Jake Middleton-Metcalfe

Hello Many makers these days cut their fretwork concertina ends by lazer these days. Its quicker and easyer ect. At my university we have a pretty advanced lazer cuting device, basicly you draw the shape you want cut on adobe illustrator (can be drawn by hand and scanned in), press go and the machine does the rest, it can cut wood, but not metel. When I saw this I felt a brainwave coming on, I believe It could very easily be done to cut my own ends. Styleisticly the typical swirly floral type patterns dont seem to have changed much over the 150 or so years the instrument has been around. Though I am sure there are exceptions for example Frank Edgly does a lovely celtic lion design. Perhapse some people out there are a bit bored of the traditional designs? I mean you could really do anything on that little 6 sides shape... My concertina is going to be ready in july and I am seriously concidering asking the guy not to bother making the ends and do them myself. I think it would be an interesting thing to explore, and I bet there are quite a few people out there who would love to do their own design, what do you think?

Thank you, I will try this

I have considered a neck strap, thing is though i recon all that jerking about might be a bit annoying on the old neck, still though, its worth a try. I could experement with some string first and see if that helps

Spiers and Boden were great. Mind you, when he was playing concertina he did tend to rest one of his legs on the concertina case, so that the concertina itself was resting on his knee. One of the Border sides just outside Bristol has a concertina player who plays standing up. If I remember rightly, he tends to hold it quite high, chest level while playing. I can't remember which side it is now. It's the side that does a Mummers play at Chrsitmas every year (not Keynsham). Maybe Winterbourne? He's a nice chap with some nice concertinas. yeah i noticed that resting on knee aswell, I will try different angles of holding the thing and see how that works for me, spiers sort of seemed to gently hold the instrument whereas I find I have to jerk it about so as to get at the air button at the correct time (leaky bellows not helping there)

Hello My morris side (bristol morris men) has an anglo concertina that belongs to the side and is lent out to whatever member wants to play it, its a 30b C/g lachenal anglo with rather leaky bellows, and metel ends. Ive had it a couple of weeks and am learning with it, Ive been playing melodeon nearly 3 years and dancing morris just over 1. Next year the most regular musician who plays for boath my morris sides is moveing away and wont be able to play for either side any more. This is where I shal have to play for them. This is something I really look forwards to learning but I have hit a snag. I find when playing anglo standing up I have to tighten the handstraps so that the instrument doesent sag and flop down, making playing very difficult. But playing with them tight enough to hold the thing still is really rather uncomfortable on the hands when playing for any length of time.I saw spiers and boden friday night and and spiers played his anglo effortlessly standing. I know it can be done. I know the obvious awnsers are: play your melodeon or play sitting down, but lets asume for this question that I can only play anglo and only play it standing anyone got any advice about it? Cheers, Jake

Its got a lever type air button aswell, how unusual. The poor thing looks like it needs a lot work done

I guess instruments go in waves and fashions, and there's a certain amount of 'playing what your heroes and mentors play', but I'd agree with the observation that the entire English folk scene at the moment does seem to be standardised on fiddles and melodeons! It does. Perhapse leaning slightly more towards melodeons in my experiance, I know an accordion player and a fiddle player who boath want melodeons. Aparently they are "the sex" at the moment. Though as a young player and a uni student I do feel one of the main things that effects the choices of would be young players is the price and waiting lists ect One of the things that atracted me to the anglo (by no means the only thing) was that everyone seems to play melodeon. Even me.

Just awesome

thanks for the info, I don't think I would actually ever need to play in F i was just curious to know it it was possible. C might be quite useful for accompanying singers though But basically D G and A and the related minors are really all i'm interested in at this point

I have a Morse G/D which I play for a group of Longsword Dancers. The G row is the lower pitched of the 2 rows, but even the D row is not too squeaky (certainly far less shrill than the G row on a C/G concertina). thank you very much for replying I see, This will cause me to slightly rethink how I would expect to learn the anglo concertina but now that I look at the layouts it seems to start to make a lot more sense why they would be like this. So basically an anglo player of either G/D or C/G could pick up either and play them exactly the same way and get the same tune (albeit in a different key) provided they both used the same wheatstone/lachenal system? Also: from looking at the diagrams of the G/D it looks to me (and correct me If I am wrong) that a G/D could play in C and F also? What is the full list of keys that a G/D could play in?

