gavdav

both my april 1926 boxes have the puckered octagon (best metal??) labels

Suggesting that one should avoid any product that derives from an animal source, even if no animal was harmed in harvesting it? Shearing sheep doesn't harm them. In fact, in hot summer weather shearing is beneficial. But if avoiding contact with anything animal is your philosophy, then I guess you don't have any pets. Yeah. No glue joints, were there? I feel my sense of irony and the general light heartedness with which this thread began may have been lost somewhere in the previous thread - FWIW (nothing) I eat meat (as ethically as I can) and play a large number of instruments made from restricted or endangered or animal products - I'm unconcerned by this fact, as in in neither proud nor ashamed - what works works. The above items were merely an attempt to collate a fun list of items used in making a concertina which derived from animal sources (not to avoid them), in answer to a question earlier in the thread.Personally I'm more bothered by waste than what we use in a material sense. As for fur, pick up any felt hat of any quality (mine, used for occasional Morris outings, is made from beaver fur felt) and most will say fur felt - the highest quality available. I wasn't sure what grade of felt was used in the average wheatstone or jeffries of the last century, and was just citing an example of something else one could get ones knickers in a twist about if you so desired. Again, despite the ranting and stigmatic things from people on both sides of the pro/anti fur lobby I think it is really sad that piles of fur coats get burned so as not to offend anyone. Having just googled it it looks like 'tinas and pianos do usually use wool felt...anyway... Again, I have no axe to grind on either side of this argument - this started off as a well meaning academic question and seems to be drifting into something else. I'm off to play that rosewood Jeffries...

exactly - I didn't mean to derail a construction based thread, but what's done is done and anyway, can you imagine a synthetic based concertina that would still be as playable as a vintage jeffries or wheatstone is now, in another 100 years? (and yep, I love that brazilian rosewood, bone and leather box...) I was intrigued by those carbon fibre edeophone ends though... FWIW I don't really think you can make anything that doesn't have some impact or potentially arguable ethical side effect if you particularly wanted to go down that route, but life is too short PS - Morse concertinas also contain Beeswax if we're still tallying a list of animal ingredients

Shellac is the refined resin secretions of the female lac bug - so yes French polish is derived from animals. Is the felt of woven wool? yep, and red shellac actually has crushed cochineal beetles in it . felt - normally broken fur fibres so there is no "thread" and *ahem* there's a slight fur ethics issue in historical felt... but really...you could go crazy with this stuff... my Buddhist side says yes, animal products bad, then again, my other Buddhist side says, restricted harvest/illegal wood content, metal content, animal content, plastic parts, poor hourly paid manual labour, blood, sweat and tears etc etc all add up to make yet another instrument I shouldn't play, just like my rosewood guitars, koa cittern, held together with cow glue and so on and so on...but... music is probably the purest, most honest thing I've ever experienced and the more you pursue these things the more ethically futile it all becomes - there's something special about taking an out of fashion hundred year old assemblage of matter and doing somethinf that moves and engages people. academically I'm intrigued by alternatives, but somehow musical instruments are disturbingly and reassuringly alive whatever their origins...

French polish? oh, and the felt!

I was listening to a thing about sustainable fishing the other day, which basically says you have to farm or at least as a consumer, support quality farmed fish to be genuinely sustainable. here's a by product... http://www.es-salmonleather.com/

I think I'd rather see (as in, maybe be more intrigued by) a recycled concertina than a veggie one - without wanting to get into a debate about the pros and cons of vegetarianism there is an awful lot of wasted leather in woefully out of fashion clothes doing the rounds of our local charity shops - rather than that ending up in landfill it'd be nice to see stuff like that used. Similarly recycled wood (which was good enough for Paul Reed Smith's first guitars) can be interesting (and better than burning). Swings and roundabouts - maybe it is good to have a concertina that never degrades but I have a kind of instinctual dislike of plastics and petro chemicals. And is it just me, but I love the smell of my concertina ?

Well, how about the Oakwood? Will that be ready? Chris The music room have been demoing some chinese made hybrids which were pretty good, all things considered - similar externally to the normans. It isn't a huge stretch of the imagination to think that an Oakwood concertina might effectively be a pretty similar platform with some upgrades.

At a session in Sheffield this week the barman said they'd some lost property in which we might be interested. Taking a look at it, I'd say it's an English Concertina, played by a woman (or someone with quite small thumbs!), who is into Border morris and French music. That's still a fairly wide field, so can we get the word out? NB. The instrument has a fine identifying feature - a pair of eyes stuck on it. Does that ring any bells? ---- forwarded from a mail I received - hopefully claimed already, but I'm just spreading the word. Gav

I'm pretty sure this is a miniature anglo - 29816 (marked AG in the ledger) very cool. would love a mini but have to be sensible!

