squeezora

I'M REALLY OPEN TO OFFERS, SO TRY ME, I CAN ONLY SAY NO, BUT I MIGHT SAY YES!!!!!!!!!!1

I've received my new recorder and expect the mics to arrive this week. I'll re-record the pieces that I've posted and add one or two others. Then I'll be working to complete a CD........... JULIETTE’S REPERTOIRE REGONDI} LEISURE MOMENTS 1 & 2 JOHN DOWLAND} WHAT IF A DAY COY TOY ORLANDO SLEEPETH MRS WINTERS JUMP JOHANN SEBATIAN BACH} MENUET IN G Major MENUET IN G minor CLAUDE TOMAIN} L’ÉNFANT DEMON V. SLOVYOV-SEDOY} MOSCOW NIGHTS BARTOLOME CALATAYUD} LAMENTA GITANA FANDANGUILLO BULERIAS ESTAMPA GITANA MANUEL PONCE} PRELUDE I PRELUDE III PRELUDE VI FRANCIS CUTTING} GREENSLEEVES - ORIGINAL ARRANGEMENT FOR RENAISSANCE LUTE RIMSKY KORSKOV} FLIGHT OF THE BUMBLE BEE I play all pieces in my repertoire from memory and not from sheet music. Here are the pieces that I am working on and hope to include in my repertoire soon: {J.S.BACH} CHACONNE J.DOWLAND} MR. DOWLAND’S MIDNIGHT A PIECE WITHYOUT TITLE GUILIO REGONDI} LEISURE MOMENTS 3, 4, 5, & 6 MANUEL PONCE} PRELUDES 2, 4, & 5 J. HAYDEN} EMPERORS STRING QUARTET, 2ND MOVEMENT GIUSEPPE VERDI} LA DONNAE MOBILE LUIZ BONFA} CHANSON DÓRPHEE ISAAC ALBENIZ} ASTURIAS Bartolome Calatayud SONADA TIPICA DE MALLORCA

. I've always thought aluminum and steel screws or rivets/ reeds, was a bad combination. As long as things stay dry and salt free, it's ok, but once the corrosion starts, it is much worse than anything with brass and steel ( which is bad enough ). Duralumin is quite corrosion resistant by itself but in contact with steel is no better than other alloys.Dana Why not use brass rivets with brass shoes? Is drilling out the old rivet and making a new rivet the best way to go? I've got and old Wheatstone, about 1860 with one broken reed that needs replacing. It has a brass shoe and reed with a large headed steel rivet. Funny thing is that this concertina has no signs of ever having been played! The inside is as pristine as new, the pads are as new, and the buttons look new. But the valve material is like new, but is totally fragile due to age as I suspect the pads are as well and need replacing. Anyway I have to fix the one reed and have a person who can machine a new rivet if needed. What's the usual way to deal with this? J.

I stand corrected, Jim. I think you are right about the proper name being 'reed shoe'. I must have had melodeons and accordions on the brain at the time. I remember reading an interesting article sometime ago, written by Dana Johnson about reed shoes and chamfering and I doubt that someone as knowledgeable as Dana would get it wrong. - Chris P.S. What a rivetting topic this has turned out to be! I may have learned a bit over the years, but I use the term reed shoe because that is what other people I talked to called them at the time. Since these were people who worked with concertinas all the time, it was handy to use the same term. I've heard them called Frames too. In mechanical things, shoe is often a term used for a part that contains or holds on to a smaller assembly that is then fit into something else. Fits concertina reeds pretty well. But right or wrong? Who gets to decide? Beyond all that, Rivets are a perfectly good way to fasten reeds to the thingys. Reeds do break ( rarely) especially if corroded or badly filed / retuned, then it is a good bit more effort to make a new riveted style one. As a production method, it has some advantages over the strap clamp type, and if done correctly doesn't effect the tone. Individual variations in the wood of the red pans has a much larger effect on tone quality and loudness, though poorly made reeds with too much clearance will spoil an otherwise good box. I've always thought aluminum and steel screws or rivets/ reeds, was a bad combination. As long as things stay dry and salt free, it's ok, but once the corrosion starts, it is much worse than anything with brass and steel ( which is bad enough ). Duralumin is quite corrosion resistant by itself but in contact with steel is no better than other alloys. Dana

