Peter

Congrats on the new site Wim! Can't wait for my name to reach the top of the waiting list

You must have yours set to "Reverse"

Of course it does! It's a well known fact that I just made up that Charles Wheatstone was working on a weather machine when he accidentally created the Concertina.

I find it hard to consider Irish Music a monoculture. Monoculture suggests its members can agree. I assure you that nothing can be farther away from the truth . Ask two trad players for their opinion on something and you'll get three different answers. Of course now it is the duty of one of my fellow trad heads to disagree with me

After thinking this over quite a lot recently (first because of an aborted attempt at concertina construction and more lately due to an instrument I have on order) and have come to the conclusion that the perfect system (for me) is 30 buttons - Wheatstone layout. Extra buttons are nice and all but really they aren't necessary. Oh well, that was my bucket of kerosene to the fire

Considering that the vast majority of concertinas were of cheaper paper bellows construction I can't imagine that a large percentage of all concertinas ever made still exist. However the better made instruments would likely have a much higher survival rate. They are exactly the sort of thing that would survive stuffed in a closet somewhere. At least until their owners passed on. It's easy to imagine that most of the higher end instruments survived until the 1920s/30s when the owners of these instruments died and thier children threw them away - after all why keep them when there are so many others? It's enough to make you cry thinking about it.

Concertina players are simply called cool

MisterX, That instrument appears to be a Chemnitzer. Unfortunately that type of squeezebox is a little outside the expertise of this forum. We tend to focus more on the English, Anglo, and various Duet members of the Concertina family. You may however find these sites useful in your search for information. You may also want to check ebay to see what instruments there go for. Sorry I could not be more helpful. http://www.geocities.com/heytud/faq.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemnitzer_concertina http://groups.google.com/group/rec.music.m...ebox/topics?lnk

I think he is asking how much a Concertina with the "Oscar" label is worth. MisterX - It would be very helpful if you could post some images of the instrument in question.

I bought a new (old) concertina last week, specifically this one:http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=9081 I was able to get to the box where my mail is sent today at lunch and pick it up. Nice looking box. So I head on over about 2 blocks to a nearby park to play a few tunes with my new musical partner. Not just nice looking but nice sounding to boot! I'm big into Sliabh Luachra music so I'm knocking out a set of polkas when someone stops - I'm thinking to listen. I'm playing very softly, just loud enough so I can hear it. Go more then a 10 feet away and the insturement's sound would be lost into the backdrop of car horn, kids screaming, jackhammers, the usual Manhattan soundscape. Someone else stops and I notice that everyone sitting nearby is watching me. Wow! All that practice must be paying off! I start playing a bit louder for my audience and am immediately admonished by a well dressed office worker in a suit sitting in a bench across the path. "Quiet down, you're going to scare her off." Her? What are they talking about? That's when I notice that everyone isn't looking at me, they're looking behind me. I turn around - and am staring into the face of a Peregrine Falcon perched on a fence not 2 feet away. She opened up her wings (at this point I'm certain my face is about to be torn off and fed to a bunch of hatchlings) and she takes off to the other side of park and sets down on a light pole. Her crowd of admirers follows. I cleared out of there not a minute later. Apparently when it comes to birds - everyone's a critic.

Thanks for the leads everyone. Looks like I have to find some time for some research!

I've seen several mentions of the concertina being present in Inuit society but I've found few details. So far I have this paper (primarily focused on accordions though): http://cfmb.icaap.org/content/34.1-2/BV34.1&2art7.pdf and this image from Dan Worrall's site http://angloconcertina.org/womanwithconc1956.jpg I was just wondering if there were any other sources of information on this interesting use of our favorite instrument?

So what if "standards" are not the same as other instruments? Are you having fun playing the 'tina? Because that's all that matters. /not trying to be a troll, just stating my opinion. //heading back to lurkerdom

I'd be hesitant to put my instrument in any case that uses foam. Foam will crumble with time and give off dust and small foam fuzz that has a very good chance of getting into reeds and causing all sorts of problems. Concertina cases should be blocked instead.

Amboyna is the wood end I lust after.

My german almost-tina (click for a larger image)

The full text of the article can be found here: http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php...aded&start=

I own an example similar to your instrument (which I thought was actually concertina reeded on ebay, ah well - Caveat Emptor ) The major difference between your instrument and mine is that the bank of reeds is mounted parallel to the reed plate in a more concertina-like style. I'll post some images tomorrow. *Edited because I can't spell :s

I have my name and town written on the inside of my instrument - not for the police (though I that's a nice side effect I hadn't thought of) - but instead as a hello for whoever has my instrument after me. I really hope (being a young guy and full of hubris) that a century from now someone will open the instrument and wonder who this Peter bloke was and what he was doing with this instrument.

Great Series! I'm taking lots of notes here

4 days after I originally posted this I was laid off. So the point is moot for now

For a long time I've wanted to make a concertina. I'm not asking for it to be a wonderful peace of art or even sound good (I certainly wouldn't mind if it did but I do have an anglo that does those jobs very well already!). I just want to be able to say, "Yeah - made that myself." Unfortunately I don't have many of the skills or tools that I would need to do this. After thinking quite a bit I think the best way to suss out any issues I'd face in make a full size 30-key anglo down the line would be to make a smaller, simpler test instrument first. So I have turned my attention towards a minimal anglo concertina. I'm still thinking about various aspects of the instrument but I figured I would start off with a layout. This is literally thinking out loud, I'm asking for comments folks have on this. This design pares down the notes to a small subset which covers maybe 95% of any Irish tunes I'd want to play. At the same time I've tried (with compromise in the placement of the G#'s) to preserve as much as possible the positioning of those notes in relation to a full size 30-key. Any thoughts?

You may want to look into a cigar humidor.

Oh dear that was me, I stepped on an anthill during my last visit to the Appalachian Orogeny. By the way didn't we all have jetpacks before I went back?

I practice in my apartment. If the neighbors don't like too bad, I don't like their blaring techno at 2AM either. *edited because I can't spell.