felix

It is just the same concertina model that I bought years ago from hobgoblin. I bought it because I wanted to know if I could play it, it costed to me aproximatily 50$ too, it worked enough, but with the time some buttons tended to be sticky and I needed to open it when they didn't want to go up. One year or more later (1998) I bought a 30 buttons lachenal from the late Paul Davies from York and the bastari was enough for knowing that I loved concertinas... but it was a no-return trip to more expensive instruments and hours of joy! ;-). I still have this concertina (I don't sell my instruments mainly for sentimental reasons!) but I don't play with it at all. Good Luck! Félix Castro

Hello, searching for concertina tunes, I found that if you put in the searcher konsertina there are a lot of boer music played in konsertina. Félix Castro

I had made some years ago a notation system that I used only twice, that was mainly for remembering chords positions. It was for 30 buttons concertina buttons and was similar to In a concertina in c/g, I put the note c, d, e, etc. and under the number and 30, and pulling indicated by __ under the number, as is usual in button accordion notations. left hand right hand row accidentals 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 row C 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 row G 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Félix

Hello, searching in you tube I found this amazing concertina player, a person from Russia, Valentin Osipv, with 60 or 70 years old playing the english concertina at a very high level. This is the link Félix Castro

I have also a c sharp / g sharp concertina (by Colin Dipper), that I used in anglo international in one tune. I use it to play mainly in b flat, g sharp and e flat, less in c sharp. In galician and asturian music are very common the pipes in b flat and and then many folk groups (Llan de Cubel, Felpeyu...) make the music "around" the bagpipes, using e flat flutes, and fiddle tuned half a tone high, similar that irish use and scottish (i.e. Tannahill Weavers), the best thing would be to have a b flat / f and a G/D concertina. When I ordered it I considered to order a b flat / f instrument but it implied a more push/pull style for playing in b flat and that I couldn't play in other tunings (e flat, g sharp) that I love play too. Finally when I get used to the Dipper, my lachenal was too slow and I ordered my Suttner in c/g. Félix

Hello again! I am considering about buying a new system and better for amplification of my concertinas. I have using since I bougjt my concertina the typical microvox system with contact ¿? microphones with velcro directly over the concertina grill. But it has usually a low volume and I wanted to begin to use one better for using it with ampli (I am going to buy an AER ampli for playing mainly in pubs, etc.) What systems do you use for amplification? My brother uses for his flute a Sennheisser micro, but I don't know if I want to spend a lot of money in the new amplification system... Thanks Felix Castro

Thankyou very much As you know I play anglo, and here in Spain the concertinists can be counted with the fingers of two hands, the person who asked me is a young man (or boy), in his twenties or less, I think, I only spoked to him by phone. First, he asked me about anglos, then the last time he told me about hayden duets. I asked him about maccanns because there are more available, but he is sure about hayden. He plays the bagpipes too, but in concertinas he is a newbie, and he told me that he wanted to spend about 900 euros. In the web page of Bob Tedrow there are hayden duets with nice photographs, but I think that they are much expensive than Stagis... Are there any tutor available for learning to play Haydens? Felix Castro

Hello, I'm Félix Castro, from Galiza - Spain A person from here wanted to buy a Hayden Duet concertina, and he asked me for help! Any body has any experience about duet and hayden concertinas? (I don't) I know that there are several in the market (Dickinson and Dippers are too expensive for him) I know that there are stagis, another russian project (it is finished?), that Bob Thedrow has them too (Do you know how much do they cost?), are there another options? Any body tried all of them and can tell me something about? (Differences, prices...) Thankyou in advance Felix Castro

I think that the age of playing depends about where you live, if you live in a country where the concertina is a traditional and usually played instrument, i. e. County Clare, in Ireland, or in another countries. In Spain, nowadays concertina isn't a common instrument, and in galician music a lot of players of another instruments, button accordion, hurdy-gurdy, wooden flute, fiddle, began first playing galician bagpipes, because it is the most common instrument for our traditional music. I began playing bagpipes when I was 18 years old and then when I was 25 or 26 years old , I bought my first concertina for playing galician music too, but I didn't know people who played it. And now in Galicia there are only two or three persons that play the concertina. Here in Galicia, and in Spain, after the Civil War, Franco's dictatorship stablished what types of music and instruments were typical in which countrys (provinces), and promoted mainly them, moreover it was forbidden all types of reunions (including feasts) of more than three persons, only could be done with city council permissions, and traditional musicians had to be registered in the town council, and they had to pay for playing. Because of these rules the traditional (spontaneous and live) music almost dissappeared because living in small villages made very difficult to have all the weeks the permissions (in Galicia there are the same number of villages than in the rest of Spain, in Galicia usually the same municipal disctrict has more than ten or twenty small villages, of 100, usually much less inhabitants -10 or 20-, far from the town council in many cases). With the democracy, the interest in traditional music returned again and people became to explore other instruments that were forgotten, because of the politic of one country - one instrument. I played uilleann pipes before than the concertina, and I saw concertinas when I travelled to Ireland (twice), but I was mainly a piper those days... it was several years later, when I wanted to play another different instrument than pipes (I saw many times in Spain cheap hohner concertinas in instrument shops but I never thought about buying one!) when I got hooked by the concertina, and now, I love and play the pipes, but for playing alone I prefer the concertina, and in second place the button accordion. Felix Castro - Ourense - Galicia - Spain.

