Good afternoon, y'all.
It's been a while.
Ken (tall ship) dragged me over here
and I thought I might use the opportunity
to say a general 'howdy'
and to ask for the thoughtful advice of the group.
With the encouragement and assistance of you good folk
I adopted a Rochelle last autumn
and have never regretted it for a minute.
In fact, I'm very grateful to you and for her.
I don't know that my playing has reached any stellar heights
but my enthusiasm for the instrument has never flagged.
Very few days have passed
without my playing it, at least for a few minutes
and I often spend a good bit of the evening
playing Irish tunes and pr-1980 favourites.
I just play the melody line in a one-note-at-a-time style,
like a wood wind or a hand-operated harmonica.
I haven't heard many decent players use that technique,
but it's all I can manage
and I get a lot of pleasure from it.
Actually, it just occurs to me that you might be able to advise me...
I pretty much live in bed,
and most days I lack the strength to hold the tina up
for more than a few moments.
Typically I rest it on the bed clothes while playing.
As you can probably imagine,
the 'bottom' creases of the bellows
are becoming quite worn.
I'm sure that prevention is easier than repair
but I don't know what sort of prevention to apply.
I look at these increasingly threadbare folds
and think about gluing on chafe patches
of cloth or soft leather,
but my courage fails me
when I consider that my modifications
could spoil the action
or create excessive resistance.
I would be very sad to damage her.
Suggestions, please?
After looking at Pete's shoulder harness
I'm thinking the ultimate solution might be
to hang a pair of long straps from my ceiling
to suspend the instrument just a centimetre above my bed!