This is a just like new , beautiful wooden ended, treble concertina. Juliette

(I posted this in the "CONCERTINA HISTORY" thread and then realized that it probably was more appropriate to this thread, so I'm posting it here too and hope this is O.K. to do.) I really would love any comments or feedback from readers, especially if you've had a similar experience in your own life. Juliette !! ************************************************************ Sometimes things happen that can’t be explained away so easily with clichés like “it’s a small world’ or “its just a coincidence. If you have never been to France or, at least this part, Correze, of France, it will help if I explain a little about the region. This is a mountainous place where most of the roads wind and twist their way down into deep gorges and up steep hills. Straight is only for a kilometer or two. There are thousands of small back roads that stretch in every direction and that are really only meant for one car at a time so you have pass each other, you pass with half of your car off on the edge of a deep ditch or a precarious drop off, sometimes hundreds of feet down to the bottom. French drivers seldom slow down when meeting on these roads and instead perform a jog type maneuver as they pass each other. It’s a bit like the game of “CHICKEN”. Amazingly few meet their demise while engaging in this recklessness habit. It’s a good thing that there are seldom many cars and I learned that a good trick is simply to pull over and stop, then they’ll go around you and nod or wave at you in amazed appreciation. It’s really worth it, though, to take a drive on these roads because the scenery is so beautiful and you will discover all kinds of wonderful old villages and hamlets of stone houses with thick slate roofs, Chateaux, Abbeys, gigantic twisted and gnarled ancient trees of countless varieties and jillions of wild, as well as tended, flowers everywhere. A great part of the French population can be found living along these countryside roads and they are often seen out for a promenade. They most always acknowledge your presence with a nod or wave of the hand. You have to be careful about stopping and talking with them, because the next thing you know, you’ll be invited to their house for coffee or a glass of wine and cookies. On last Sunday, a year ago, I attended an Accordion Festival at St. Dezéry which is just 12 kilometers down the highway from where I live on the route to Bordeaux. The event is held around and old church that sits on top of a hill overlooking the village. There was a stage set up and in front of it a wooden dance floor. This was surrounded by fruit and flower vendors, a wine and beer tent and all the trimmings of a country festival. There was a fascinating display of old, antique cars and motorbikes which are especially popular here in France these days. Accordeon festivals and dances, like this, are found all over the countryside on weekends in France. Even throughout the winter in the festival halls which nearly every village has. There was an accordion player there who had been advertised on posters put up along the highway and everywhere else in the area. Her name was Natalie, a nicely dressed woman in her thirties. I watched and listened to her play, she was marvelous, and I really wanted to play like her. She was astounding. I learned that she was the head an Accordeon school in St. Sauves which is about a half hour drive from where I live. I visited the school, C.N.I.M.A., the next week and asked if I could study there. They first listened to me play and then welcomed me and agreed that I could study at the school with my concertina, though no one there actually played a concertina and most had never seen one before. So in September I wound up as a lone concertina player surrounded by Accordeonistas . Most of the students were French, but there were also students from Italy, Portugal, Spain, Japan, and Poland, so it was an interesting and fun mixture of students. I had studied music before, but it was different here, the accordeon playing and teaching were really intense as well as the other subjects such as composition, music history and the important things that help you to be a musician. And all the teachers were very first rate, accomplished musicians themselves! They teach “Ball” which is the French style of dance music, Classical or Bayan (taught by a Russian player), Variety, Modern and Jazz. Most of the students are fairly young but there are some older students as well, even up in their sixties, especially for the short one week terms that they hold while the regular students are on break. I learned a lot about bellowing techniques, improvising, but the most important thing that really changed my concertina playing was the suggestion by one of my teachers, Sebastian Farge, that I could work out full arrangements of the music I like to play. Sebastian is also a composer. He took the piece I was working on and wrote out a full accompaniment to it.. Ï said I didn’t think it was possible for me to play, but he answered “of course you can!” I thought it was an impossible task when I first started to try to practice it. But when I came to my next lesson and haltingly, struggled through the piece, he said “good, you’ve got it! This was the most important lesson I’ve ever had. It has helped me to become a self accompanying solo concertina player. My dream is to be able to travel around the world and to play for people with just my concertina. Sadly, finances caused me to have to leave the school, but I continue to work very hard every day at my music, practicing and writing, about 4 to 6 hours each day including weekends. Last Sunday I went again to St. Dezéry for this year’s Accordeon Festival. As l walked up to the church I met my teacher Sebastian, who I hadn’t seen since last December. I told him about my progress and thanked him for the help gave me as it had really changed my concertina life which has now become so much more exiting to me. I told him how happy it had made me. I had arrived in St. Dezéry about 2 p.m. and Sebastian said he was going to be playing at 5:30. So the thought occurred to me, that I had time drive down to Lachenal and get my picture taken by the village sign. Just so someone in the C.net forum didn’t beat me to it. It took about an hour to get there from St. Dezéry On Sunday afternoons in France the roads in the country are nearly deserted and it was a very pleasant drive. On my first visit to Lachenal, for some reason, I hadn’t gone on into the village. The sign was just at a fork in the road, it had been raining hard at the time and I only stopped long enough for the quick photo, backed up and went a kilometer up to the village of Darnet where the old church was that I played in on my first visit. So when I arrived again at Lachenal, what was beyond the sign was to be seen for the first time. Not far after the sign was a sturdy concrete fence and a drive that lead down to a beautiful large house with barns, a pond and several other buildings. These can be seen in the background of the first photo that I posted about Lachenal. On each side of the stone gate is a “LACHENAL” sign. I posed for some photos leaning against the wall and playing my concertina. I was quite surprised to discover that this was all there was to LACHENAL. Just this one ancient farm with two signs on each side. The farming had ended long ago and it was now just a well kept residence. Down the lane behind me, I saw an old woman with a cane and cloud of white hair, who I later learned was in her nineties. I went to greet her, upon getting closer I noted that while she was quite old, she looked very pleasant dressed in her Sunday cloths. As is the custom here in France, after talking to her a little, I was invited to come down to the terrace by the house and have some refreshment. I thought she might make someone a wonderful “Fairy Godmother”. We sat and talked and I played my concertina for her. She said that she had lived in this house for nearly 70 years and that her children were all musicians. Her son and grandson were playing in St. Dezéry that very day. Her son was playing keyboard and her grandson played the accordion. When I heard that her grandson played accordion, I asked if she might know of Sebastian Farge who was my teacher. She laughed and said that Sebastian was like another grandson to her. If you go to the "Concertina History" thread there is a photo on this post of me playing at the Gates of Lachenal.

