philapilus

The ‘echo’ is the reed vibrating. When you stop a low note by lifting your finger, you’ll stop the airflow to the reed, but the reed will keep swinging a little longer. Large reeds, especially when they have a weight at the tip, need time to stop all movement. Rochelles and Jackie/Jacks have special foil valves (manufactured in Germany to our specifications). Unlike leather valves, they will always stay flat on the frame. Wim Wakker Concertina Connection Inc. actually the vibration is coming from the opposite reeds. i play the lowest note on the instrument on the left hand side, and there's this odd tinny echo from the reeds on the right side that weren't being played. the instrument is lovely tho. I'll keep you posted on whether the tattle and buzz stops of its own accord..

Lady D! you gonna paint your box? thats such a cool idea! i was thinking of carving a little thing on my new guitar, but as it is nearly a century old i may not. but my little clementina rochelle, now that's a different story, and she was much cheaper than the guitar.....

it came in a soft carry case, in which the instrument stands on its end. or that would seem to be the way it should stand given the location of the strap and the fact that the case is circular in section. should i store it differently? planning to get a hard shell case asap...

thanks Wim, its great to be able to get help from the guy who designed it! sounds like i should keep playing away for a few weeks and see if the rattle and buzz goes away by itself once the reeds have centred. the rochelle is gorgeous; i would hate to have to part with it even for a day if i had to have it looked over. amazing tone, and much better than anything else i tried out, including several slightly more expensive ones. I'm very impressed. By the way, any idea why there might be the sort of echo of the lowest notes sounding through the reeds on the right hand side of the instrument? its not terribly loud or anything, but it just has this annoying little reverberating noise. is that gonna be the same problem?

that and the fact that you're a bellowhead fan, which pretty much makes it impossible not to end up being eclectic!

ok, so after hours and hours of research and trying out concertinas and reading everything i could find on the internet, i got a rochelle concertina, to avoid all the problems of low quality build and general uselessness that has been ascribed to other low price/affordable entry level instruments. so i'm kind surprised that after three weeks there is a buzz and rattle on the alternation between push and pull of the bottom c/g button (left side middle row lowest button), a button i have barely used, and also when the note sounds there's a kind of echo of it ringing/rattling on the reeds of the right hand side. erm, do i take it back?

oh you gotta have a name! or else me and clemmy will feel sad! i love my concertina. but i'm so crap! its kinda funny; i've been playing quite tricky fingerstyle ragtime and blues on the guitar, and now i'm back to london bridge is falling down!!

you found a name in the end. sure did Lady D!! yours got a purty name yet missy?

I was brought up in a very musical family, including several professional musicians, and I was pretty much the least talented! But I've been into folk for years, i grew up with an uncle who played accordion in a morris troupe, and a few older second cousins would be playing traditional instruments at family gatherings when i was a nipper back in the eighties. So i was hearing dulcimer, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, accordion and all those great things alongside other relations playing classical piano, cello, flute, piccolo and violin (and my eldest sibling is a professional early music singer). I started playing guitar at five, but got discouraged because compared to everybody else i was so crap i think! But when i left home i kind of picked it up again, and began teaching myself stuff, and that gradually spread to mandolin as well, and that was all fun, but then i decided that i wanted a really different sound, and an instrument i knew nothing about, so i could go back to the beginning and learn music properly. and voila! I've now owned my darling little rochelle (clementine) for a week and i couldn't be happier! (anybody else sad enough to name their instrument? )

thank you everyone, lots to digest there. but basically would i be right in summarising that there is no particularly more useful fingering pattern than finding what fits best? btw, have to say i don't think i have ever fallen in love with the sound of an instrument so quick!

Well my first anglo concertina arrived a couple of days ago, and frankly i have been utterly delighted with this little box of joy, even if i can't get anything good out of it yet! just a thought though, have been looking at http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php...hl=anglo+chords (thank you Tina, it's SO useful!) but am finding some of the chord fingerings a little tight, which kinda surprised me as i have played mandolin and guitar for years and am pretty used to awkward contortions for chords! i'm sure it will just take a while to get used to, and i'll put the hours in til it does, but was just wondering if there are any 'recommended fingering' charts out there at all, or whether most people just do whatever feels comfortable? I've heard that using one finger for two buttons is not a good plan, so i'm trying to avoid that, but is there anything else i should bear in mind? any help or pointers would be much appreciated! cheers!

Thank you everyone! I love your profile picture drbones, where'd you find it??

