asked they all vanished of course. That 71 on the Buy and Sell forum should be a good one too; known history genuine seller etc. If it wasn't in America i might have been trying to work out how to switch a smaller one for that myself.

I got fed up with the bulk and immutable bass on my accordion too; some research later and I bought a Maccan duet. After a year I sold MY Titano 120b. Recently i saw an accordion at a very cheap price and thought about it for a minute but I realised I would never ever play it. I wouldn't fiddle about with an English though. A Maccan will do more and cost you less.

If I'm having trouble picking out a tune I sing it first, and it is surprising how often I find I don't actually know the tune after all. A little time experimenting until I can whistle or hum it precisely sorts that out, then I can pick up the instrument again knowing what notes I want to hear. So I'd back up the others who said sing it first. Make it a 2 stage process. Get to the point of whistling or humming it accurately, then pick up the 'tina.

Ah. Thanks for that. I didn't twig that it's an oboe solo short of a six pack.

which, without the harpsichord,spells out why it is perfect for a two-handed tina player with a Dirgeload of buttons! Einstein was just commenting at the barber's the other day that of course the space-time continuum is much fuller when string theory is brought into play so in fact, he suggested, these toons are probably more suitable for fiddlers.... Dirge - is this score any use (tho for orgue) http://conquest.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/c/c3/IMSLP222394-WIMA.7c46-H_II_Org.pdf Sorry K.; I was enjoying the fine West Country drizzle on Exmoor for a few days, so I've only just seen this. Well I probably could do something with it but I think I do better to stick to Handel's keyboard stuff as a rule. This needs me to bring out 2 tunes prominently and add in a harmony quietly in the background (I realise you are suggesting I forget the continuo but...) It is more of a challenge than something written for keyboard where Handel KNEW the player would have little control over individual note volume. This is why I like baroque music; I can add dynamics that handel could only dream of and otherwise do all he would expect. Nice piece though, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it, and I have worked out that we share a common admiration for Uncle George. But I couldn't (on a quick listen) tie in the score to the music. Is it the same piece/ It's easy enough and sounds great. The only catch here is the H2 is in NZ...

I always assumed it was for show, along with gold plate and amboyna veneer. Not that it isn't nice to have a classy looking instrument.

Ardie is forever banging away at this idea that somehow playing a concertina is the same as using a telephone etc. It's a keyboard so it works exactly the same as all others? Yeah, right. (as they say in NZ) For you, Jim, not Ardie, who knows I disagree with him violently on this point as he has already tried in a rather high and mighty way to tell me what the truth is in a PM exchange, I offer an explanation and perhaps an answer to your question; one that suits me anyway. The domed buttons are a big help for any sort of advanced play involving rocking fingers on buttons to pick up second buttons, sliding fingers across from one to another in desperate situations where that is the 'best' fingering solution and personally I would also say for comfort and a nice feel. Corners are just unfriendly. Furthermore keeping the key-size down to make space between them makes the keyboard more tolerant of inaccurate finger placement than if the buttons were wide enough to touch and on the same centres, if you think about it. Finally, that dead space between the keys also makes it easier to play pairs of notes with one finger cleanly without getting unwanted adjacent notes. I'd suggest the domed button might have come in as a direct result of the early virtuosi pushing the limits of what was perceived as possible on the instrument to include the sort of shenanagins mentioned above.

Or even my great great uncle Charles if the same 'Maccann' ???? Extract from Maccann's Concertinists Guide. Geoffrey Interesting again. I bet it is the same man. If it was your relly involved he got outbid by Lachenals! When does the guide date from Geoff?

Glad it's not just me. Starting with the original core fixed because it's already what is known, and then adding the next octaves after the event for 'best fit' explains why the innermost octaves of the thing have an almost Anglo style 1324 124 1 fingering when elsewhere octaves are fingered 1324 1324. As far as I'm concerned one of the more subtle things about 'the Maccan system' is the way octaves are often not directly above each other. Playing 2 notes directly above each other and separated by space is not easy to do in series, or worked in with other notes and this avoids the problem to a large degree. I admired the design and could not imagine how the originator worked this out without having ever played one in anger. Now I know. He didn't work it out, it just happened that way. The other curiosity is why the system was regularised later on. This throws the baby out with the bathwater for me, but clearly Wheatstone didn't think so. Perhaps by the 1930's they could see that their 'professional' market had gone and they felt that making it accessible for amateur players was more important than worrying about nuances of play.

Thanks Gary. I hope you're right.

Blimey there's hours of it...and you must have had the recorder right next to my machine. I do do quiet as well folks. I'd forgotten how good the guitarist was. Must look him up; he lived across the road from one of the most famous pubs in Somerset. It was quite poignant listening to that; memories of a happy day in the sun, with perhaps just a little more beer than was really musical, but happy stuff, yet all the time thinking about why it had been posted up. Anyway, partially in self defence I had to get out the Zoom and do this. Still not quite there but hopefully Leo will understand. I never use the smiley faces normally but again, as it's by 'one of us' Leo would have marked the link accordingly. So, for leo then.nimrod latest.mp3 Edited to add; I never use emoticons and failed this time too. Just assume there was a yellow smiling face next to the attachment. Edited a second time to add that I see now I did add the beastly thing but it's at the top of the post. How inappropriate is that. Sorry mate.

I was assuming Chris had the ends right, but it doesn't really matter; the action he won't be mistaken on and the rest is Lach anyway. You can see the buttons, etc. It's just gone for £490; I reckon the buyer should be pleased. (And has probably just stopped cursing me for drawing attention to it.)