DaveM

My guess that you might be missing phrasing and articulation: - legato vs. detached vs. staccato notes, which in turn becomes (an aspect) of phrasing across multiple notes. - controlling the volume of the instrument, both between different notes, and as a note sustains, so that you can put accents on different beats or provide articulation on the notes. - the slight variations in rhythms (e.g. long-short-short for a waltz) for different types of tunes Peter Laban posted a link to this article on playing the pipes in another thread years ago, some of which applies directly to concertina, some of which only partly so, but I found it to be a good discussion that got me thinking about these aspects more. I usually consider it good practice to initially work on this while playing scales: play a scale fully legato, play a scale in legato pairs c-d e-f g-a ...etc. Play soft, play loud, play alternating nodes loud-soft etc. You can do the same kind of treatment to tune snippets, but then you have to think about two things at once.

I got it right, probably just chance, but my criterion was to pick the one that seemed most bland.

How many vintage makers used to put a reed right in the middle of the reedpan, if any?

Another Canada film board cartoon: The Blackfly Song (i suspect that the music is an accordion, but the visuals are of a concertina).

Since I usually don't have any dancers around to constrain me, I guess that I can swing them as much or a little as I like. I used the Finnish spelling in case it was a regional style thing -- maybe Finns are just more straight-laced than the French?

I started looking at the Finnish tunes Jack Campin was nice enough to post here I'm looking at it from from back to front. I got to Violan Marsurkka (3rd from last in the pdf) which is notated with dotted-eighth/sixteenths. The examples I've found on Youtube, like this accordion one or this ensemble one seem like they they are more like straight eighths. Should this tune, or Masurkkas in general, be swung?

I think it's some sort of Duet -- maybe with a non-standard slant to the keyboard.

I find the original pitch version nice, not too squeaky for me.

Yes, it's an execution error, not a reading one.

I had a chance to work on this over the holiday. It ain't exactly pretty, but it is complete: BWV-782 Concertina & Bass

Is it progressive musically as well as politically?

Two Part Invention 11 in G Minor, multi-tracked bass guitar and concertina, so far, just a few bars before things fell apart https://soundcloud.com/mapadofu/bwv782-snippet but I'm pretty excited that I'm at the point where I can start trying to put the parts together, and eventually make it more musical.

What are gammaldans and bygdedans?

I've heard the AAB type of description of the high-level (e.g. verse/chorus/bridge) structure of a song in many contexts. In pop music, a song that goes verse-chorus-verse-bridge-verse-chorus might be described as: ABACAB, I've also seen it a classical context in describing the sonata form. It's not something you'd usually see in a proper score, but is a commonly used shorthand in more informal descriptions like lead sheets, song notes, verbal dialog etc. I figure that the people behind ABC notation had these kinds of ideas in mind.

Some interesting references I've come across: http://www.public.coe.edu/~jcotting/Cottingham_pages.pdf-- paper on free reed physics https://youtu.be/Tt9Wvuo_Zn0-- stroboscopic video of harmonica reeds

Let me butcher a saying: "When it's Anglo vs. English vs. Duet we fight like the dickens, when it's concertina vs. accordion we're all concertinists. And when you bring in banjo [or whatever your favorite target is] we're all free reed players..."

Geoff, What makes a key "usable" on EC, in meantone? (btw, I think you balked at my table of "number of fifths away from reference" thinking that they were cents deviation; I've since amended the post).

For your case, it's slightly better to use A=440Hz. Taking A as the reference, you'd get a chain of fifths like this (I've included the 14 notes of an EC): ( -7 -6 ) -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 [number of fifths away from reference] ( Ab Eb ) Bb F C G D A E B F# C# G# D# In ET, each step along the circle of fifths is +/-700 cents, in 1/5MT each step along the circle is +/-697.7, so you're picking up ~2.3 cents of discrepancy per step as you move away from the central reference pitch. With D as a reference it goes (-6, -5) -4, -3 ...+6,+7, so your D# would be even more off from ET than if you centered at A (16.4cents instead of 14.1 cents) I dropped the first two of the 14 EC notes since you indicated that you'd use B major (and thus D#) and not C minor. Someone else who wanted flat keys in tune might put the reference note further to the left and drop the D# and G#. Though in principle, you could select any pitch as the reference pitch, I can't see a reason why you wouldn't want to put the pitch-reference near the center of your chain of fifths.

In the context of comparing to other instruments and MIDI controllers, probably the most distinctive thing about the concertina (and some accordions) is the 2 dimensional keyboard layout. This has allowed people to experiment with a variety of key layouts.

Thanks for asking Bruce. I haven't had the more severe tingling/pain in a month or more, but sometimes it still feels off. Lately, I've had some muscle pain in my neck. Related to the nerve entrapment? I don't know, but probably indicates that I'm still doing some things un-ergonomically. I've been limiting how much I've been practicing, mainly trying not to go too long in one go. Compared to the guitar I notice my pinky more immediately on the concertina, but its hard to tell if that means it's the cause, or just the conditions under which I notice things. The other time I tend to notice it in the morning; maybe I'm just "sleeping wrong" too. I do keep the left end on my left leg. I've made a few trials of switching around (left end on right leg, right end on right leg) but haven't stuck to any of them long enough for them to start to feel comfortable. One thing that has been coming more naturally is to occasionally completely lift concertina up for a note or phrase; I figure this is a good way to avoid locking in tension like Dana mentioned. I don't have the hang of just completely holding it in the air, and I don't want to try to make that transition fully now since it seems to put more pressure on the pinkies. The other change was to get a proper music stand so that I can keep my head up while playing. One other thing, is I play on a stool without a back. I've been trying monitor my back posture. What are you guys thoughts on using a chair with a back?

I had seen this back in the 80's, but only just re-watched it today. A concertina makes an appearance in the latter part. The Big Snit: https://youtu.be/p1S5pAF1YYA

Saw my doctor, everything she said was in line with what you all have indicated here. Still taking it easy, and trying to watch my form/posture, we'll see how things progress over the next month or two.

Another though is to think about more than just your hands while you're focusing on your technique. As you focus on your wrist position, make sure you're not causing tension/strain in other parts of your body. Plus, maybe adjusting your arms and shoulders will make keeping your wrists neutral feel more natural. Taking some time to just focus on how your whole body is arranged and moving, and making sure everything is comfortable, and not worrying about trying to play actual music, can be a useful process. I'm dealing with tingling sensations in my pinky (posted in another thread), but now think that the underlying problem is tension/strain further up my arm and shoulder, so I'm working on this myself.

I'm currently dealing with tingling types of sensations in my left hand pinky after playing my English. Note I rest the left hand side of the concertina on my leg. Usually it is not a problem while playing, the sensation comes after I stop or the next day. I've also had it crop up from playing guitar as well. I spent quite a while, just playing individual notes slowly, really concentrating, and monitoring my hands for any tension or extraneous finger movement. Though a useful exercise in it's own right, it didn't really help with the tingling sensation. I now think the problem has something to do with Ulnar nerve entrapment, and so the issue could be further up my arm(s) rather than in my fingers/hand where I feel the problem. So far, I haven't gone to see a doctor, I haven't been playing much lately to try and recuperate, and when I get back into it, I plan on just spending a bit of time making sure that I'm not tensing up anywhere (right now I think the problem is that I'm tensing my upper arms against my torso). Anybody else dealt with this problem in their pinkies?

Thanks Jim, the first tune I learned, Josephin's Dopvals, was the TOTM when I got my concertina. Also, I made a try at many more of the tunes than I posted.