Leah Velleman

After many offers on the Eirú, I'm realizing I was not explicit enough about the extent of the damage. So, to be very clear: it is NOT CURRENTLY PLAYABLE without repairs. The leak doesn't just make the bellows slow or inefficient, it reduces the air pressure to the point where some reeds will not sound at all and many others will not sound at anywhere near full volume. THIS IS A RESTORATION PROJECT, not a cheap starter instrument. If you are still interested, please get in touch. (And I'm messaging this as well to people who have already DMed me, who will get priority if any of them are interested.)

Scrambling to get my act together for an international move. Here are a few boxes I'd rather sell than take with me. I need to sell them quickly, so I'm asking a good deal less than I paid for them on the first two, and of course much less on the damaged one. Lachenal New Model 48-key treble English concertina, bought from Barleycorn Concertinas in 2023. The serial number on the left end isn’t readable, but if you like I can take an end off and see if it’s written inside. They gave it new pads and valves and tuned it to concert pitch. It has what I believe are the original 5-fold bellows, but they are in very good shape. $1500 or best offer. Unusual Wheatstone double-reeded 20-button anglo in C/G. Serial number 32389, from 1929. Two concertina reeds per note, tuned to a fairly dry tremolo (about 5 cents), giving it a sort of sparkling sound that carries very well. Eightfold bellows. Double-reeded anglos are bigger (7" across the flats), heavier, and slower than single-reeded, but good for old-fashioned Irish music (Ella Mae O’Dwyer played a double-reeded anglo) or for morris tunes. $1500 or best offer. Damaged Irish Concertina Company Eirú Silver in C/G. Jeffries layout, walnut wood ends. Played very well when new, now leaks air. I took a peek when it happened, and I believe the problem is that the reed pan has shrunk and pulled away slightly from one wall, but I am not 100% sure. $900 or best offer, and I will not be offended by low offers. Happy to share images, video, or any other details, just let me know.

It is! DM me your address and it’s yours.

Dang, you guys are fast. "Contemplating the Concertina" is still up for grabs, everything else is spoken for.

Oh also: It'll make my life easier to send them in a few big lots instead of one by one, so don't be shy about claiming a bunch.

I'm moving internationally and have a bunch of books and CDs to give away. These are the ones I think will be of most interest here. I'd like to keep them in the hands of people who will value them, not on the shelf in a random bookstore, especially since many are out of print. Anglo Concertina Music Liam O’Brien — The Lane John Kirkpatrick — Going Spare Tom Carey — Tom Carey Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin — Traditional Music from Clare and Beyond William Mullaly — The Westmeath Hunt Seán O'Dwyer — Irish Trad Concertina from Beara Various — Anglo International Various — Squashbox Anglo Concertina Books and Resources Niall Vallely — Concertina CD ROM tutorial (Warning: This is old enough that it doesn't run well on a present-day Mac. No idea how it will do on PC or older computers.) Dan Worrell — House Dance CD ROM Frank Edgley — The Anglo Concertina: Handbook of Tunes and Methods for Irish Traditional Music Gary Coover — Anglo Concertina in the Harmonic Style Bertram Levy — The Anglo Concertina Demystified Gary Coover — The Anglo Concertina Music of John Kirkpatrick Mary MacNamara — Sundays at Lena's (Warning: Can't currently find the CD, so this might be book only) English Concertina Book Allan Atlas — Contemplating the Concertina: An Historically-Informed Tutor for the English Concertina General trad music Poor Richard’s Penny — Lovely Nancy Norumbega Harmony — Sweet Seraphic Fire Various — Many a Good Horseman Caroline Hughes — Sheep-Crook and Black Dog Oak — Country Songs and Music Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill — The Lonesome Touch I'll mail any of them for free anywhere in the US. If you're in the UK or farther away, I might want ask you for postage, depending on how many you claim and what it ends up costing to ship. Edit: Crossing out stuff that's been claimed. The rest is still available.

This seems like a bizarre long shot, but do we know of any (non-Bandoneon) concertina players in Uruguay? There's a chance I'll be moving there soon and it would be nice to find a like-minded soul...