"Well, if Juliette is half as good a tutor as she is musician, you'll be in good hands." Keep us posted. Regards, Peter. Thank you Peter for all the positive things you've said. However I don't teach as I consider myself still a student and it will be some years before I could ever think of teaching. From the beginning of my playing I've dreamed of being able to play for others. From the time I was a small child, I've always had the greatest pleasure and happiness from giving things that I've made to others. I think of my concertina playing like that and it’s like a dream come true to me to think that I'm getting closer to realizing that dream. It's really scary too, though, because things don't always come so easy to me and I have to work very hard to learn anything. Of course, it would be great if someone just sent me a pair of good microphones, but I will do as is normal for me and find a way to buy what I need by myself. I have several concertinas that were given to me by my father that he suggested I could sell to get what I need. I have a Suttner English concertina, 48 keys with black wooden ends that is still in new condition. I'm told that these sell for about 5,000 euros new, but if anyone on the news group made me a fair offer, I would probably take it and get the equipment. I had been keeping it for a back up in case something happened to my Wheatstone, but I want to make a good recording and I know that will require some good equipment. There is no place in my area that rents sound equipment and if they do so in Paris, that is 5 hours away from me and it's not too practical. I don't want to record in a studio, it doesn't appeal to me. I like to play in different places like the churches, along side streams, in hollows of the gorges and the like. So I need smaller equipment that I can take around with me. I want to sell recordings that are as much like real playing as possible and not doctored up in a sound laboratory. That way, when I get a chance to come to play in your area, I will sound about the same as on my recordings, mistakes and all. Thank you, Juliette

Hi Laitch, Yes, he wrote it, the arrangement is mine that I based the accordion music. This is a piece that most French accordion players learn here in France. I think that it sounds different when played on the concertina. I will be posting a list of the pieces in my repertoire soon. These are the pieces that I know by heart and plan to record. I will also post one more example of my playing in the next few days and then I'll make other pieces available on my website that I hope to have up and running soon. I really appreciate the input from everyone here, it is encouraging and helps me to practice a lot harder. Thanks, Juliette

