yorkist

Hi there, I'm going to have a go at answering this, I'm still fairly new to this myself, but I think I've had the same problems as you. When you say 'struggle for air' do you mean that it's hard to pick out the higher, melody note when playing a three note chord on the left? In terms of air flow, it seems to work the other way round; if I'm sounding a full chord and a higher note, the high notes sound first, and the bass of the chord can be late sounding. This is due to the lower reeds needing more air to get them going. This is overcome with practice, you just need to know when to put a bit more effort into the start of a push or pull to get enough air to all the reeds at once. However, I think what you're getting at is that the chords can swamp the sound of the higher notes? I'm familiar with the workings of a melodeon, and if you're used to one of those you're used to having melody buttons that play more than one reed, and very low basses? Now you have to get used to one-reed-per-button, and some of the chords you play on the left may not be that much lower than the melody line which may be what makes the melody harder to pick out at times. When I first started putting in chords I found that I was too heavy handed with them. Options are to use them more sparingly, so if you're playing a run of notes all on the push, don't play your main push chord (C or G) for all those notes, just on the beats or off-beats. Or, use vamping where you play the root of the chord on one beat, then the 3rd & 5th notes on the next. Or, just play the root & 5th instead of a full chord all the time. If you have 'Son Of Morris On' listen to the concertina playing on that. John Watcham uses full chords far more than vamping, but he has a very light way of playing and never dwells on one chord too long, so never swamps the melody line. I'm not claiming to be an expert analyst of other people's playing, I've had a couple of lessons off John so he's shown me how he does it. Hope that's of some help, I've only been playing a couple of years, so if anyone wishes to take issue, feel free. regards, Simon. I can't help with the mechanical question btw,

Hi all, been playing the Anglo 2+ years now, for English & morris music. I'm currently using a 31 key Marcus in GD which I'm happy with, but I've just ordered a 36 key in CG from AC Norman because I want to have that higher pitched G row available as well. I do have a CG Stagi which I started off on, playing the G row on that as a beginner sounded like strangling a cat, I can make a better job of it now. Anyway, the layout of these 36 keys is down to me. Andy Norman showed me various example layouts, but most of those use the extra keys for extra accidentals. I don't feel I need more sharps and flats, 90% of what I play is in G/Em. What I want is keys that will give me more flexibility when playing in the home keys of the instrument. The 36 key model has two extra keys per side (plus air & drone). What should I use them for? One common practice seems to be to duplicate the end keys of the left hand side rows onto the right, to make it easier to keep the tune entirely on the right. Any thoughts? Also, does anyone have a CG where the drone is in G? As just about everything I would play on this would be in G rather tha C, would that be feasible? many thanks, Simon.

As a new English style Anglo player, I've been searching around for as many tutor sources as possible. I saw that John Kirkpatrick has made a series of tutor video tapes for the melodian, and I also see on Concertina.net that an Irish style tutor is now out on DVD. So I contacted Mrs Casey Music, who market JK's melodian tutors, to ask if he had any plans to do one for the Anglo. The reply was quite encouraging; they're 'in discussion' with him about one now. Perhaps if they received a few more emails expressing an interest from around the world, it might get made quicker. They can be contacted on info@mrscasey.co.uk regards, Simon Kind.