Tom Cowell

Helen, Could be. I'm average height (or maybe a little shorter) so I don't have much insight into this. Frankly, "not much" is about all the insight I want into the psyche of a large pink-and-silver accordion. That's right. I changed to a similar size instrument in understated black-and-white, but now I'm trying the concertina. When I was a teenager I played the piano, so (I'm sure I'm not the only one) to play folk music I took up the piano accordion. It's a folk piano, right? Sometimes I wish that somebody had said to me "no no no, the harp is the folk piano". Anyway, I switched to the concertina because of my inability to get pleasing sounds out of the bass end of the accordion. It's a Stagi 30 button English. Plain brown bellows, wooden ends. My philosophy is "if you're a lousy musician, don't draw attention to yourself". Once, when I had the pink and silver monster and I was a worse musician than I am now, I joined an impromptu jam session at a festival. I was playing chords, relying on watching a guitar player's left hand (beause my ear isn't very good), using about 2% of the available notes and stumbling frequently. At one point I noticed that the melody had stopped and everyone was smiling at me - it was my turn to improvise a melody worthy of O'Carolan! I don't want this to happen again.

I once had a big Accordion with a silver marble effect finish - not quite to my taste, but not too bad when the bellows were closed. Opening the bellows, however, was a horrible shock - they were pink. It was a very nasty looking instrument. Cheers Tom

Lester, I envy you. I'm English, but I don't have particularly strong roots in the area where I grew up. At the moment I live in Germany, and I like to think of myself as a European (probably just an affectation, I realise). I certainly can't claim any cultural roots, and I wasn't brought up in the context of a musical tradition. Instead, I am a cultural zombie, feeding on the living music of others. I play British and some European folk music because that is what I like, and because I have no music of my own. The positive side of my tale of woe is that I don't feel encumbered by any obligation to keep a musical tradition alive. Cheers Tom

Don't worry Richard - your lost vote will be cancelled by my lost vote in the "zero or less" category. Having fallen into this trap, I also find that I can't go and look at the poll results a SECOND TIME! (because I have "already voted"). On topic: I know a melodeon player, and my brother had a toy harmonica when we were children. Also, my grandmother has an old harmonium that my father and uncle renovated (or "renovated") when they were children. But I'm the only concertina player I know.