Sometimes things happen that can’t be explained away so easily with clichés like “it’s a small world’ or “its just a coincidence. If you have never been to France or, at least this part, Correze, of France, it will help if I explain a little about the region. This is a mountainous place where most of the roads wind and twist their way down into deep gorges and up steep hills. Straight is only for a kilometer or two. There are thousands of small back roads that stretch in every direction and that are really only meant for one car at a time so you have pass each other, you pass with half of your car off on the edge of a deep ditch or a precarious drop off, sometimes hundreds of feet down to the bottom. French drivers seldom slow down when meeting on these roads and instead perform a jog type maneuver as they pass each other. It’s a bit like the game of “CHICKEN”. Amazingly few meet their demise while engaging in this recklessness habit. It’s a good thing that there are seldom many cars and I learned that a good trick is simply to pull over and stop, then they’ll go around you and nod or wave at you in amazed appreciation. It’s really worth it, though, to take a drive on these roads because the scenery is so beautiful and you will discover all kinds of wonderful old villages and hamlets of stone houses with thick slate roofs, Chateaux, Abbeys, gigantic twisted and gnarled ancient trees of countless varieties and jillions of wild, as well as tended, flowers everywhere. A great part of the French population can be found living along these countryside roads and they are often seen out for a promenade. They most always acknowledge your presence with a nod or wave of the hand. You have to be careful about stopping and talking with them, because the next thing you know, you’ll be invited to their house for coffee or a glass of wine and cookies. On last Sunday, a year ago, I attended an Accordion Festival at St. Dezéry which is just 12 kilometers down the highway from where I live on the route to Bordeaux. The event is held around and old church that sits on top of a hill overlooking the village. There was a stage set up and in front of it a wooden dance floor. This was surrounded by fruit and flower vendors, a wine and beer tent and all the trimmings of a country festival. There was a fascinating display of old, antique cars and motorbikes which are especially popular here in France these days. Accordeon festivals and dances, like this, are found all over the countryside on weekends in France. Even throughout the winter in the festival halls which nearly every village has. There was an accordion player there who had been advertised on posters put up along the highway and everywhere else in the area. Her name was Natalie, a nicely dressed woman in her thirties. I watched and listened to her play, she was marvelous, and I really wanted to play like her. She was astounding. I learned that she was the head an Accordeon school in St. Sauves which is about a half hour drive from where I live. I visited the school, C.N.I.M.A., the next week and asked if I could study there. They first listened to me play and then welcomed me and agreed that I could study at the school with my concertina, though no one there actually played a concertina and most had never seen one before. So in September I wound up as a lone concertina player surrounded by Accordeonistas . Most of the students were French, but there were also students from Italy, Portugal, Spain, Japan, and Poland, so it was an interesting and fun mixture of students. I had studied music before, but it was different here, the accordeon playing and teaching were really intense as well as the other subjects such as composition, music history and the important things that help you to be a musician. And all the teachers were very first rate, accomplished musicians themselves! They teach “Ball” which is the French style of dance music, Classical or Bayan (taught by a Russian player), Variety, Modern and Jazz. Most of the students are fairly young but there are some older students as well, even up in their sixties, especially for the short one week terms that they hold while the regular students are on break. I learned a lot about bellowing techniques, improvising, but the most important thing that really changed my concertina playing was the suggestion by one of my teachers, Sebastian Farge, that I could work out full arrangements of the music I like to play. Sebastian is also a composer. He took the piece I was working on and wrote out a full accompaniment to it.. Ï said I didn’t think it was possible for me to play, but he answered “of course you can!” I thought it was an impossible task when I first started to try to practice it. But when I came to my next lesson and haltingly, struggled through the piece, he said “good, you’ve got it! This was the most important lesson I’ve ever had. It has helped me to become a self accompanying solo concertina player. My dream is to be able to travel around the world and to play for people with just my concertina. Sadly, finances caused me to have to leave the school, but I continue to work very hard every day at my music, practicing and writing, about 4 to 6 hours each day including weekends. Last Sunday I went again to St. Dezéry for this year’s Accordeon Festival. As l walked up to the church I met my teacher Sebastian, who I hadn’t seen since last December. I told him about my progress and thanked him for the help gave me as it had really changed my concertina life which has now become so much more exiting to me. I told him how happy it had made me. I had arrived in St. Dezéry about 2 p.m. and Sebastian said he was going to be playing at 5:30. So the thought occurred to me, that I had time drive down to Lachenal and get my picture taken by the village sign. Just so someone in the C.net forum didn’t beat me to it. It took about an hour to get there from St. Dezéry On Sunday afternoons in France the roads in the country are nearly deserted and it was a very pleasant drive. On my first visit to Lachenal, for some reason, I hadn’t gone on into the village. The sign was just at a fork in the road, it had been raining hard at the time and I only stopped long enough for the quick photo, backed up and went a kilometer up to the village of Darnet where the old church was that I played in on my first visit. So when I arrived again at Lachenal, what was beyond the sign was to be seen for the first time. Not far after the sign was a sturdy concrete fence and a drive that lead down to a beautiful large house with barns, a pond and several other buildings. These can be seen in the background of the first photo that I posted about Lachenal. On each side of the stone gate is a “LACHENAL” sign. I posed for some photos leaning against the wall and playing my concertina. I was quite surprised to discover that this was all there was to LACHENAL. Just this one ancient farm with two signs on each side. The farming had ended long ago and it was now just a well kept residence. Down the lane behind me, I saw an old woman with a cane and cloud of white hair, who I later learned was in her nineties. I went to greet her, upon getting closer I noted that while she was quite old, she looked very pleasant dressed in her Sunday cloths. As is the custom here in France, after talking to her a little, I was invited to come down to the terrace by the house and have some refreshment. I thought she might make someone a wonderful “Fairy Godmother”. We sat and talked and I played my concertina for her. She said that she had lived in this house for nearly 70 years and that her children were all musicians. Her son and grandson were playing in St. Dezéry that very day. Her son was playing keyboard and her grandson played the accordion. When I heard that her grandson played accordion, I asked if she might know of Sebastian Farge who was my teacher. She laughed and said that Sebastian was like another grandson to her.

