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Musical Sore

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  1. What makes a revival? More people playing concertina for other people to hear. A few months ago I stumbled across a folk session in a country pub. It was the day after a night at the opera and I'd just stopped for Sunday lunch on my way home. Within a fortnight I was teaching myself to play the English Concertina.
  2. We shouldn't be worrying about this irrelevant question. Let's get out there and play our concertinae !
  3. Just a thought. And probably not a good thought. But if you were to take a 48 key treble concertina, and switch the reeds and buttons around (you'd need new reeds for the lowest notes, but you would only need to switch the buttons around if they were coloured or otherwise marked A,B, etc), would you end up with a 48 key tenor concertina, or would you end up with a few bits of wood, leather, metal and bone fit only for the scrap heap?
  4. "definitely in meantone tuning." Well, I haven't had the sounds professionally analysed, and a couple of notes are out of tune, but all the G#s are in tune with each other, all the Ab s are in tune with each other, all the D# s are in tune with each other and all the Eb s are in tune with each other; but the D#s are about a quarter-tone flat of the Eb s and the G#s are about a quarter-tone flat of the Ab s. (It was when I noticed this that I started reading up on meantone tuning). A scale of A major or Eb major sounds noticably wrong if you play the alternative accidentals. The thirds sound purer than the fifths. But I noticed this after reading up on meantone temperament, so this could simply be my ear telling me to believe what I read. The pitch, by the way, is around the Society of Arts pitch of C=530, although the concertina is around 1851 in date. I wouldn't want to have the instrument tuned to modern concert pitch and even temperament - it would seem wrong. I think I'd rather play out of tune with everyone else. (thanks to everyone who has replied to my original message)
  5. I'm learning to play an old Wheatstone English concertina - I haven't dared look inside, all I've done is mend the thumbstrap. I suspect that the instrument hasn't been played all that much - the upper octaves are pretty much in tune (although one high accidental only sounds on the push and squarks on the pull) - and it must be pretty old - it's definitely in meantone tuning. The lowest octave is less prompt to sound and a couple of the notes are very out of tune. The bellows seem fine (not that I would know) and there's no splits on the ends. I think it just needs a good servicing. I'm based in Merseyside. Do you recommend anybody? (I realise that an alternative would be to sell the instrument and buy one that's already been repaired, but I'm attached to this one now).
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