Hi there - this is a German made anglo - the giveaway (amongst others) is where the missing button is you can see the wooden lever it would have been glued to - this instrument will be pretty hard to restore and not very satisfying when you have done so - it is likely to have harmonica style reed plates. You would be better saving your money until a better instrument comes along. The 20b lachenal that is/was on the Buy and Sell board here this week would be a much much better purchase.

Oddly, hearing John Kirkpatrick play in F on a C/G over the summer ( a 40 button Crabb I think...) it sounded fuller, sweeter and more rounded than the same box in its home key of C. Undoubtedly the player had a lot to do with it, but John seemed to agree that F was a fabulous and very full key on the C/G

Hi greg - there's some discussion of this in two other threads - Steve Gardham's "Wheatstone Special/Largest Anglo" thread and I tried to dig up more info on A.G. Duets but nobody really bit. (both in the concertina history folder) The two large ones - the a.g. Duet and a.g. Octo on this page are mine. http://www.horniman.info/DKNSARC/SD02/PAGES/D2P0500L.HTM

I've started a new thread on Wheatstone made Jeffries Duets as I am pretty convinced that my G/D is a retuned one of them

Having tinkered with my two "AG duet" anglos for a while now I'm settling on the earlier conclusion that these are in fact Jeffries System duet concertinas that have been converted to anglo setup. I've come to this conclusion, eventually, based on some hand scratched marks in the nickel plating on one end of my G/D these read FGCDF GBCEGG ABDFAB CDDE and right hand (incomplete, but looks like a match to me...) AGCD BC I also have an Fsharp/Fsharp drone on the end of one row on the left hand. I compared these to Nick Robertshaw's Jeffries Duet layout diagram. http://www.concertina.info/tina.faq/images/finger2.htm Whilst it is obvious that the original owner of my box hasn't marked sharps or flats the match is pretty convincing. This looks like good enough evidence for me that the G/D at least has been thoroughly retuned to its present format. I am curious as to how many Jeffries Duets Wheatstone made and if any survive. Any thoughts?

Right - now I have a problem - I've assumed in the ledger that anything not labelled AG, Duet, or Anglo German must be an english concertina, but Alex's box doesn't have that info in there. Oh dear, now I need to start really looking at model numbers! Neither of my boxes have a model number - just batch - and most of these larger boxes seem to be "specials" of some description. Would love to see pictures of that box Alex and compare to my 46 key (pics on page one of this thread)

cool - thanks Alex - it wasn't an exhaustive list, but when I have time... I guess one of the things that is interesting is these big things don't seem to be settled on one system - every new special seems to have a different number of buttons/model number.

Hi all - in response to Steve's questions and my own curiosity I started looking through the Wheatstone ledgers to see how many of these things exist(ed). Now, the ledgers are nto very consistent in their labelling of things - I own 30995 and 30998 and both are distinctly the same system - three anglo rows and one duet row - but one is labelled AG Duet and the Other AG Octo - so I have included here a few of the unusually large anglos I spotted as well, like Steve's. I'd be interested if anyone has one of these and can pass on any more info, but here is half an hour's worth of trawling. If, as someone suggested, the AG duets were in fact Jeffries system duets, does anyone own a wheatstone Jeffires Duet to help confirm this supposition? Sadly steve - you're not unique And I think 31693 is currently leading the boxzilla stakes.I've included a bit of info - what the ledger refers to em as, how many keys and if I know who has it Be nice if anyone wants to or can add to this. 28474 -48 keys (AG) 28493 – 48 keys (AG special) (Tony – Doodle on c.net) 28898 – 50 keys 28929 - 50 keys 28930 – 61 keys (AG special) owned by Steve Gardham 30096 – 48 keys (AG Duet) 30740 – 68 keys (AG Duet) 30995 – 46 keys (AG Duet) owned by Gavin Davenport G/D 30998 – 50 keys (AG Octo – AG Duet system) owned by Gavin Davenport C/G 31282 – 72 keys (AG Octo) 31693 - 74 Keys (AG mag octo) 31850 – 70 keys (Anglo duet) 31902 – 54 keys (AG duet octo) 32087 – 64 keys (AG octo) 32286 – 56 keys (AG Duet, octo) 32557 – 53 keys (AG Duet all over metal)