One year later.... As you say: "O insonio dunha noite de verán" composed by A. Seoane means "The insomnia of a summer's night" Sorry for not having help in this matter, but i only check the forums from time to time, and today i found this treat by luck and i was really surprised with all the comments. What happens in galician language is that up to 80´s, we didn´t have a "standard" writing language. Some people write "insonio" some others "insomnio"... "Verán" is the same, officialy is "verán", but sometimes people write "vran", "verao", .... More close to spoken language. As you say in the previous replies, it is very close to portuguese, really in XIV it was the same language. All the best, Félix

Dear friends and dear Alan: We agree fully with all the comments that you have made about "anglo international". We liked really a lot the music, it is very nice the posibility of listening the tunes and at the same time learning about each musician in the booklet. All the cds are very easy to listen, and the variety of ways of playing is really incredible. We are very happy that Alan Day gave us the posibility of participating in such a wonderful project. :-) For Red, thank you very much for your interest, we don´t have published a cd with our own music, as Alan Day explained in previous posts, although we have contributed in many cds of friends, etc. (the one where appears most concertina, perhaps is Pancho Alvarez´s 2nd cd, "Nas Cordas"). For more information, we have a webpage, www.castorfelix.tk , by now only in galician language (sorry for that, soon in english, we hope). We have been working slowly in our own recordings, made at our home studio, as that two included in "anglo international", and at this time we have about 9 tunes, and 3 left for completing the cd. If you want us to email you some mp3s of other sets, feel free of giving us your email at castrovicente@telefonica.net All the best, Félix and Cástor Castro

Daniel, you don't need to apologize, it was only an observation and a correction of your previous e-mail. "I am happy that you have posted this because I have a couple of questions. I notice that you are playing a "C#/G#" Dipper instrument. Are these keys the traditional keys for the music? If so, is that based on the tuning of the bagpipes, or have you just chosen that particular tuning. Is the fiddle in a normal tuning EADG or is it tuned sharp?" It is a difficult question, here we play music in a wide range of keys. Nowadays the most common instrument for playing traditional music is the galician bagpipes, second the accordion and the wooden flute (usually small types tuned in F or G, or larger types in D), and third, others, fiddle, hurdy-gurdy, etc. Vocal repertoire is usually different (in key and modes) than instrumental repertoire for pipes, etc. (there are many songs that can be accompanied with instruments but a traditional way of singing is only with tambourine accompaniament) Here we don't have a key widely used (as irish playing instruments in D (pipes, flute, etc.) for D, G, A keys, etc.) and it is a trouble because we need to have more instruments for playing with your friends, and other people... As the most common galician bagpipes today are tuned in C, D (one octave higher than uillean pipe) and B flat ( but there are all the range keys for pipes from high F to Low D), people uses instruments for playing in these keys. But it isn't common here in folk groups, they play more in the keys of C, D, G, A, relative minors, etc. etc. The b flat pipes are played a lot in pipebands, and the C pipes are more common in traditional quartets (two pipes, and two drums -bombo e tambor-). As you say the concertina tuning is because we play usually with b flat pipes. We like the b flat pipes because (choosing between the C, D and B flat galician bagpipes) it is the best for playing with the other traditional instruments (flutes, fiddles and accordions....), more compact sound, all playing in the same octave, and then one of the best concertinas for playing is the concertina tuned in C sharp / G sharp. Nowadays people who plays in a folk style tunes the fiddle sharp for playing in B flat, E flat keys, as other folk musicians do (but there isn't any fiddle in the recordings we sent for the collection). Galician bagpipes changed a lot from the XIXieth century up to now, in tuning, sound, volume. Today they are fully chromatic, can play in the second octave three notes more, but they are quieter, and they have the typical "classical" tuning for playing well with other instruments (clarinet, accordion, etc.). We sent to the collection the tunes that we have already recorded in which the concertina was more present, there were tunes more melodic and lyric that others we play that are faster. There are a lot of very complicated and fast tunes in galician music (a lot of the nowadays composed tunes are in this manner) but we like more to make good arrangments with more traditional tunes that sometimes are simpler for playing but that are better for good harmonic arrangments that some times in very quick tunes with a lot of semitones, etc. are impossible to do. Sorry for the long post, but I like a lot explain things about galician music. I have now ordered a new C/G concertina from Suttner for playing in more "normal" keys (i will receive it the next November), I have a Lachenal in these keys, but there is a lot of difference between the Lachenal and the Dipper. ;-) Felix