Related to this question, I'm wondering about instrument storage. I know it's not ideal to expose a concertina to super-dry air. I also know it's ideal not to expose it to sudden changes in humidity. But I think I'm stuck doing one or the other of these, since I live in a climate that's very dry in the winter, and once a week I have morris practice in a huge drafty space that would be impractical to keep humidified. So I think I have two choices: - Humidify the room I practice in at home, but put it through a drastic change in humidity every week when I go to practice - Leave the room I practice in dry, so at least it isn't getting that weekly shock Which would be better? (Or maybe I should say "least awful"?)

I have an anglo concertina — a 2024 ICC Eirù Silver with wood ends, if it matters — in which one reed pan has pulled slightly away from the inner walls of the end. (Evidence: It leaks air, and if you take off both ends and the left reed pan, stand in a dark room, and shine a flashlight through the left side of the bellows, very thin lines of light are visible along two edges of the right reed pan.) In hindsight, this isn't shocking, since I live in a dry place and wood can indeed shrink here. I've certainly learned my lesson and I'll keep it better humidified in the future. But in the present moment, what should I do about it? Might the first step be to put the concertina in a humidified room and see if it un-shrinks? Or would that risk further damage? I can also attempt a repair myself if it's likely to be easy, or ship it off for repairs if it's likely to be hard, though frustratingly I'd be shipping it a fair distance now that the Button Box is gone.

Oh, these look fantastic.

So, yeah, this is a good example of the sort of thing I'm talking about. This sounds like an arrangement I could learn to play — you're right that it's not especially "fancy" in that sense. But judging by your description, I definitely couldn't improvise this style of harmony to this tune — I'd need to work out ahead of time where the reversals and surprise left-hand notes were necessary in order to make everything fit. Whereas in easier keys (let's say G, D, or Am on a G/D), I can play a new tune by ear, bang out some chords, and have the left-hand notes I want available in the direction my right hand is already going. So I'm wondering, is that just kind of how it goes, and Em is a key that requires ahead-of-time arranging and memorizing for anyone who isn't a virtuoso? (Which would make sense — it's not like every key is going to be as easy as G.) Or is banging along by ear in Em something that regular people can get the hang of — and if so, what helped you get there?

Is it just me, or is playing "harmonic style" in E minor a real pain in the neck, either on a C/G or a G/D? It seems like on the C/G you need fancy fingerings to avoid chopping, on the G/D the melody goes onto the left hand constantly and the notes you expect to be in the same direction aren't, and on either instrument the important chords are all bunched up and basslines require chopping or reaching. Do you have favorite tricks that feel especially nice in Em? Did you have some kind of epiphany that made it start feeling easy? (This post brought to you by the melodeon players on my morris team, who naturally don't believe in the existence of other keys.)

Maybe what I should do is get tractor earmuffs that match my team's kit.

I also have tinnitus and have been using hearing protection more and more. At this point, playing with no protection makes my tinnitus noticeably worse for a while — it goes back to baseline over a few days — so I'm going to stick with it for the foreseeable future. For practicing at home, I use over-ear hearing protection, which now that I'm saying it feels kind of ridiculous. Mostly I use them because we keep them in the garage next to the tractor, and I practice in the garage next to the tractor, so they're already right there. They're very comfortable but they look extremely silly. On a morris tour, I use this style of earplugs. They're mostly marketed for hunting, which in the US means a ton of stores carry them, so you can replace them really easily when you're traveling. They're also very comfortable and look less silly. I tried Loops, but they're not especially comfortable for me. Something about the angle between the earbud part and the loop part is awkward for the shape of my ears.

I've switched off between C/G and G/D for morris tunes, but these days the G/D is my main instrument. I can sightread pretty well on the G/D, and I can still do okay but not great on the C/G. I don't feel like I'm transposing in either case — I think of middle C as middle C whether I'm playing it on the C/G or the G/D. I've just learned two button layouts (and yeah, that's as confusing as it sounds, which is why I don't do so great on the C/G anymore