Pete Dunk

What on earth is a 'trad instrument'? The music is traditional, the instruments don't matter. If you want provenance then Hedgehog Pie were using an acoustic bass guitar in the 1970's and around the same time the awesome Danny Thompson was playing Victoria the String Bass alongside Bert Janch and John Renbourn in Pentangle, not exactly trad folk I know but folk genre nonetheless. When I saw Eliza Carthy a few months ago one of the band was playing a Tuba for goodness sake! I wouldn't worry about it too much to be honest, as long as the music is good and the playing is of an acceptable standard that's all that matters really. I'd love to see an oboe player and a bassoonist wander into a session and start knocking out hornpipes.

Hello, my name is Peter and I am a saddo. I did once apply a filter to block websites with content including the following terms: Interesting Skillful Music Musical instrument Musician After that the only website I was allowed to view was Melodeon.net

Another odd thing about this one is the size of the unused thumb strap screws, too big for Wheatstone, more like Lachenal. It does look to be in quite tidy condition from what I can see, bought at the starting price it could be a decent deal. 'Inspection welcomed' sounds pretty fair. Why would you buy a thing like that and 'never get around to playing it'?

I can recommend doing this, kept me amused for ages. I love good tools, even more I love the skill, resourcefulness and ingenuity of true craftsmen. Fascinating stuff.

I bet you can slice a lot of boiled eggs in an hour with that thing.

Seems a bit too obvious and I can't imagine there's any way to confirm or disprove the idea, but is it possible that the fret pattern was designed in 1881? Perhaps it was even shelved at the time as being too intricate or impractical. Just a thought. Pete.

A picture would be interesting Rod, I'd not heard of Shire concertinas before and it would be nice to see one.

At the top of the post window there are five icons after the smilies drop down list, first is insert hyper-link, second is insert image; click that, then browse your drive or link to a web based pic. Pete

Well now, speaking as a guitarist of many years standing (please don't confuse that statement with any degree of talent and/or ability) and not really knowing a melodeon from a pile of firewood ( ), I would have thought that diatonic instruments without an extra row of useful accidentals were quite limited chord wise. I'll get me coat. *runs off laughing like a loon* Edited to remove non pc remark!

So how much will you pay me to wax the Italian or Chinese reeds into the Hohner? :lol:

This is an odd one. Screws for thumb straps on the top, but buckle type straps on the side. I've not seen the round holes in the ends before either, would that be a later addition made in an attempt to boost volume perhaps? Buy It Now price looks a bit ambitious for the model type too or am I missing something?.

Look through the Wheatstone Price Lists. Not all models appear on all lists and the specs change here and there so try and pick a year somewhere close to the instrument in question.

This is a model 3, basic and bottom of the range at the time; it will have steel reeds and 'ivorine' keys that may or may not be bushed through the rosewood ends, five fold bellows (so better than the bottom end of Lachenal's range). I wouldn't even like to hazard a guess at value without detailed pics but it won't be a lot of money compared the the better models, might just be a nice little player though.

Therein lies the problem you see. As Paul said, for some reason an extended (64 key)TT is less desirable than a 56 key, I can see it in a way because I wouldn't go out of my way to buy an extended treble in fact I'd take it grudgingly knowing I would never venture into the upper reaches. A true Baritone/Treble is a horse of a different colour however and would vastly increase the valuation. Would you have us raise Keith's hopes by overvaluing a TT by presuming it's a BT only to shave the best part of £500 pounds or more off if we were wrong? I think the natural reserve shown by members of the board is good, far better to err on the side of caution than to raise false hope. Even an expert would be hard put to give a 'ballpark' valuation without knowing what range of instrument we are dealing with but as you've forced my hand I'd say it's worth between £1500 and £2800 depending on general condition and nature of the beast. This valuation is academic of course because I'm without sufficient funds to make a serious bid so if Keith is watching my best advice is to ignore this post.

That there is the infamous Dah Dee, Dah Dee, a traditional tune well known to all non-musicians. This was a particularly ham-fisted attempt displaying a highly developed lack of talent and ability. I might capture this video for the benefit of future newbies who join to enquire about granddad's old squeezebox, as it's a perfect example of what not to do to the Jeffries you just found in the attic.

At a meeting of the East Kent Concertina Players last month I spotted quite a good tunebook which I was told was downloaded free from the net. When I looked it up I realised I'd seen the site before but hadn't noticed this generous freebie. I've searched concertina.net and can't find any previous references to this (although I've probably messed up the search again!) so here's a link to a tunebook with some 240 tunes. Paul Hardy's Sessions Tunebook. Enjoy!

I'm pleased it worked out Robin, abc and the online tools are a great resourse and all for free. I remember painstakingly writing out tunes in manuscript books as a kid, looked awful and took ages. Now if you know the rudiments of musical theory and can manage to grasp the basics of a fairly logical 'language' you can churn out professional looking sheet music quite quickly. Bargain! Pete.

Ok, I've just double checked that. The folkinfo site does transpose but only outputs to midi, not pdf. So do the transposition and view the transposed abc after listening to the midi to make sure it's what you want. Copy and paste the abc into a text editor then take it over to the Tune-O-Tron to get the dots.

Errrrm. Not sure to be honest, the Tune-O-Tron doesn't transpose as far as I'm aware but you might try downloading ABC Navigator, that might transpose it. There's also an online abc converter on folkinfo.org and I seem to remember that transposes. Give it a whirl.

If there is I've not been able to find it. Try downloading ABC Navigator (free), that will use midi commands via the software but remember that if you add a midi command in a file submitted to the Tune-O-Tron database it will just be ignored. You could always add a comment that the file is best listened to using other abc software or manually setting the midi patch to X voice. Because Tune-O-Tron doesn't send midi commands it won't reset the manually selected voice. Pete

Yep, copy and paste the ABC source file back into the Tune-O-Tron and alter the value of the "Q:" field, it's currently set at 1/4=140 so try 100 and then 70 if it's really playing at double the normal tempo. Oddly the Tune-O-Tron seems to read the Q field differently to other abc applications (or maybe it was the old Tune-O-Tron that did that and old abc files need re-timing since the update).

ROTFLMAO! I'll have a pint of what he's on.

I can personally recommend David Dykes in Sussex, Touchstone Tonewoods are well known. Googling found this long list of info All are luthiers suppliers but the quality of quarter-sawn stock will suit concertina making admirably and there will be a wide choice of exotic timbers. Pete.

So it's a 64 key baritone not a 64 key tenor. Wow. Leave it open to offers for a while on here Keith, much better than the lottery on ebay. Value? I'd take someone with more experience than I have to name a figure but a handsome sum, sadly more than I could raise but I'm still dribbling at the prospect!

At an unusually brief domestic conference this evening I was informed that any attempt buy another concertina, or indeed any other musical instrument in the foreseeable future, will result in an unspecified and peculiarly painful ‘ectomy’ being performed upon my person without benefit of proper equipment or anaesthesia. In the light of this startling information I have decided to let discretion be the better part of valour and let this one pass.