Jerome C

I am happy to say that rumors, or should I say rumours, of the demise of the Co. Champaign Irish Tune Collections On-Line are greatly exaggerated. I hadn't been aware of the link at theSession, for which I have now posted a replacement.

Could that be because they're both built in China? Now that I've gotten home, I've compared the right end of my box with the right end of the Rochelle in the photo. The buttons on the Rochelle are placed somewhat differently and closer together, and what can be seen of the action through the S-holes is different between the boxes. But the basic design of the cover plates appears to be the same on the Jackie, the Rochelle, and my box. It may be one company that supplies the blanks as of before the holes are drilled and the handle hardware fitted.

-- Well, it's a badly made, leaky, slow Chinese 30-button for $110-$115 (+ $25 shipping) -- I don't recall any one-row accordion as low as $100 on the 'bay (except for the plastic toy ones for $20 with seven melody keys and two basses). ...yes, and if you go that route, when you actually do get a car, you'll have learned that the way to accelerate is to twist the end of the handlebars and the way to decelerate is to squeeze the levers on the handlebars, wait a minute, what handlebars? and what does the wheel do? and what are those pedals for? One can get a car for $500. Its miles will be in six figures and its gas mileage in maybe one, and it'll probably make horrible noises, and one will learn about all the things that can go wrong with it and either how to fix them oneself or how much it costs to fix them. But in contrast to a motor scooter, one can bring home a load of groceries, be under a roof when it's raining, have a companion in the passenger seat. From what Lily wrote, it sounds as if she understands what she'd be getting into. She's not going to get Dipper or even Stagi quality, but she'll be able to learn how to finger across three rows and have melody notes under both hands. She will have started out on the way to being a concertina player, not an accordion player.

I started with one of those in February and upgraded to a used Stagi W-15LN in March (final price on eBay for the Stagi was ~$400, bidded up by more than $20 by a couple of barracudas within the last minute). --The Chinese box has a much lighter touch on the buttons; the stiffer buttons of the Stagi enable crisper repeated notes. --The Chinese box is very leaky, making it difficult to execute quick note changes that require bellows reversals. --The reeds on the Chinese box vary in their responsiveness. The left hand isn't too bad, but the G row on the right hand requires much more air on the draw; in fact, the A draw on the right hand G went out completely on the second day of playing. I intend to open up the box and try to free that reed once I have enough of a weekend block free. --The tone of the Chinese box is actually somewhat sweeter than that of the Stagi. It seems nicer for backing vocals with chords. --The closeness of the buttons to the bar on the Chinese box was a problem for me too, requiring hyperextension of the wrists that led to painful swelling. Based on a tip I read on this forum, I solved the problem by cutting a couple of bars of plastic foam from some appliance packing, about 3/4" thick, wrapping them in duct tape, and duct-taping them to the concertina handles. By the way, does anyone notice a resemblance between the ends of the Chinese box and those of the Rochelle?

If you want to know what a concertina is called in Chinese, why not write to one of the companies in China that produces CSOs (see Mr. Tedrow's page on VSOs)? One such outfit is Yangzhong Musical Instrument Co., maker of the Yingjie. Or you might want to contact Gary Liang ("Microscope City") at microscopecity at aol dot com.

Spootiskerry, all on the C row, on one of these jobs from Red China imported by Gary Liang, arrived six weeks ago. 'Twas also the first tune I didn't totally crash and burn on in a session, but of course not nearly as quickly as the fellow who first brought it to town plays it....

According to Michael Tubridy's notes for the Mrs. Crotty CD, even Lachenals were rare in Clare when she was growing up (though she eventually had one). Most of the concertinas there were 20-button German boxes. So it seems the Clare concertina tradition grew up on the ancestors of today's Hohners and Scholers. Certainly not on the likes of a Dipper County Clare.