Pete Dunk

Having got to grips a little with ABC I've transcribed The Cheshire Waltz which I'll add to the database shortly. In the meantime cut and paste the ABC text into the Tune-O-Tron Convert-A-Matic and submit it to get the PDF and midi. Please note it's very slightly different to the Spiers and Boden arrangement. Enjoy X:1 T:Cheshire Waltz M:3/8 L:1/8 Z:Peter Dunk 12 May 2007 K:D |:A |ff/g/f/e/ | dd/e/d/c/ | Bcd | A2f | gfe | bac | edd | d2 :| g | fa/f/e/d/ | ceg | f/a/f/d/B/F/ | DFA | GBf | ged | ce/d/c/B/ | A2A | ff/g/f/e/ | dd/e/d/c/ | Bcd | A2f | gfe | bac | edd | d2:| A | FAd | dcB | cea | g2f | gfg | Bed | cdB | A2:| G | FAd | dcB | cea | g2f | gfg | Bed | d/c/B/A/B/c/ | d2:|

The Jack and Jackie are built very differently to traditional concertinas, the action is of the same type but the reeds are of the accordion type and are mounted in banks on the back of the action board projecting into the bellows. I would wait until Wim Wakker gets back to you, I don't think he'll object to you opening the instrument and he will give you the proper instructions on correcting the problem. Dave Elliott's book is excellent and I would recommended it to any concertina enthusiast with practical skills; the hybrid concertina is different animal to those referred to however so it will be of less use in this instance.

Easy Peasy Tunes was one of the books that arrived today as it happens.

I reckon....

I'll explain as best I can but I've not played all of the different types. What most people would call a 'standard' English concertina is a 48 key treble. This can be extended in two different ways to 56 key. An 'extended' treble has eight extra notes at the top that go into the piccolo range. A tenor/treble has eight extra notes lower than the normal treble range. A baritone English has 48 keys and sounds a full octave lower than the treble. I've seen references to a 'tenor' English but I'm not sure what that means - perhaps it's a shorthand way of saying tenor/treble or perhaps it's range is between baritone and treble. There is also a single action bass English (only plays on the push), sadly I've never had the pleasure of trying one out.

Blimey! Thanks for the links Rob, to think we've just ordered three music books. One of the books has the Cheshire Waltz in it though and I've not been able to find that anywhere.

Check out Morse concertinas, who are in the States. Also Wim Wakker's Concertina Connection where the Jackie comes from, they offer a full trade in of your Jackie against certain models. Then there's always the vintage market....

I got a Jackie and a Jack a few weeks ago and I too parted with a lovely Wheatstone many years ago. I think you will be very pleased with the action, they are very playable. The tone is fine but nothing like the Wheatstone because they have accordion reeds, I think you will find the thirty buttons quite a come down too, not at first as you find your way around a concertina again but I don't think it will be too long before you start thinking about an upgrade. One or two of the reeds were a bit slow to speak but following advice emailed to me by Wim Wakker himself the Jack is now speaking freely enough and I'm very pleased with the instruments, very good value for money indeed. Welcome to the forum Nicholas, enjoy playing.

I spotted two English concertinas on the table behind me, one was an ebony ended Wheatstone Aeola just like the one I used to have and the other had metal ends but I didn't chance to get a close look at it so I've no idea what it was. I was aching to ask for a look at the Aeola, but it's not the thing to do.

Welcome to the forum Richard, that's a lovely 'tina mate, it should give you a lifetime of pleasure.

I agree with all of the above, with the Rochelle you will have the support of a highly regarded maker who posts on this forum. I recently bought a Jack and a Jackie (English baritone and treble concertinas), I had a couple of queries so I dropped Concertina Connections an email, within 48 hours I received a comprehensive reply from Wim Wakker in person, now that's what I call service. The Rochelle will cost you about £60 more than the Hohner but your money will never be better spent.

I want to throw a spanner in the works here with a really wacky idea, I'm sure I'm going to get shot down in flames because it's based on a wild theory with no real science as such behind it at all. I've read lots of things on here about the way that reeds produce sounds and very interesting it is too. Given that there is only one source of air, the bellows, and one reed per note, is it possible that the frequency of a reeds' movement might affect the airflow through another reed? Is it also possible that notes at certain intervals within the same octave interfere with the frequency and more importantly the harmonics of other notes? Bellows pressure is important too, it's very easy to blow a note fractionally sharp or flat on a woodwind instrument by increasing or decreasing the volume of air. To me it seems obvious that if you pump a given volume of air through three reeds at the same time, any significant increase or decrease in bellows pressure might cause the notes to go slightly sharp or flat but not at the same rate due to the difference in length and physical mass of the reeds. The hypothesis in a nutshell is that a reed can cancel out certain harmonic frequencies in another reed and perhaps cause that reed to to vibrate at a slightly different frequency by causing fluctuations in the airflow from the bellows; this is not dissimilar to the out of phase effect caused by incorrectly wired stereo speakers cancelling each other out and destroying the stereo image. This is also reinforced by the fact that inverting the chord and using a note from a different octave reduces the effect because the standing waves of the notes involved are moved further apart. Like I said at the beginning this is purely a theory but it may open an interesting debate.

