Woody

Happy year new Bob. It raised an interesting point so it was a worthwhile "mistake!" All the best mate W

I think this is where it gets a bit muddled convention-wise. Dave Weinstein with his drop-D Baritone refers to it as Baritone G/D "Drop D" layout where the inner "D" row is the lower pitched - see his layout at http://www.sff.net/people/olorin/drop-d-concertina.html. Personally I find it clearer if you take Dave's approach and refer to "G/D Drop D tuning" rather than calling it a D/G because I feel that keeping the description to the common order of the row pitches makes it clearer what you are talking about. It may be technically more correct to refer to it as a D/G but I think that you'd confuse a lot of people (or at least me ). IMHO "G/D Drop D" gives you all the basic information you need YMMV. TTFN.

The convention is that the first key mentioned is the middle row of buttons on a standard 30 button Anglo, and the second key mentioned is that of the inner row, with the outer row containing the accidentals. So C/G means middle row C and inner row (nearest your body) G. One other common set-up is G/D - G is middle row, D is inner row. You could stumble upon a D/G but it would be unusual. These two pages from our very own Mr Timson's Concertina FAQ should clarify things... C/G layout G/D layout

I hope everybody has a great 2010 regards, W

At the end of the day it's worth what somebody is willing to pay for it.

Patience dear boy, patience. Some of us are still doing our shopping! Here's a few seasonal ones that come to mind.... Jingle bells Silent night Stop the cavalry (for the Brits) In the bleak midwinter Oh come all ye faithful Auld lang syne O Tannenbaum / Oh Christmas Tree / The Red Flag The 12 days of Christmas I saw thee ships come sailing in on Christmas day... Merry Xmas Everybody (Slade - for the Brits again & I think more complicated than the others) I'm dreaming of a white Xmas

I remember at Kilve a few years ago the duet players were working on reproducing the Anglo "bounce" and seemed to achieve it quite well. Perhaps Dirge or Wolosp can chime in on the technicalities - I think one or both of them may have been there at the time.

You can try asking Steve Clinkscale music who are the people behind the Stephanelli name. From memory the layout did have some idiosyncrasies.

I've seen several mentions about the recorded tunes link page no longer being available on Henk's site. It can be found there at http://www.anglo-concertina.net/links_status.htm However, most of the links seem broken

I think it depends on what type of accident you're planning on having! I've got a hard case for my Norman, but with m old Jones I had a high quality soft case which fitted into a large hard case. I had the best of both world's most of the time, but had the option of just going with the soft case at a moment's notice. Should I decide to replace my hard case at some time I think I'll go for this option again - though it can mean extra faffing around getting the instrument in and out. If the soft case is well engineered I would be happy to go round with one of those unless somebody decides to stand on, or drive a car over my Anglo!

"Harper's frolic" followed by "Bonny Kate" seems to be a banker from my (very) limited experience

I have a small number (about 20) tunes that I play more or less regularly. Some I keep as the Morris side dance to them, others may get replaced if I find a tunes I really want to play. The advantage of this is that if a tune really bores me it gets dropped but otherwise I get the time to play around with how I play the tune and try to explore different harmonies, emphasis, chords etc. I'm currently going through the tunes I know in Dan Worrals Kimber book seeing how he played them. It works for me but YMMV.

"Plastic" is just a name for a group of materials. Used intelligently many can be good for the environment. Unfortunately for a lot of the things they tend to get used for at the moment they become a source of environmental damage and pollution.

Seems to me that the result could depend significantly on who published the data. Well there's obviously likely to be some differences between assessments and it depends upon the boundaries applied but there has been a lot of academic effort over a period of years looking at what goes into producing each material including the amount of fossil fuel energy and pollution caused. The result will also be based upon averages, so it would only be an indicator, but it would enable the pollution ecofootprint of individual products to be compared against each other as long as the same source tables were used for all cases. After all an ecofootprint is at the end of the day just a tool for comparison used to inform choice.