Hello, I have not posted anything in a couple of years ages ago I bought a 20b C/G Lachenal but then sold it because it wasn't what I was after. I then lost interest in the concertina and have been happy with the melodeon since then. Now two years later I have gone to university and am interested in buying a G/D instrument. I'm a morris dancer and want to be using it for that and music sessioning, I want to be able to play in A major and one day people I DREAM that I will be able to use the chord F major, the lack of which on a melodeon I find rather frustrating. My question is this: I have always assumed that the G row on a G/D concertina would be more squeaky than the D row like on a melodeon, but the layout diagrams showing the colored key charts on this C.NET lead me to believe otherwise: http://www.concertina.net/ms_finger_layouts.html so... what is the G row a low G and the D row a high D? and if so, how does that work?

On average, Concertina is percieved as "Cute", and Accordion as "Cool" by the young crowds. Hmm, this is sort of true im 17 and girls seem to refer to my concertina playing as "cute" whereas on the button box (D/G) my freinds do refer to that as cool and join me for a song sometimes. I realy like the sound of concertina or melodeon with guitar chord accompaniment EDIT: actualy by a very unlightly twist of fate I may be sort of inheriting a PA from someone i dont even know as he died and was good freinds of a family i do know and he wanted his instrument (s?) to go to someone who would be interested and they mentioned I played free reed instruments but.... if i did get this mysetrious PA I wouldent know what to do with it! I have no interests in learning another instrument at this point in time and those bass buttons quite frankly scare me lol. anyway Il see how this plays out

Now this is something ive always wondered, why did they have 12 sides? (this may seem a childish question) but i genuinely dont know. Was it to improve the acoustics? It certanly makes the concertina much harder to make but does it improve the concertina or was it just fashion or lachenal trying to out-do wheatstone's 8 sided moddle by haveing more sides? certainly they have a reputation for quality from what i have heard

Now this is something ive always wondered, why did they have 12 sides? (this may seem a childish question) but i genuinely dont know. Was it to improve the acoustics? It certanly makes the concertina much harder to make but does it improve the concertina or was it just fashion or lachenal trying to out-do wheatstone's 8 sided moddle by haveing more sides? certainly they have a reputation for quality from what i have heard

I vaguely remember from a family holiday a long time ago (to Alderney) that the islands were duty free :-) Chris Not only that but the legal drinking age is 16 so good fun for younguns like me

See you there! that sounds great and its close to where I live

jayk, based on your spelling of those names, shouldn't your profile say that you live in inglun(d)? haha, yes dyslexia has had its iritateing way with my spelling. But point taken I shal be more observent and careing on how i spell in future. However thankfully my college offers free classes for tune ups of that kind so hopefully this Embarrassing little Impediment shal be behind me soon. (yes i did have to spell check that last sentense!)

Ive never used that lowest note on the instrument before in a song (but ive only been playing a few weeks) My freinds efectionally call that note the fart note

Are you sure it's between England and "new" Jersey...or is it OLD Jersey? New Joisey is next ta New Yawk, close ta Mazzuchewsits. Ive checket the map to see, it seems to be in between gurnsy and jursy. not new jursey as i said before

Thanks for the info, i emailed him via thesession.org

for those who are not familiar sark is a tiny island about 3 miles long in between england and france and near new jursey. it can be found on the map of england when looking at a zoomed in picture of new jursey but is hard to see because on the map it is about 1 milimeter long In a few weeks my family is going to sark for a week or so and our visit is right in the middle of their music festival It is a very old fashioned place and they still have laws like "only the lord can own a car" and "only the lord can own a male cat" (whatever this lord fellow does with the only car on the island i dont know) But anyway as it is old fashioned i presume the music festival would envolve morris danceing or something of the like, but then again it is in BETWEEN england and france so who knows it may be some french music thing that i would never anticipate. I cant be shure, but at the moment free reed instruments look pretty probable. Does anyone know anything in relation to this small islands music? Either way il be bringing my own music

i never realy apreciated the humble belows until now, there realy is no easy bit to make of the concertina is there apart from maybe the straps and wooden pannels

Hello, I Have fitted the baffles - they are a thin silk that i was able to but and it is stuck on with double sided tape very firmly. If this proves to fall off then i shal use PVA like you said. When installing these i got an idea and where the original lachenal label was i stuck a piece of paper with "jake middleton's concertina" in an old fashioned type (the picture on that is blury tho) Ah yes and dirge, im afraid its only rosewood dyed

If you want to listen to recordings of diferent types of concertina go to www.anglo-concertina.net and theres a whole list of songs includeing irish english sweedish and much more Also you can listen to diferent types of concertina anglo and english and duet or (if you havent alredy) you might want to just type concertina into youtube as theres lots on there aswell

Hey that looks to be going very well (i hope i dont jynx it!) Also this guy in this thread: http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=6163 wants to make a concertina I directed him to your kitchen table concertina website as that was some dam fine work aswell henrik I hope chris salty dog's one is good aswell (it already looks good)