Jake Middleton-Metcalfe

I havent ever seen anyone post about this maker before, here is his website: http://www.apjmusic.co.uk/ I've just received my apj concertina after the 6 month wait. Ant used to work for andrew norman and also made quite a few of the hobgoblin "sherwood" concertinas. I originally wanted one of those but hobgoblin said that the waiting list was like 2 years so after some more research I found this, and I'm very pleased with it. Ive not seen anything on the net about these instruments so I just thought would say they are pretty decent, like the sherwood but apparently better and with a shorter wait Anthony was very easy to talk to and was quite happy to make me an instrument to my exact specifications: 7 folds, metal ends, Lachenal bellows papers and hand bars that are precisely 27 millimetres high (very important to me!) here is a video of me playing it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfVRw_kNXzc the tune is from one of my morris sides, nonesuch morris and is called the Kennington hornpipe, its taking a bit of getting used to as im more used to a melodeon but its getting there

thanks all for your replies, dave actually turned out to be the guy who i had met in the session. Thanks for the contact details

Hi, Im based in bristol, uk I was wondering of anyone on this forum is also in bristol? I know theres one concertina player who ive seen at sessions occaisionally but havent met in a while and cant remember the mans name! There are loads of sessions in bristol, sporting heaps of fiddles and tonnes of melodeons. Only ever seen one other concertina. If there are any other tina players about in bristol it would be nice to get in touch jake

The kit is a hybrid isn't it? It has accordion reeds? yeah the clovers a hybrid, I just ment its cheaper than the hybrid I went for

This is brilliant, the price you pay for the kit is excellent for what you seem to get out of it at the end, makes me wonder if I should have gone for that instead of my hybrid. I would imageon people dont have to bother with a waiting list when you buy a kit? Is this so? If so that would be a big plus for a lot of people. well done sir!

that sounds lovely. its 6 in the morning and my after-morris ale has woken me early. This is a nice wakeing up slightly hungover sound for me it is realy quite interesting what those duets can pull off jake

that was rather good, nice to see a healthy morris side, and a morris musician who aint playin' too bloody fast! nice one mate

PS Antony (AP) James also makes a nice Anglo - he used to work for Andrew Norman, but now is in business on his own and may not have such a long waiting list. I am on the AP james waiting list, currently 6 months. I do plan to do a proper reveiw when I recieve it. He worked on the hobgoblin "sherwood" anglo also. Despite what his website dipicts he does offer his instrument with metel ends and traditional strap screws if you want em, also extra bellows folds! jake

Im another leftie When I first started playing the melodeon it took a little while for my right hand to get used to the more active role but after I learned my first couple of tunes I was away, no trouble there. Subsquently Im haveing no trouble with concertina, I play harmonic style. If I had started tina first It would have been the same. I think you would take a little while getting used to anglo whatever hand you use, especially if its the first instrument you ever learned. I know a couple of lefties who play their melodeon upside down, being left myself I find myself asking "is that really necisairy?" or are some people perhapse more left handed than others?

thank you all for your advice, Seeing john k and all the rest donig it is good, I know it can be done. What I should really do is meet up with nigel cooke who is one of the bristol morris musicians. Heres a vid of him playing: Thing is hes been so busy with work recently he hardly ever gets to come to practice I must get talking to him at some point, perhapse he would even give me a brief lesson seeing as Im probably going to be playing for the side next year. I played a lovely connor anglo in hobgoblin the other day and found it a lot easyer to play standing, it was very light. I think the anglo im borrowing is just rather heavy and un-responsive ie: you have to push harder to get the note. making me have to work a lot harder, but that should be good to build up the playing muscles.

hey there. for what its worth, I have been playing anglo a couple of weeks I had a similar problem and this is how I overcame it. Maybe its just me but when I first picked up the tina I found that I had to sort of curl my fingers inwards to play on the middle row, it was most uncomfortable even when resting it on my leg. The root of the problem for me was that hand bar. It was too low, What I did was to put a padding on the bar that raises it up. I just used pipe insulator, I have atatched a picture of what I did - this stuff is cheap from a hardware store like focus. Basicly this ment my fingers dont need to be tense when pressing the buttons and it really helped - try putting some padding in and haveing a go - it might help jake xx

Few people have their own LASER cutting device ( none of the current makers I know of ). They are pretty expensive pieces of equipment. As you say, universities sometimes have them, and laser cutting businesses have them and will generally do your job for you at a price, but the cost is not insignificant. ( the price starts to come down when you are doing a lot of ends ) If you really want your own design and don't want to go to the trouble of making your own concertina, talk to the person who is actually making it and see if they would be willing to have your design on their instrument ( remember, you didn't make it and bear no repercussions if your instrument made by someone who I presume values their name, doesn't appeal to someone else ). Most of the maker's I know of have gone through a substantial development process for their designs and in some way the designs represent the maker. If you send the design either printed or on computer media to the maker they can cut the pattern themselves. This saves you the trouble of not only cutting your own end, but doing all the careful work necessary to actually make a concertina end to cut in the first place and have it match and fit your concertina. if you really want to do it yourself, keep in mind that if you are planning a nickel silver end and not wood , it requires a much higher power laser to cut since the material tends to reflect the ray rather than absorb it. Stainless steel cuts easily as does wood, but a wood end requires much more work to make than a metal end. A laser may save a lot of effort for a maker who is doing dozens of instruments, but for a personal one off it takes more time find a jobber and get the file to them than it would take to cut by hand, not to mention the rest of the wood or metal work involved. yeah but I can use the cutter for free pretty much any time. I think I would rather let my maker stick to his normal end designs and when I get the instrument possibly look into designing my own. I mean... the main thing at the moment would be that I get an instrument i can play. sorry I dont think I said it very clearly earlier. I would be useing wood, our machine cant cut metel at all, it goes up to wood 2 cm thick. When I have the actual instrument in my hands I would be able to measure it and ensure my thickness of wood/ spaceing of button holes/ exact location of screw holes would all be correct. basicly I think maknig my own ends is somthing I would think about after Ive been playing with my one a while

Quite right steve if i was going to do it I should probably have the actual instrument there in the first place so I can make sure my measurements are exact. I think your right in saying I should get him to do my original ends for me, they are metel also wich I cant do. If the guy has his own lazer I could probably give him a design in advance... good idea. Well, in the meantime I should come up with a design I will keep you posted on how this goes.

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