Hello Gav. I believe that the evolution of the umpah style on anglos and melodeons was at least partly dictated by the mechanical logic of the instrument. Playing a scale, or your average folk tune, on the simpler kinds of anglo requires frequent changes in bellows direction. The umpah style leaves crucially important gaps in the harmonic accompaniment, and it is into these gaps that the short bellows reversals often fit, so you don't find the chord changing involuntarily with nearly every beat. An anglo with more buttons, and hence more directional alternatives, allows you avoid many of the revesals, and hence use a different accompaniment style. The young melodeon players we were mentioning tend to play as much as possible cross-rowed for the same reason, hence the syncopated or sustained chord patterns they are able to achieve. Of course the umpah (vamping) style is used by pianists and other musicians who do not have bellows to worry about, and it does provide a very bouncy accompaniment for certain kinds of music (including English trad). But it does become limiting if that's all you ever do, and there's nothing to say you're a naff anglo player because you don't use it! Thanks Brian - I know what you mean - I struggled for years with chording on the melodeon in the home key until I found there was a definite pattern of kind of scale ascension that followed the reversals and I sort of chased that pattern round the bass end for G then found which direction it went in for A etc. I just can't play a steady bass end um-pah without murdering the tune on the treble end. I end up playing a mix of octaves and bass notes, but - a long way to go before a happy style evolves!

Something that nobody has mentioned as far as I can see is the MECHANICAL logic of certain patterns on the anglo (as on the melodeon) - I am totally rubbish at the umpah style of playing - couldn't do it on the melodeon, struggle with alternating bass on guitar and now feel like I'm doomed sometimes to be naff on the anglo too - however - there seems to be a natural set of patterns that fall out of the system - obviously on your C row you have handy chords on adjacent buttons, and for me (on a G/D) in Bm I have convenient diads across the rows. I find myself walking through circuits of chords just like I do on guitar - the rightness of my arrangements is in part tied to the physical patterns, then I might start to worry about making them more musically correct. I've found my drone keys to be very helpful when jamming in sessions too!

I now own two of these - a G/D and a C/G both from the same month in 1926. There is very little in common with the extra row layout between the two boxes, but certainly there is nothing that indicates a normal duet system either unless Jeffries duet systems layouts are far more random than I imagined. As far as playing style goes, the main thing I have noticed is the G/D facilitates harmonic playing in D and Bm and the key of A, but I am sure that there is more for me to get out of it. As far as numbers of these things go - hard to say - there's no way of searching the ledgers, so I'd be going through page by page. Mine are numbers 30995 and 30998. I'd be interested to know if there are more out there.

here's a slightly hesitant first go - still enjoying playing it and will add in the left hand when I do my next take this is a straight version of the melody so you can hear what is going on.lantre4.mp3

I just started learning this lovely waltz on my G/D and was surprised how comfortably it fits. (It's kinda in Bm but the accompaniment is pretty straight forward harmonies on the D row rather than full Bm chording. I have a few extra buttons on my box but think this should be pretty possible on standard G/D - the arpeggios are pretty satisfying I think I'm working on a recording - does anyone already play this tune on 'tina? (I've now added an mp3 version of the tune played on G/D anglo a couple of posts down)

no, it really does leap like that - insane! I trust the Peterson pretty much more than my own ears I got the G/D from Paul Read having played it a couple of years ago and subsequently became enchanted by the possibililty for a singer of the extra drones - I have become addicted since and stopped playing my other boxes. When the opportunity to do a straight swap with my 30 key for the C/G from the same ledger page came up I went for it despite some weaknesses of the instrument - the C/G has suffered damp in its past and needs some restoration - new springs and a retune still to come. However, I'm into these instruments enough to believe A/G Duet in the ledgers doesn't mean "Jeffries Duet" but something else entirely - oddballs for sure but there's something pretty awesome about them all the same.

Hi gav, I was puzzled, now I'm mystified : this seems not consistent with the layout you formerly posted ! (where I can read A,Bb,B,C on the left and G#,A,Bb,B,C,C# on the right). Or is it yet another instrument ??? And I'm still not sure about the octave. Is middle see C4 for you ? If so notes on the right hand must be in the range of the left hand G row ? I'd be happy to help you but please check again what you have... David previous layotu in the other thread is for the G/D which I'm used to now - this is a C/G and a totally different kettle of fish!! yes, middle C is C4 I think - will have to check - the notes I gave are the readout from my peterson strobe tuner...