Azalin

I've been looking for a vintage anglo, or at least concertina-reeded anglo, for a while. Up until recently, they were very rare on the market, a Crabb there, a Suttner there a few months after... For the past few weeks, it's been raining old anglos. Many Crabbs, Jeffries, even a Suttner in july. There are/were many on eBay in the past two weeks. I'm curious, is there a specific reason for this, or is it just coincidence? Is the economy a bit shaky, and people need the money?

Ah, there you go, thanks, I'm such a curious person :-)

I'd like to know though, if the fourth button on the accidental row on the right side is missing, how do you play the high G#? Unless there's another G# on that one?

Maybe Paul lied to us all and it was in fact a Jeffries, not a Jones.

what sort of concertina is it? keep in mind it can take a bit of time to get used to a new concertina. at first you may be unable to play if you've never played a different shape of buttons (as many have "skinny" buttons), but you get used to it after a few days. That's a tough one to answer but it's an old concertina, from someone from the old makers... no one knows for sure. It has ivory buttons, and I'm used to bigger buttons on my Edgley. It's been restored in the UK and has new springs and all so it will take some time to break in everything but I'll be patient :-)

Do you remember your first time? The excitement, pleasure, or hurt and pain for others.... I'm talking about the first time you owned a concertina with concertina reeds of course! This is going to happen to me, if all goes well, next thursday. I'm all excited. A bit anxious. What if it doesnt play as well as my accordeon-reeded instrument? What if I can't last long enough and don't have the dexterity to keep on going for hours and hours? :-)

Superb!

Thanks, now I get it. Well, it seems the concertina went for 4000 pounds, not bad! :-)

There's this Crabb concertina in the UK I'm often looking at because I'm curious about the price it's going to get. It's in my Watch list but when I search for it, I can't find it, unless I'm on the ebay.co.uk site. I use ebay.com and even when I go in advanced search and select "worldwide" for the search, it won't get the item, it will only work on ebay.co.uk. Any idea why?

No it wouldn't... You're lying, he said it would!

Yes, one good way is to change randomly your password and never come back...

Thanks, the Koot Brits is a bit less obscure now :-) What's the end result of riveted action versus non riveted action? Makes the button action more responsive?

By the way there's not much on the net about Koot Brits concertinas... I'm curious about them. How do they compare with other concertinas? Is it in the same leagues as a Lachenal?

Just by curiosity, what's happening in Toronto??

Very nice clip! OK, I'm not hijacking a thread and never would do so, so please close your eyes for a bit, turn your head around and don't read the following I'll be whispering so no one will hear... I'm one of those who see "jazzy influence" as being a negative thing on irish music, so I agree with cocus here...

Ah, I just got it, listen to the clip I posted, we don't play excatly the same notes, which makes it a bit more problematic for me.

I play this tune in Gm as well. I play the Bb on the top row with my index finger and then use my ring finger on the G row for the A/pull and G/push and back to the C row with my middle finger for the F/pull and ring finger on C row for the D/pull. I follow the same pattern going back up. It works nicely because the pushed notes fall on the back beat and continue to through the next bar. This makes it easier to play and remember as well as utilizing the push and pull nicely. After the pull D, what do you do? This is where I don't have any other choice than pulling many notes in a row if I don't want to be using the same finger to play two different buttons in a row...

Thanks but it's not because of me, it's because I'm playing an anglo!

You clearly are talking about Anglo, but bring the suggestion for English. I don't believe you can assign fingers to the row. Or you mean the buttons along the row? It probably be a good idea, with your intuitive decision to "borrow" fingers from other "rows" (probably buttons). Sounds like you are on your way, and your spacing, judging by the sound clip, is very good. I wish my spacing would be like that. Good going. Oops I meant COLUMN I think! Column!! :-)

OK, here's one more question from me and I'll stop for a while before I become too much annoying :-) I've been told that it's best to use first finger for first row column, second finger for second row column, etc, and that we should always try to keep the fingers assigned to their own row column. So I've been reworking on this Gminor tune, relearning so that it meets my new rules. But this Gminor tune, if I want to play it without using a finger that's going to go from it's row column, has a bunch of notes on the pull, I think 7 in a row. Here's a clip I just recoreded (took me half an hour to manage to play this with the new fingering) Clip After the first note, the G#, I play G row pull A, same button push G, and then the 7 following notes, starting with F Nat, are on the pull, until the next F natural. I need some advice. What would be best here, to try to displace a finger to play a note on the push instead, like using the middle finger to play the G# in one instance, so that it jumps a bit? I mean, would you make your fingers move a bit more, even borrowing them from their row column, to try to improve the phrasing at the cost of it being a bit more difficult to play. I often borrow fingers to optimize places where there's no other choice, so I'm not against borrowing fingers, but I'm just curous about occasions where you have a choice between adding some jumpiness versus ease of play. In this specific tune, I'm still not sure if pulling 7 notes in a row is bad phrasing (based on my own tastes) so I guess I'll need to experiment more.