Hi Michelv! thanks for the links. my concertina is an anglo, rather than english, but it looks like an interesting site anyway, and im sure the tunes are applicable provided the key isn't beyond my little box! (g/c) i live in london. But i have some belgian relatives...

lots of helpful advice from everyone! Thank you all i certainly intend to learn by ear (but i will need the books for chords; i can read music as i play guitar and mandolin, but apart from picking out single line melodies i'm happy to admit my limitations as far as working out anything more complex, chords with sevenths and augmentations etc) so what were the first tunes you all learnt?

lol! Interestingly tho a simple melody line of that was one of the first things i learnt on mandolin... My concertina is a G/C; will i be able to play in D easily? One thing i want to learn is the beautiful old tune that was used for the hymn be thou my vision (aka Lord of all hopefulness)

New concertina (rochelle!) arriving tomorrow i think! what does everyone think i should learn to play first?

you know, it depends. the first time i picked up an anglo, in a few minutes i was able to pick out a tune or two on it. the first time i picked up an english (2 weeks ago), it took me a few hours to pump out a few measures. some people have the opposite experience. that being said, i still would love to have an english! well, i played both again recently, just for a last check, and i have now got a rochelle winging its way to me via mail. can't wait! so anybody else out there got a rochelle, or tales about how good they are? stories about how they are awful might also be interesting, if somewhat depressing now that i dropped the cash!

i think i do. its the sea shanties/jigs thing i am most up for. thank you wntrmute and david. frankly if d is easy on a c/g i reckon i've pretty much got the three keys that cover lots of the tunes i want to do. is the different note on draw and push very hard to learn? i had wondered if english was simpler. but i'm sure you've all talked about this before! don't want to bore anyone!

hello everyone. i've posted a couple of times on here and managed to completely avoid making my mind up between these two handsome beasts. just wondering if anyone can tell me the octave range of each, and explain the whole accidental thing? i know the anglo is C/G, but it seems to have sharps and flats of each note: is it chromatic like the english, or are notes repeated? it seems if the anglo has 30 buttons, each producing two pitches...erm...doesn't that give you possibilities for more keys than C/G (in 60 poss. notes?), and certainly more than a 30 key english...? sorry, i'm so new to all this and i want to get it right!!

i don't think there's been anywhere NEAR enough argument yet... am buying my rochelle in the next couple of days (or jackie. i will decide before i order it, honest ), which i hope won't spark a new war of attrition on these happy blue pages. I did actually get advice from one helpful person who told me that unless i spent £900 on an instrument it wasn't worth playing. and there i was thinking i was a beginner and wanted to have some fun...

hello nice people! I'm new to your forum, and only posted once just to ask for advice choosing between a stagi and rochelle. I've decided to go for the roch (or jackie, can't make my mind up between Ac and Ec!), and am looking forward to getting one, when i've saved a few more pennies, cos there's lots of helpful advice on this site. this argument however isn't quite so cheery , and doesn't particularly encourage me, and probably not my friend LDT either I imagine. We all have different opinions on what to start with, don't we; personally i wouldn't get the scarlatti from hobgoblin -- i've made mistakes with their cheap instruments before. But then I have the money that i don't need to get the cheaper one, and yeah, its not a huge price difference, but sometimes even small increases in price take us past our budget, whichever way you slice it. Maybe LDT's choice was between the scarlatti and nothing at all. We could all argue about whether you can only really enjoy the concertina if you buy a certain brand, but fundamentally, as long as you DO enjoy it, who cares right? John Renbourn started playing guitar with a cheap toy that came with a cowboy suit his parents bought him! And then he was playing a guitar, the bridge of which was held in place with a lollipop stick! Yeah, he's not from an impoverished background at all, and maybe he could have started all those years ago with a better instrument if he'd scrimped and saved, in fact I'm SURE he could have done. But he didn't, and yet he obviously kinda enjoyed it anyway, cos he carried on and became one of the best fingerstyle guitarists in the world. Much more importantly (i think, anyway) than all of this bashing each other about, is that this discussion is pretty off-putting for us newbies! I'm sure you're all very nice chaps and chappesses, and I'm sure you'd like us to stay and play on the forum, and that you wish us many happy years of playing, so lets agree we feel differently, we're not gonna convince each other cos we seem to hold our opinions rather strongly, but that's cool, and lets chat about something else? Has anyone asked LDT if she's enjoying the instrument? has anyone asked if she's having all these problems that are being predicted? Does anyone know what her first tune is yet? Cos now that we've established that some people wouldn't dream of learning on a scarlatti, and some people would learn on anything they could get their hands on, it might be nice to move on No offence intended to anyone here; and I don't want to start another barrage, I hope you will all share your wisdom and playing experience with me in the years to come, and i shall be telling you all about my 'tina when i get it! Happy thoughts to you all P

a nice noise i hope Well I didn't get the usual chorus of 'shut up' I get when I practice playiing the recorder or penny whistle. sigh. everyone's a critic aren't they? meanies. i'm sure you'll be ace in no time at all. can't wait to hear it

I'm still having fun just getting it to make a noise. lol! Although my family keep asking me whether they can have a go. My mums already asked me if I can learn play a tango on it. a nice noise i hope

hey lady d! you got a scarlatti then? how's it sound?

that's three for the rochelle then. has no one played the stagi w-15-ms? that in itself seems to be a bit of an anti-recommendation yeah i thought it would be unwise to go smaller, especially as (if possible!) i dont want to be limited to the two keys. but i guess that depends what tunes you're playing and what sharps/flats are available...