Recorded in an ancient Templar Church on Sunday June 25. Please forgive the 20 seconds of silence before the music starts. Juliette http://www.anglo-concertina.net/guests/jul...nfant_demon.mp3

Hi Peter, I just recorded some of my playing today and I am trying to figure out how to get it on to the Concertina Net. This is the first recording I've ever made of my playing and so please be a little patient with my getting it put on. It might take me a day or two as I'm very new at this. It was really interesting to hear myself playing for the first time on a recording. It''s just a monoral recording done with a 10 cent mike to my computer. I'm planning on getting some good, but inexpensive equipment soon. I have a couple of extra concertinas that I might sell to help pay for the equipment and other things I need for my music. After I get this piece on, I'll try to record a medly of parts of other pieces I do to give you an idea of what I've been talking about. I appreciate your interest and encouragement, it does help, Juliette : http://www.anglo-concertina.net/guests/juliette/gitana.mp3

[Thanks for your response; as I suspected, your playing sounds to be technically quite advanced (or should that be very advanced?). Maybe we'll hear some recordings before too long. Hi Peter, I just recorded some of my playing today and I am trying to figure out how to get it on to the Concertina Net. This is the first recording I've ever made of my playing and so please be a little patient with my getting it put on. It might take me a day or two as I'm very new at this. It was really interesting to hear myself playing for the first time on a recording. It''s just a monoral recording done with a 10 cent mike to my computer. I'm planning on getting some good, but inexpensive equipment soon. I have a couple of extra concertinas that I might sell to help pay for the equipment and other things I need for my music. After I get this piece on, I'll try to record a medly of parts of other pieces I do to give you an idea of what I've been talking about. I appreciate your interest and encouragement, it does help, Juliette

