Leah Velleman

If you're a learn-by-doing person, a fun thing to play with is to take a tune in G or D and just use low D as your harmony note. Whenever there's a note you want to emphasize, add a low D under it. You'll find that most tunes have a few notes that low D sounds terrible under, but you'll get used to recognizing those notes. It helps that you have convenient low D's in both directions, and they're both out of the way of the strong fingers you're using to play melody. They're a bit less convenient, but you can try the same thing in other keys with G, A, or E as your harmony note. It won't work 100% of the time, and eventually you'll want to branch out and learn more options. But it works a lot, and it suits the style of Irish music, because we're used to hearing this style of harmony from fiddlers (using an open string for harmony) and pipers (using a regulator).

Jeez, do you pick your wrists up off the rests to play the far buttons? Or do you just need massive fingers?

There seem to be two strategies here: Get a vintage Lachenal from a dealer like Barleycorn. These are pretty good concertinas that were made in large numbers in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and Barleycorn fixes them up in a way that leaves them solidly reliable. One with 30 buttons tend to cost between 1,000 GBP and 2,000 GBP, depending on the details of how it's made and what shape it's in. Get a modern hybrid concertina. Hybrids are made with accordion reeds, which are cheaper to make than traditional concertina reeds. They do sound a little bit accordion-y, which some people love and some people hate. But they're much more affordable than modern instruments with traditional reeds. You can get them at a lot of price points, from "cheap garbage" to "serious investment (but still cheaper than with traditional concertina reeds)."

There is no way this concertina was built with a missing reed on purpose. You've been sold damaged goods and the seller is trying to cover it up. The damage might be very easy to repair — it could be as simple as a piece of fluff stuck in the reed, which is incredibly easy to fix. Or it could be impossible to repair — the whole reed could be cracked or broken off. If you feel like tinkering, you can open it up and see what you can find out. Or, yeah, return it. And then don't buy your next instrument from the same person, because they are either dishonest or totally clueless.

(Out of curiosity: what do you use to attach the grill cloth to the inside of the fretwork? I'm looking to make the same mod to one of mine and a bit baffled by the range of glues and so on.)

Got it. I'd probably go with a Lachenal, lightness of the Ceili notwithstanding. The Ceili has a very harmonica-like sound, which makes sense given its reeds, and some people do like that, but it's not what I prefer. I'd be more undecided if they were the same price, but a sound I like better at $1,000 cheaper feels like the obvious winner to me.

Honestly, this depends on what factors are most important to you personally. I had a chance to try a Ceili recently and the thing that jumped out at me was that it is astonishingly light. I play standing up for morris, so that would be a big deal for me. Less of a factor for you, I imagine.

Does anyone know if Bertram Levy recorded any Balkan tunes? He's the most likely one I can think of...

There isn't really any such thing as "dance speed," because different dance styles need very different tempos. A lot of it has to do with how often you move your feet. Swing dancers move their feet in complicated patterns on the quarter notes and eighth notes. To make swing physically possible, the tempo has to be slow. Contra dancers step just twice per measure, on the half notes. To keep those steps from being unbearably slow, the tempo needs to be faster. And a lot of it has to do with feel. Swing dancers cover a lot of different moods, from "quick and exciting" to "very slow and romantic." So some swing tunes are even slower than they need to be, just to set a romantic or seductive mood. Contra has less of a range, and I say this as someone who loves contra dancing — we go from "quick and exciting" to "catching our breath, but still pretty brisk." (If we want "slow and romantic," we do a waltz instead.) So all the tunes are about as fast as possible.

Some possible reasons for a second concertina: You want to play in more keys. You want two dramatically different sound qualities. You want one that's much louder/quieter. You don't like traveling with your expensive main instrument. You sometimes want to lend an instrument to a friend who's interested in learning. You want a backup in case your main one needs to be sent away for repairs. Are you interested in any of those? Or things that aren't on the list? (I agree with Little John that you shouldn't feel obligated to get one Just Because.)

Fascinating — I'm totally ignorant on the subject, it's just that I've seen a lot of people saying you should do it, and up until this thread I'd never seen anyone saying you shouldn't.

I've got a few concertinas I want to display, but I don't want to leave them sitting with their bellows uncompressed. Does anyone have a good solution for this? Best I can think of is a huge rubber band, but I don't think that would look good.

It's true, an instrument that can play quiet is a lovely thing. But if I'm practicing a tune that I plan to play loud, I do want to practice loud, at least some of the time..

On the reed question, no, I don't think bad reeds are inevitable. A vintage instrument that's been kept in reasonable conditions and not messed with too much might need some tuning, but should at least still be tunable.

And the library has come through! — they sent me a PDF with the notes. DM me if you want a copy.