Don Taylor

Looks like a Crane to me on both sides, that button in the 6th column is not unusual in large Cranes. If I played Crane then I would want this instrument. See:

Kebab skewer? I suspect that your concertina will have an action that is based on what has been called the Stagi action. If so then the buttons will have a little sleeve of rubber tubing at their base. If this tubing has perished, which happens over time, then the buttons flop about and become even more tricky to get back in place. In this case, you will need to replace the tubing. As long as it is the right size then almost anything will do. If you need to go and buy something then the neoprene tubing used for fuel lines in model airplanes will work very well and be long lasting.

It should be user repairable/swappable. I suspect that your concertina actually uses accordion reeds and they are probably waxed in place - without pictures of the internals we cannot be sure, but I think all of the Chinese-built concertinas use waxed in accordion reeds. You are going to have to take the end off and identify which are the two reed plates that need swapping, make sure that they are the same size. If they are different then you are screwed. If they are the same, then you can carefully cut through the wax around the plates, prise out the reeds and swap them over. You then need to remelt the wax around the reed plates to seal them in place. There are various techniques to do this, I use a controllable heat soldering iron on its lowest setting, you can use a heated screwdriver tip, blade or a knitting needle. If the wax smokes then your iron/blade is too hot. You probably will not be able to make a really neat job of this with these techniques, but it should be functional. There are lots of Youtube videos about waxing in accordion reeds, worth watching some of them. The fiddliest job is going to be getting the end back on again with all the buttons back in their holes. Try holding the concertina with the buttons pointing down and then offer up the end from underneath. Patience will be required but cursing also helps... Added later: This link from the Concertina Connection is intended to show how to upgrade and replace the reeds in their beginner level concertinas (probably made in the same factory as your EC). It is useful to show you what to do to swap your reeds. You should ignore the bits about reducing the chamber sizes.

Łukasz: Did you do this on both sides of the concertina? Maybe both at the same time?

So probably not a Concertina Connection box which would have this branding on it.

It looks like a Concertina Connection Jackie (treble) or a Jack (baritone) English concertina, so no, not an Anglo - https://www.concertinaconnection.com/jackie-jack.htm The Jack and the Jackie are made in China for the Concertina Connection (CC) and they are made to decent specs for an entry level EC, in particular they have a proper riveted action mechanism. But, the Chinese factory also made an identical looking (on the outside) concertina with a much cheaper action mechanism and they sold this for much less than the CC model. If it is a genuine CC model then if you ever decide you want to upgrade to a better concertina then CC will take your concertina in part-exchange at the the original full price against a better model.

I imagine that you can probably get a suitable reed that will fit, but even if it is tuned to D then you are likely going to need it touch tuned for your instrument. If this is something that you are prepared to do yourself then you could try Concertina Spares in the UK or Greg Jowaisas in the US. I can also recommend Greg if you need the job done for you. I think that there is someone on the forum in Toronto who does repairs, but I cannot remember the name right now.

You might want to hold off on Musescore 4 and, especially, MuseHub for a while: https://www.reddit.com/r/Musescore/comments/102iqmf/is_musehub_malware/ https://musescore.org/en/node/337673 https://www.thewellnews.com/technology/muse-group-to-revise-audacity-privacy-policy-following-spyware-uproar/ It is very confusing as to what Musehub actually does, Musescore says it handles automatice updates and downloading of sound files. I am happy to do both of those things myself. As a long-term user of Musescore, I have had a quesy feeling about the corporate background to the deal between the open source organization Musescore.org and the for-profit Musescore.com - which is actually the Russia-based Muse Group that has been steadily aquiring open source music applications. I have never been satisfied with the explanations given on the Musescore forums. If you want Musescore 4 then you can download it from Musescore.org without Musehub. Personally, I have decided to hold off on updating from Musescore 3 at least for the timebeing. Musescore 3 is very good already and I have not seen any new features in 4 that make me want to upgrade. If you are as paranoid as me then I recommend downloading both Musescore 3 and, if you want it, Audacity, from https://portableapps.com/. I get most of the Windows applications that I use from Portableapps.com, they are mostly open source apps that have been reviewed and re-factored and I trust the site much more than I do Musecore.org and especially Musescore.com.

Good description, but why do you use section markers rather than measure markers to delineate the separate measures?

Thanks for all of these thoughts. My takeaway is that square works well for a small concertina - 6" or so, but not so well for a larger box. I had hoped that Edward Jay might be interested in building a small, square Hayden with as many buttons as possible but he seems to want to focus on bigger boxes. A pity as the only small Hayden currently available is the Concertina Connection Troubadour and that simply does not have enough buttons on the LHS.

Edward Jay is presently building a 73 (!!!) button Hayden. He uses accordion reeds and has managed to keep the size down by using square bellows. You can read about it on (spits) Facebook. I have been talking to him about making a Hayden and I am wondering if there are any problems/issues with square bellows vs. hex bellows. In particular, I would like to hear from anyone who has owned one of the (very few) square bellowed instruments that have been made by other makers. I can see why hex shaped bellows make sense for a radial reed pan of concertina reeds, a square reed pan makes more sense for packing in a lot of accordion reeds, but what about from a play-ability perspective?

AFAICT, by looking at the Hohner.de website, Hohner no longer makes or sells any concertinas.

Maybe for Anglo players, but not so much for ECs and duets.

In my defense I picked Gary's SIlent Night arrangement to photgraph because he had already very recently posted the same page himself in another topic: I did not want to accidentally commit copyright infringement so I opened Gary's 'Christmas Concertina' book at Silent Night. I should echo that this arrangement was not written by Cohen and is not in his Anglo Tutor book Randy's version (the Matueswitch version) is in 6/8 time.