Dan Worrall

Beautiful, Kathyrn!

Very sorry to hear that, Robin. I met him once and corresponded a few times. Very nice fellow and a great concertina resource.

Thanks Paul, much appreciated. Enjoy the tunes!

Wes, Thanks for posting this. I am the current owner of the concertina that John Rodd was playing there. It has a 9 fold bellows that Rosalie Dipper made; you can see it expanded on the video. It's a 38 button Jeffries CG, which I obtained from Alex West a few years ago. Nice instrument. Not sure why Rodd quit playing concertina; in his Morris On days he was quite the player.

Chris sent me this instrument on approval, and I just sent it back, somewhat regretfully. Chris asked me to comment on it, even though he knows my opinion is negative, so here goes. Thanks for letting me look at it, Chris! It was made by Steve Dickinson, which should say enough about its quality. I have owned a Dickinson Wheatstone GD, which is superb in every way. Also, Steve has restored two instruments for me in the past. Absolutely superb. Chris told me straight up before shipping it that it had some playing defects, which forewarned me. When I played it, the defects were readily apparent. It was slow to speak, and you had to really lean in on it to get it to speak with any authority. Very stodgy, unacceptably so I'm afraid, to command any sort of top price. It was built after the superb Dickinson I had owned, so its defects weren't because he was still learning to build in his salad days. Someone has opened up this instrument and messed it up. No way did Steve ever send this from his shop like this. I wrote Steve about it, and offered to send it to him to set right, but unfortunately he is not able to take more work right now for health reasons. I've come across this problem once more. I have a Jeffries BbF that came to me from England in superb fettle - a truly lovely player - and I made the mistake of sending it to a repairman to have the tuning fine tuned and, what the heck, he said it needed new pads and valves. What was returned to me was unplayable in just the same way....like slogging through mud. It had been destroyed. I sent it to another repairman who complained about "Jeffries reeds" being old and tuned too many times. It came back only very marginally improved. I was heartsick at the loss of this fine instrument. I then contacted Steve, who agreed to take it on. It took him several years to do the work - he has other things to do, of course - but finally I got it returned. It was in glorious form, as good or better than it had originally been before the "repair" work. Steve mentioned several things. The earlier repairman had changed the thickness of the pads, which affects things like the stroke of the action. The valve leather wasn't right for an old Jeffries. And also importantly, the set of the reeds just wasn't right. Steve knows that of which he speaks, and demonstrated it superbly. Chris's Anglo was recently sold to him by an English dealer, in its current state. I did not open up the instrument to look, but then I'm not a pro and likely wouldn't know enough to be able to fully tell. But my guess (and that of Steve, who hasn't seen it in its present condition), is that some 'repairman' somewhere along the line of ownership thought they'd give it a heavy tuneup and ruined it. Does it play? Yes. Would anyone want this for a serious instrument? No. All I can say is Caveat Emptor with repairmen. If I have a really nice old instrument like a Jeffries or Wheatstone that needs repair work, there are only two people on my go to list for whom I have personal experience and great results: Steve DIckinson and Colin Dipper. These old instruments are different than high quality new ones, and I think it takes someone with great experience to get the best out of them when things go awry. Just my two cents worth. I told Chris that if he took it to Colin for fixing, I'd be very interested in it, because I have great faith in Colin. This instrument has great bones, but someone mucked it up. My two cent's worth! Anyway, now you know what I think, and Chris wanted me to pass that along. It is still for sale.

Thanks Stephen!

I guess I’m an ‘old style’ player, more or less following the Chris Droney style. It seems odd to hear of playing in C as being at all unusual. For any old style player, C G and D are the easy keys, and adding in octaves in any of them is a snap. Michael Tubridy’s playing of polkas on Chieftains 5 is a complete joy, and has that old push pull rhythm that is the essence of old time concertina, in my opinion. The instrument that he plays has a very sweet tone. I wish I knew what brand it is.