Juliette, I didn't think to ask when submitting my previous posting; how long have you been playing English concertina? Did you acquire a concertina and then realise its potential for the music which you play, or did you research the instrument and then actively seek one? You certainly made a good choice. Regards, Peter. Hi Peter, I’ve been playing the English Concertina since my early teens, 6 or 7 years now. I started playing violin several years earlier. I liked playing in the school orchestra and the teacher let me play some violin parts on my concertina. I like to listen to all kinds of music, but when it comes to practicing and playing I seem to wind up wanting to play the more classical types. My father gave me a basic mahogany Lachenal at first, it was very nice and in good condition, but it had some limitations (slow reeds and not too much air available) and he thought a better instrument would make it easier for me to learn, which it did. So I wound up with my Wheatstone, which I really love. I got a small music scholarship cash award from my school when I graduated which encouraged me to continue my music studies. It was for my concertina playing which I had gotten a competition prize in our school system. I worked for a year at music and then I studied Art for the next 2.5 years. But I continued to play the concertina and after I left art school I studied at CNIMA (The National and International Center of Accordion Music) here in France. They are a really great accordeon school, possibly the best in the world, certainly the biggest. The teach all styles of accordeon, however they don’t teach concertina per se, but many of the technical ideas are very similar, particularly the use of the bellows in expression. They received me with great enthusiasm. While studying there a particular teacher, Sebastian, who is a fabulous Accordeonist and composer, suggested that I play more than one voice at a time. At first I thought I couldn’t do it, but with my fathers encouragement (he played classical guitar for many years) I found that I could. He said that a guitarist can only play 6 notes at a time, but a concertinist can play up to 8 notes, even more, at a time, so theoretically I should be able to do it. I worked at it and found out that I can. I have to arrange the pieces especially for the concertina, but sitting down and working it all out helps me to learn and understand the music. I do know, and/or know of, the above mentioned people like Pauline de Snoo, Douglas Rogers, Wim Wakker, Alan Atlas, Alistair Anderson, David Townsend, Lea Nicholson, and a couple others. I respect and admire and appreciate all they have done, some of which has been shared with me. But this is really a very small group when you think of it, and so my hopes were that this post would turn up more people who are engaged in pursuit of playing classical style music on the concertina. I’m happy say that accordion playing is alive and well in France. Lots of very cool young people study and play the accordion, and every weekend there are accordion fetes and dances all over France, especially in the small villages. The level of playing is awesome! Also the French made accordions are fabulous and have unique features that make them different from others, but very desirable. Juliette

Wait a minute -- you're posing there with a Wheatstone! I think the scary local was there to try and keep you from getting past the village entrance with that thing.... Steven No Problem, just send me your nice Lachenal and I'll go back and have another snapshot taken, Juliette

I went back to LACHENAL last Sunday and found a strange connection to myself and my concertina playing. I'm writing it all down now and will post the story of this adventure shortly. It all seems to me to be unbelievable. It was one of the strangest days I could ever have imagined. In the meantime, I got my picture taken by the LACHENAL road sign and one of the local denizens insisted on posing with me. This is what years of drinking "PASTISSE" can do to a guy. I've even seen it happen to people from the NORTH when they come down here and aren't careful with their drinking. Juliette

I'm very interested in knowing who are the serious classical concertina players in the world. I hope there are some that I've not heard of, but would like to hear of. I like all the different forms of concertina music that I hear, but I personally am more interested in playing the various kinds of music that are lumped together as Classical. I play, Calatayud, Dowland, Hayden, Mozart, Bach, Villa-Lobos, Ponce, etc. as solo pieces, a lot of it gleened from the Classical guitar and lute repertoir and others that I arrange myself. I especially like playing the Bach Chaconne, it's my favorite piece. But are there others doing this, or am I sort of alone. The concertina seems perfectly suited to this music. I busk with these pieces on the streets of Clermont-Ferrand and the music is very well received. I might also add that the French are very generous to street performers, not like in some other countries (I won't mention names) where the people seem absorbed only in themselves and give only a few pennies. So it's a happy place to be for a musician. T his is the only thing I do, that is, practice and play on the streets. I play a 48 key Aeola with metal ends and my friends tell me you can hear it 6 blocks away. It is really wonderful playing Spanish dances on the concertina. So if you are playing this type music or know someone who is. Please Post the info here. I praise the invention of the concertina as one of the most beautiful instruments ever thought of and not fully appreciated by most, but it's day will come.

ME but sadly I don't have a Lachenal anymore thats playable. But I do have a nice Wheatstone. anyone is welcome to use the photo I posted There are a number of wonderful old TEMPLAR churches in this area and most are always open and no French person would be offended by a concertina player using the church to practice in unless it was in the middle of a funeral.

As you say yourself: Tulle is 100km east of Périgueux. So how are you so sure that they are one and the same?? There are several villages or hamlets in France named "LACHENAL" according to Michelin. What made me excited was that I was just driving around back roads and ran into the Lachenal sign. I'll go back soon and take some more photos. This is not the one near Périgueux. Both of these Lachenals are hundreds of kilometers west of Switzerland. Maybe the males in that area of Switzerland fled west to avoid being conscripted and shipped off to guard the Vatican! Just kidding, of course, but while only a tiny bit of seriousness was in my original post, I mostly thought that folks would enjoy knowing about such a place.

Does this help with the origin of Lachenal? This is in the mountains about 1 hour north east of Tulle and about 1/2 hour from where I live. There is a beautiful old Templar church there that the concertina sounds very good in. Maybe an interesting pilgrimage for the concertinist! Never the less, it should help with the origin of the Lachenals.