Certainly wood can be sourced from woodlands that practice sustainable management, though how many of the most favoured hardwoods would come into this category I don't know. As for the use of leather, while not vegan it is sustainable to the extent that the leather is effectively the waste product from producing other products (dairy & meat). The skins will be left after processing so it's probably "better" if it's used to make music rather than being wasted. That said, proceeds from the sale of leather does help to support the economic model of dairy farming, though I doubt if the dairy industry would change if this income stream was removed. If you got a breakdown of the components it should be possible to arrive at an approximation of the instrument's ecofootprint using published data.

Well the word "plastic" covers an enormous range of materials with differing properties. I'm sure with a lot of research a suitable substitute could be found that could replace leather. The question is - unless there's some significant advantage in sound, performance or price - why bother? The world's not exactly running out of cows. With the body - wood is readily available and its acoustic properties are well known, so again IMHO there would need to be a significant advantage before it would really make sense to use something else. The only advantage I can see of a plastic one is resilience. I used to have one of those blue plastic ones, not great to play but it's made of ABS. It got dropped off a 5' wall onto concrete once and didn't even have a scratch. Try that with a Dipper!

Sadly I think Fer is right. These things take time & sometimes there is no real alternative to practice. There are however some tricks you can use to improve the learning process. The brain seems to store information by allocating it a priority and by using links to the information. The more of a priority you can make it seem & the more links you can make, the easier it becomes to recall the information. The priority seems to be worked out by how often the information is needed. The more often it is used the higher the priority. This is why learning things by doing little but often works better than doing long practice sessions occasionally. By using the information often the brain keeps it ready as it knows it will need it again soon. If something is not used for a while its priority gets downgraded and hence it takes more effort to recall. This is the source of the phrase Use it or lose it. The brain creates links to the information which are used to access it later. The greater the variety of situations in which the information is used, the greater the number of links. For example, if you try learning the names by playing them & saying them; writing out diagrams where you work out where the notes are; sing the note names as you play them; have a set of flash cards where a note name is given & you have to find all the places where the note occurs on the instrument - using all the techniques together will make more links than just repeating one again and again. That said it still requires hard work. Alternatively you could just learn to play by ear.

Just to add that while the next step up in price is the Stagis, it's not really a step up in quality. After a Rochelle I think most players would be looking to move directly to at least the $1800-$2000 range to achieve a significant jump in instrument quality and performance. Good luck W

Hi Bob, on my 36b G/D Norman one button I really make use of in the chords L/H and Melody R/H style is the equivalent of the R/H G/A you've got in your diagram. Being able to continue the tune down these extra two notes on the R/H side IMHO makes L/H chording a lot easier. cheers, W

Perhaps they'd be more receptive if you illustrated your point with examples comparing the options provided by the different music types?

We're moving outside the remit of this forum pursuing this line of discussion but if you believe it's always correct and natural to achieve the highest possible price it will become self fulfilling. I don't think it's the natural state of affairs. And let's leave it at that. Well fine except that's not what I said. Azalin doubted that free market buying and selling could be described as 'natural' and I explained why I thought it was a reasonable word to use. That's all. I don't think you can quote me, answer your own different question and expect the last word as well. I think some people consider "natural" to be a synonym for "desirable." Sometimes this is valid, for instance it's natural and desirable to breathe. Sometimes it's not valid, for instance it's "natural" for human beings to die of horrible diseases

I've no idea about any possible legal issues regarding this, so it's perhaps inappropriate to post any answer here just in case, except to say it is possible, people do manage it, and they've written about how they do it on several internet sites. Using your search engine of choice should quickly allow you to find your answer.

Sky 534 Virgin TV 206

I suspect that just being a concertina player will make them think that.

Hooray for the wonderful Button Box! 1 week from ordering and my CD arrived this morning so now I know what sound I'm aiming for.