" or the emotional lyricism in Felix and Castor Castro Vicente's Catalan music. " Thankyou very much for your reply. It's true, we think that it is a wonderful collection and it shows that anglo concertina is a instrument with a lot of capabilities and different styles in which it can be played. I reply this post because we aren't from Cataluña and we don't play catalan music, we play galician music, and we are from Galicia, in the northwest part of Spain (the corner over Portugal, where it is Santiago de Compostela), and we are very far from Cataluña, 1.000 kms., that it is in the norhteast part. Our traditional music is mainly played in galician bagpipes, drums, tambourine, wooden flute, accordion, and hurdy-gurdy, and our rythms are usually 6/8 rythm, (muiñeira, similar to jigs), 3/4 rythms (jotas, foliadas, valses and mazurcas) -jotas are very common in Spain-, 2/4 rythm, (pasodobles, pasacorredoiras, polcas), and free rythm music (songs, i. e. alalás), and 5/4 rythms (foliadas). Our neighbours are the portuguese and we have links with the portuguese culture too (our language, the galician, is very close with portuguese, because they have the same roots, the galego-portuguese language spoken in the Middle Ages). Sorry because of the long post. Felix

I'm a piper too, and I know too that mouth blown pipes were included in the "mens instrument category", because people thought that it wasn't beatiful or pretty for a lady put her face "red" or fill the mouth with air, because of the effort of playing the instrument, this was a reason because people thought that the bellows blown pipes (most part of them form the baroque period) were more suitable for ladies. In the same way, comparing accordions and concertinas, the accordion needs more effort and body movement for playing them, but concertinas seem more "delicate" instruments, that can be played with less effort. Moreover, the accordion sound, till recent times, it was more wet, mussette, and concertina had a more delicate and musical sound. I think Felix Castro

Hello, the german concertina and the bandoneon evolved from de basic concertina model of 20 buttons, then 10 buttons more were added, formin the basic german concertina of 30 buttons tuned in G/A/E (E the nearer row to the hand palm), growing in number of buttons during the time, and finally having the bandoneon 72 buttons. The bandoneon has the same 30 buttons, 15 in each side with this tuning, but tango bandoneon players use the instrument in a different way. I have a german concertina (50 buttons more or less) and I can play in a way similar to my anglo concertina in this 30 buttons (only using the A/E lines equivalent to the C/G concertina tuning). A nice web page about bandoneons is this one, it has diagrams of a lot of layouts, and tells the evolution of the keyboard. http://laue.ethz.ch/cm/band/bandoneon.html Other page that had colour diagrams of the evolution were in the Terry Knight page www.pied-crow.com, but the link doesn't work for me. This page had a lot of information about concertinas and bandoneons. He started a topic about german concertinas, and if you put the word "crow" in the search engine of www.concertina.net, you'll can read them Félix Castro

Thankyou very much for all your kind answers to my question. Of course I only want to know what notes do you suggest me to put in the additional buttons, in the other 31 buttons I'll keep the same wheatstone (with C # doubled) layout. Unfortunatelly I don't have any tune in abc format, but if you want some galician tunes I can send you by e-mail scannered them. About the tunes we have recorded, in internet, my brother and me contributed 5 years ago in the Citterns On Ice 1 and 2 project and we recorded 2 arragments for it, the link appears (I think) in the list of recordings of concertina.net. If you want, the people that has 38 buttons with other layouts different from jeffries or that have adapted the 40 wheatstone layout to a 38 concertina, can e-mail directly to my sending his/her layout. Yes, I feel too very alone here in Galicia (and Spain), where almost nobody plays concertina (in Galicia I know two persons only that play concertina cheap models and in a very basic manner) and recently people told me about other concertina player in Catalonia (I wanted to know who is the concertina player registered in the Basque Country.....). Of course the internet concertina comunity helps a lot to people like me.... Felix

Hello, this is my first post in the forum, I'm Felix Castro, from Galicia - Spain, I play anglo and I have a Dipper C. Clare model and a Lachenal, 32 buttons with birds button both. My question is that I ordered an A-4 Suttner concertina 2 years and a half ago, and now I must begin to decide the layout I want for it. I play mainly galician tradicional music, mostly diatonic music but in a wide range of keys, and some times irish music, but I am know play with some acompaniament too (basic chords or notes). My usual layout is the wheatstone sistem with the C# doubled in the 1st button of the 3rd row of the right side and the Eb in the additional button of the left side. Any suggestions? I am studying the Jeffries layout that is in the Suttner's web page and the 40 wheatstone's layout but they are very different. I think I want to adapt the 40 wheatstone system to the 38 buttons suttner model but I find some additional buttons in the wheatstone system ilogical because it duplicates notes that the concertina has already but it miss other sharp or flat notes that I think they are more useful. Thankyou very much for your reply Felix Castro sniff I must wait one year and a half more for my concertina sniff.