Yeah, that was my reasoning when I started. I knew it would be easier if I knew only one fingering for a specific note. I played whistle for six years before starting the concertina so I was used to one position of my finger playing one note, and the only way to play the note. I was too lazy to learn alternative ways and wanted to learn as many tunes as I could. I think it was my biggest mistake, because phrasing is important to me, and a single fingering won't allow me to get good phrasing going for many tunes. I still seem to play my Dminor tunes the same was as before though, mostly with the C row, but now that I know how to play rolls, or at least attempt playing them, it makes the phrasing a bit better I think.

Argh, you're right! When I want to use the push D I now use the push A on the accident row, I didnt think of this third A on the G row... Sigh, one more thing to think about Great tip, thanks!

Thanks for the replies, the info is very useful. Will read everything in details maybe during the day at work I just realized I made a mistake by saying "second octave" high B, I guess I'm talking about first octave B, the one you can pull on the C row right side first button, or push on the G row left side. I realize it might be the reason why I heard Noel said he only pushes it, if we're talking about the real high B second octave on the G row right side. So, do most teachers say they use both Bs first octave, the one on the push and the one on the pull? Is there one that's being used a bit more? I know it depends on the tune, just wondering if there's a "main" one. For example, Edel said the "main" high D/E would the push D pull E on the G row left side, "main" meaning it will cover most situations. (I'm a bit pissed off at myself, I should have asked these questions 3 or 4 years ago when I started)

Greg, I really appreciate, both of your posts contain interesting data :-) Now, I'm going to have to investigate with this high B, I've very fond of the newly discovered roll technique using the B/C and D/E buttons on the right side to roll a note you play on the left side... and to do this on a high B I need to use the left one. Now, does it help the phrasing? I wish I could hear Noel, Tim, play Dublin Reel in G and see how they manage to play the tune without the high B on the left, I wonder what they do with the other B to make it interesting enough. Your second post is interesting. This is how it feels to me with my new approach, each tune is like a maze and different directions have to be tried until you find what you deem 'the correct' way to the exit :-) For the past two years I've been lazy and only found the same way through each maze, even though it was often the worse way. PS: I feel like there's about 80% of the choices I make that are 'right', it's abvious to me from my listening to many great concertina players, but there's a 20% I'm not sure about... Should I play these two notes on the pull or pull/push instead... What's better for the phrasing... I will definitely try to meet Tim Collins in november for lessons and rain down on him with questions :-)

Here's a question for people who got lessons with good anglo teachers. Do you use most buttons, meaning both high B, push on the left or pull on the B, both A on the left side, push on the accidental and pull on the C row, both C# if you have both, etc, based on a specific tune requirement? The reason I'm asking is that since I started playing I tried to use a single fingering, mostly the C row on the left side and C and G on the right side, but I always knew there was something wrong with my phrasing, lots of phrases without the required jumpiness, what I call dead music, or some phrases too hard to play because the same finger would do too much work, often playing two different buttons in a row. In East Durham, New York in july I pretty much had a revelation. I took lessons for the first time, and it's darn about time, because there were many weaknesses in my playing. I remember Edel Fox saying that if your finger does too moch work, it's because you're doing something wrong. Also, she suggested using the push high D and pull high E on the left G row instead of D/E on the right C row. My classes with Tom Collins has been the most enriching, with all the technique I finally learned to do properly... So I've been practicing three hours a day since then, going through each of my tune and relearning everything, with the 'correct' fingering. I decided not to be lazy and use the buttons I deem 'ideal' in each situation. It makes a big difference, makes all the tunes I re-learned so far be a delight to play, not only easier to play, but sounding better, to my ears anyway. Is it the right way to do it, or should some buttons be avoided? I recently heard that Noel Hill suggests never using the high B on the left G row, but I find it very useful in a couple of tunes where you want to roll that B often. Also, I currently need to learn which buttons to use for each tune, and I really doubt it will ever come naturally. Do you think professionnal players don't need to think about it and find all the right buttons instinctively?