Hadn't heard of Boys of Bluehill so I wen't searching and I found the dots for a set of tunes on the net: Boys of Bluehill/Cork Hornpipe (Harvest Home)/Cronin's Hornpipe (hadn't heard of the latter either). I passed it across to Sally who took to it like a duck to water. I can't practice on the concertina for all of this bloody recorder playing! I'm giving Harvest Home a bit of a rest at the moment as I said; I'll go back to it at a later stage when the sight reading hand/eye co-ordination is better and and I can concentrate on fingering exercises to overcome problems peculiar to the instrument. I'm currently progressing quite well with The Rakes of Marlow, a much more straightforward piece. Thanks once again for all of the feedback, it really is much appreciated.

I thought that was a cow's udder in a grey sock. We forgot to mention three guitars, four recorders, a tabor, a chap near the bar playing two sets of bones, a percussive banana (I kid you not) and a brace of tambourines. [disgust] Oh and one piano accordion [/disgust]

What a selection! Thanks a lot.

I'm happy to be the first to report that the evening was a roaring success, I for one have never seen so many concertinas together in one place. There was a vast array of melodeons, tiny ones like the Castignari Lilly being by far the most popular. Lots of tune playing, a fair bit of singing and a good mix of styles. Well done Alan and Bryan, good stuff!

Lots of good points here, thanks for the input. I played it in C because that's the music I have, I've written it out in D now so I'll give it a go in the 'proper' key. Initial attempts to use the middle two fingers went quite well; as a finger-style guitarist I'm blessed with fingers that think for themselves but they still trip over each other in the more difficult passages on a strange instrument. I have the thumb straps fairly loose but the tips of my thumbs barely show beyond the straps. I sit while playing, with the concertina resting on my right leg - I'm left handed so it feels more natural that way. My inclination now is to leave Harvest Home alone for a while after learning to play it at a pedestrian tempo and return to it at a later date, I need to find tunes and exercises that educate my fingers and sight reading reflexes rather than challenge manual dexterity and the finer points of fingering to such a degree at this stage. I'll be keeping and eye out for the music for Calliope House (which I've never heard of), ready for the next time I need a ridiculous challenge! My other half plays flute (very well) and recorder (almost as well), it was her playing of Harvest Home/the Trumpet Hornpipe/Portsmouth as a set that started all of this.

OK so I’ve only had an English concertina for four weeks and it’s a Jack baritone so there are limitations on what I should expect as playable as it is. Bored with scales and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star I decided to stretch myself a bit but I think I’ve chosen entirely the wrong tune because it’s such a finger twister. Harvest Home has lots of 5th jumps and repeated notes. Being a good lad I took on board the idea that it’s a bad thing to play the same note twice with the same finger but the following all quaver sequence is driving me nuts (forgive the notation I’m struggling to get my head around ABC!) All of the notes are within the stave, I’m not sure when to use capitals to denote various octaves but the d,e and f are all higher than the G) The line of numbers underneath indicates the fingering: 1 = index 2 = middle, sorry the rows don't quite line up, I've tried everything and I can't make it work out exactly. The e is on the right hand of course, everything else on the left. dG GG eG GG | fG eG dG GG | dG eG fG eG | 12 12 11 21 | 21 12 12 12 | 12 11 21 12 Oddly enough the following bar of four sets of triplets is easy-peasy, but not if I end the above sequence with the wrong finger on the G. Does anyone else play Harvest Home on the English? Is it a swine to play or is it just too advanced for a new player to cope with?

Well done Peter, I told you there'd be another day. Website? Photos? Oh and if you'd said I could have arranged for you to play in the grounds of the school I work at, not many miles from you and housed in a seventeenth century country house in 60 acres of parkland. The kids are pretty keen on music and performing arts so it would have gone down well; maybe next year.

You could take a look at the Recorded tunes link page, then you could do worse than downloading Alan Day's excellent series of audio lessons for the 20 button anglo. I can't find a direct link to that just now but someone will be along shortly to do just that I'm sure. Oh and welcome to the forum btw.

I don't know what planet you're from but the pagan rites of Beltane (May Day) happen on the first of May around here. Here's a little info gleaned from the net... Oh and I'm still on topic because Beltane has Celtic origins and is celebrated with music.

As long as you understand the pagan tradition you are following..... Hal-an-tow, jolly rumble-o We were up long before the day-o To welcome in the summertime To welcome in the May-o Summer is a-comin' in And winter's gone away-o

A quartet.

Yes, me too; everything I learn to play is a hard won battle against my lack of talent/ability. I also find some styles of music utterly baffling, I love ragtime but can I play it? I wouldn't beat yourself up about it, things like this happen. I've done hundreds of gigs 'doing the clubs' with a pop band (stop laughing at the back there!) and sometimes the performance was very flat. The venue didn't 'feel' right, one of us was in a bad mood or preoccupied with problems at work, that kind of thing. It's surprising how one persons lack of concentration can sweep through the whole band in a matter of seconds and give everyone a real downer. As you know I was at both of the Morris events, the first was a real stonker, thoroughly enjoyable. The second performance wasn't as good but you weren't on your own, the other melodeon player wasn't playing anything like as fluently and didn't seem as jolly in himself as the last time I saw him. To be fair things got better as they went along and although this performance wasn't as good as the previous one it was far from being poor. Just let it wash over you, there'll be another day.