hello again,
about the story of the "franglo", my first idea was not to have a more portable melodeon for festivals, but for years I was trying to play the different types of concertinas, first anglo, then english, and Triumph duet and jeffries duet... the instrument so nicely made, the sound unique, was my recherche, I remember dreaming of concertinas for years.
One year I decided (how unconscious I was!)to make my own concertina with the fingeboard I use to play (two and a half rows melosion with 14 basses) I designed the box (mecanism, metal ends, reed pan) and a friend of mine 'Jean Mégly, very good Triumph duet player)said that Colin and Rosalie Dipper are very open mind and they will probably give me some good advices.
So I send my plans to them and a week later I recived a very nice letter with golden heading, warm encouragement and a lot of little plans to correct mine...
After few letters I realised how diferent from the melodeon making was the concertina making and I asked them to make the instrument.
I'd read somewhere that I had to pester Colin on the phone to convince him to make that aberration, not at all, and the best evidence is that Colin made one for him at the same time (a lovely D/G)
Since that time Colin and Rosalie made 3 Franglo for me (a G/C, a A/D and a D/G baritone) and they are wounderfull friends.
They made , in the same feeling a C#/D for Christian Maes and two monosonore duets for Thomas Restoin with a fingering of a chromatic accordion (system Verchuren) on the right and a special 24 basses on the left that you can see on the photos...
all my best
sorry about my english, my french is best!
Emmanuel