Great! Looking forward to it. If you send me a message via this site with your email address, I can send you the music for the workshops. Cheers, Dan

The temperatures are low and falling here on the Texas Gulf Coast, with snow arriving this morning. So, it is time to start thinking about spring wildflowers, dogwoods, and the concertina workshops at the Palestine Old Time Music and Dulcimer Festival! It takes place on March 27-29; here is the main festival site: https://oldpalmusic.com/. There is activity aplenty this year: Gary Coover, Honolulu's finest (and probably only!) concertina player, will be back. He has published a new book of English session tunes recently, and will hold a tune-playing slow session for these great tunes, for both English and Anglo concertinas. He will also teach a workshop on beginning to play in a harmonic style for Anglo. Steve Schulteis, from Iowa, published a new book this year of sacred music for concertina, and will hold two workshops on how to play these tunes in a harmonic style. Jarrett Branch and Dan Worrall just published a new book on the concertina music of William Kimber, one of the leaders of the English Morris dance revival from 125 years ago. They will hold a workshop on his particular way of approaching the Anglo concertina. Jarrett and Dan will also lead an Irish tunes slow session, like last year, for all instruments. We will be joined there by Maria Terres (fiddle) and Amy McFarland (piano). Many of you were there last year and saw their dazzling playing; the festival folks have asked them back this year as headliners. Luck for us, they are both budding concertina players in addition to being wizards on their main instruments, and will be hanging out with us off and on. On Thursday, we concertinas usually get together for initial socializing and an early dinner at the Pint and Barrel pub at 5pm, well before the evening concert at 7. After that evening concert, we may get together for a few tunes, or just blend into the numerous old time sessions. Ditto Friday and Saturday. Lots of fun to be had playing with folks! As always, there are festival concerts each lunchtime and evening, workshops galore on other old time instruments, shape note singing, old time sessions at all hours, and of course, Shep's BBQ. For the workshops, if you confirm your attendance via a PM on this forum site, we will send you pdfs in advance of the workshop music, along with a list of workshop times. Gary will of course also have copies of the above-mentioned new books plus others from the vault of Rollston Press for sale at a festival reduced price. Festival fees are listed on the main festival site (link above). There is no extra fee for the concertina workshops. We look forward to seeing you! Dan Worrall and Gary Coover

Thanks for pointing that out, Ken. We haven't yet updated the concertina part of that Old Pal website, but the new dates for 2025 are there. Join us! What we know so far is that Gary Coover will be back leading some workshops and sessions. Jarrett Branch and I will be showing off our new book on William Kimber and will lead a workshop or two on his playing style, as well as some Irish tune sessions. I'm told by Gary that Steve Schulteis will also be there; he just published a lively book of sacred music for Anglo in the harmonic style: Praise the Lord and Pass the Concertina. Both the William Kimber book and Steve's book are available at Rollston Press and at Amazon.

Adrian, thanks for pointing that out; with my eyesight I would have missed it. I never had thought of the Anglo as being particularly easy compared to the English! I guess they were trying to make the instrument seem a bit more respectable, which was also the goal of adding the chromatic row of course. The result was an instrument that is both incredibly simple and yet capable of being incredibly complex. I know you are among those who have fully explored that top row. Thanks for posting that ad, Chris. It helps explain that period of time. One thing especially caught my eye. Selling two different tuning apparatuses for home use seems amazing today.....but effective distances were much larger in those horse and buggy days, so it makes sense for those living in outlying areas. And a Happy New Year to all!

I just ordered it....another great book from Gary! I know a fair number of these tunes already, and it will be good to add a few more in case I get over to Old Blighty next year. A pint and some tunes would be wonderful.

That's great, gtotani! I hope you enjoy it.

Maybe send Gary Coover a message via his rollstonpress.com website. You both seem to live on Pacific islands, so maybe he could pop one in the mail?

What a great new book! Great work, Steve and Gary, to get this released. I look forward to reading it and playing some of the tunes. With any luck, Steve will come again to our Palestine Texas concertina weekend in March next year. I'm sure his tunes will be a big hit. And we'll also have to schedule a Kimber tunes workshop (see my posting of today, elsewhere on the Forum), in addition to other things.... Cheers, Dan