Doug Anderson

Thank you. I was afraid that would be the case.

Can't tell from the tablature and dots of the example if the layout is Wheatstone or Jeffries. Transposing the C/G videos for my G/D concertinas would not be an issue but having to translate Wheatstone tablature for my Jeffries layout instruments would make the book less useful for me.

When saw it here a while ago I wondered if it might have been intended to be played by two people (assuming they were good friends).

After playing just my Anglo concertinas since the covid lockdowns began I picked up my melodeon about a month ago and fairly quickly was playing some of my old favorite melodeon tunes. But after a week or so I found the limited bass accompaniment possibilities with just the eight buttons was keeping me from playing some of my favorite concertina tunes. I put the melodeon back on the shelf, picked up the G/D Morse and to my dismay found myself stumbling all over the place trying to play the intro to Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland. It's very chromatic part which means lots of row crossing and reversals, and it just wasn't working. (I was planning to accompany a friend singing Joe Hill's alternative lyrics.) It took at least a week to get back to being able to pick up a concertina and just start playing the intro without thinking about what I was doing or looking at my hands. Apparently being a multi instrumentalist with the squeezeboxes is not in my future.

One of the treasures in my little antique snuff can is the original G reed that Button Box replaced with a C reed for the drone button push of my 31-button G/D Jeffries.

I sing bass with a mixed professional and volunteer church choir. I have no trouble sight reading standard musical notation with the professionals. I play concertina, melodeon and mandolin by ear, but I often learn a piece by singing the melody to myself several times from musical notation and then setting the music aside and working out the melody with "my" chord progressions on the instruments.

When I ship a concertina I photograph it from every direction, ship it by UPS, have them pack it, and insure it for the appraised insurance cost. I have not have occasion to make a claim but one box had a nasty puncture that fortunately wasn't deep enough to reach the instrument.

My favorite key on the Anglo concertina is that of the center row of whatever Anglo I am playing - G on my G/D's. My favorite key for singing is whatever key does not take the bass part of the particular piece below the bottom G of the bass clef.

One complication I've found when trying to learn a LH part independently is that I don't know which bellows directions will be needed for the RH part. (I play a 31 button G/D Anglo.) Another issue is that the RH melody part sometimes strays into the highest notes on the LH side which ties up not only the key but also the finger playing it. With a new piece, once I am really comfortable playing the melody part by itself I start tapping in time with the music on the lowest available note on the LH side that sounds good as the melody proceeds. That will be the one of the notes making up a suitable chord. If none of the low notes work for a particular passage I go back to my RH arrangement to see if a bellows reversal note is available. If that doesn't work either I just skip the offending tap. Once I can play the melody comfortably with a harmonic sounding tap-tap-tap accompaniment I have a usable arrangement to play with others. But I then gradually start replacing the taps with something more interesting. For a waltz tempo that might mean keeping the initial tap but replacing the second and third with two-note chords. By doing this measure by measure I keep a viable version of the piece in my repertoire as I continue to enhance it.

Also excellent lobster rolls at the Sugarloaf Frostie just a short walk south on Amherst Road (with an interesting variety of ice cream for dessert too). I am sorry the retail store is closing, but very relieved to hear that the repair business will continue.

I started with an EC, switched to a melodeon with little difficulty despite its being a completely different system, switched to AC with no difficulty despite the inside out rows, and then tried to play an EC again and it was hopeless. The changing of the bellows direction completely did me in.

The Button Box makes both a D/A Céilí and a baritone D/A ESB.

The UK hymnal Hymns Ancient and Modern uses the tune Lewes (hymn 64).

In my hands or in the case is what I was taught. But the case is on a low table, with a raised border, in the middle of the living room.

That was my reaction as well.

I spent several months trying to play both my Morse with the Wheatstone layout and my Jeffries with the Jeffries layout - both are G/D Anglos. I eventually gave up and sent the Morse to The Button Box to have the reeds changed to the Jeffries layout. I had no particular preference for one layout over the other but switching the Morse was a much more practical solution.

Red River Valley, of course, but also Whoopee Ti-Yi-Yo (also called Git Along Little Dogies) which was my first public performance piece as a vocalist at age five.

Nope, doesn't work.

Thanks for the heads up. I just downloaded the site as a web archive.

Might the difference have something to do with the key the instrument is likely to be played in relative to its home keys? If most tunes in a book emphasize the push notes then showing push on top might seem more intuitive, and vice versa if the tunes tend to emphasize the pull notes. (I am assuming playing across the rows.)

I tried it with the "e3" in the second measure, and with an "e2 e", and I prefer the latter.

I began singing in public at age 5, and am still doing so 65 years later. I currently sing first bass in a choir that concentrates on early church music in the English tradition. I have played for various lengths of time and eventually abandoned the piano, harmonica, recorder, guitar, penny whistle, mandolin, English concertina and melodeon. I currently play the first instrument I ever played, the ukulele, and the most recent, the G/D Anglo.

Hi Jody, I'm working on an example of this right now. An arrangement of a hymn tune (Dundee) that I am trying to play in G (transposed from the Eb that my choir sings it in) has a distinctive switch to the key of C in the first line, but you would never know it from listening to the soprano/melody part (or the tenor part). The switch from the F# note to the F natural only occurs in the alto and bass parts. Without the change of key the whole effect of the musical phrase is lost. That means I have to find a way to work in an F natural on the left side. It's only available on the pull, and that complicates playing the melody on the right side. And it's just this sort of thing that makes the Anglo such a fascinating instrument, for me at least.

Hi Jody,Thanks! That's actually kind of encouraging. It sounds like I'm on the right track. The more I find my way around the third row on the instrument the better I am able to experiment with the bellows direction and find partial chords or single accompanying notes that fit the melody line. I like your list of priorities too. Lots to think about!

I get the G/D part. Playing melody on the right hand of the G row of a C/G gets pretty squeaky. But what do the extra 8 buttons add to the equation? (I ask this as a 30-button G/D player trying to teach myself to play right hand melody and left hand accompaniment.)