Jim Ventola

Mama Mia! Try THAT with a smart phone.

From East London by Walter Besant (1910) on Gutenberg.org

In the film "Room with a View" (I think it was) a character sits at a piano and sings a song that refers to "the melancholy concertina."

Great stuff. Thanks.

As a supplement to his Concertina Two tutor, Frank Butler issued Arranging Music for the English Concertina with an introduction to harmony. It is a great example of self-publishing, too. Frank Butler. Arranging Music.pdf

Surely that's true. Luckily, it's not a binary choice. I doubt the "dots" have inhibited creativity any more than the printed word has, though the invention of writing did indeed lead to a decline in certain oratorical and poetic skills, apparently.

Yes. I also have the record, which I have converted to mp3. I quoted the title from memory and confused the two. The record is not based on the book but has some wonderful playing of tunes. On YouTube I posted the part of Moby Dick (the one with Gregory Peck) where Alf Edwards plays for the sailors at the inn. If you read his life, it was amazing. And talk about speed and harmony. To me, it is all sublime magic. As for his fingerings, I am going to have to trust him, given what he could do.

Thanks for the info and link. I should have mentioned that he was a master of the English concertina.

Thank you. I have been looking for harmonies in thirds, fourths, and fifths, probably due to misunderstanding some reading. (You can see I am ignorant about harmony and theory--but not for want of trying.) (I see you are in Devon. I just today read of a Devon mystery from the past. "The Devil's Hoofprints" chapter of Rupert Gould's Oddities: A Book of Unexplained Facts describes various attempts to explain a vast number of animal tracks that appeared after a snow storm on February 8, 1885. These prints had never been seen before and appeared in many towns, including Exmouth and Dawlish. No known animal could have made them, it seems. And yet, there they were. I wonder if the mystery is still talked about in Devon?)

Although I have owned Alf Edwards' The Art of the Concertina for eons, only today did I notice its overall structure. First, individual notes in the various scales, with practice tunes. Then, playing more than one note at a time in the various keys. But in every key it is always thirds, sixths, tenths, and octaves--at least that's what my tardy skimming seems to show. Is there a reason that these intervals are focused on? Is it a music theory reason or an English concertina specific reason?

Here is Alf Edwards in John Huston's Moby Dick supporting "I'll Go No More A-Rovin." BTW. Does anyone know if he perhaps played a mean temperament tuned instrument? I've been trying to match his accompaniment to A.L. Lloyd's "Tiggery Orem" on my Morse Albion (accordion reeds) and I don't seem to find the notes he is playing. I can hum it but not match it. Of course, I have a tin ear, so I am probably just grasping at straws. https://youtu.be/VK0jrn9sGUQ

Moby Dick, the one with Gregory Peck directed by John Huston, features close ups of Alf Edwards playing.

Terrific. Wonderful sound. Thank you. BTW--The silence is ok by me too, but you can remove silences easily with freeware like Audacity.