Dan Worrall

Very nice, Robin. Your playing sounds great, and that is a beautiful Dipper. I remember speaking with you about it some years back, when you were in the planning stages. I'm glad for the chance to see how your experiment ended up...thanks! Your playing brings up some questions...I hope I am not making a pest of myself on them. 1) How is your layout when playing in a chorded style? Are you happy with that? I know you play Morris, of course. 2) In your most legato moments on these pieces that you link to, in those parts when all is smooth and unidirectional, it sounds a bit like an EC. Knowing you, I know that you are an excellent EC player, too - so I know that you won't take that the wrong way! Does this layout give you that much more than your EC would, when played singly (melody only)? Is your new Anglo taking over playing time away from your EC? Dan

Hi Adrian, You're right, of course! The notes aren't truly random. Even on a 30 button CG, it is amazing how straightforward the Bb scale is, for example. What I was trying to get at is that playing a 40 button 'like a duet' (i.e., unidirectionally) is a much different proposition that the along-the-row order of 'push-pull-push-pull-push-pull-pull-push' that most of us have drilled into our subconscious at an early stage in playing, and that perhaps, of one wants smoothness and multi-key ability above all else, it is best to forget the pursuit of such order and just memorize all the button locations of the chromatic scale on the push, and then the different locations on the pull. That seems to be what Kato is doing. BTW, I looked at your website from the location on your post. Wonderful music!! Now, on your Dutch Daly comment, I'm not too sure that he was playing an Anglo on that recording. Daly played MacCann duet, English and Anglo. I would guess that he was playing the MacCann there, not an Anglo. Why would he put so much effort into smoothing out an Anglo for that piece when his main squeeze seems to have been the MacCann, which could easily handle it? I'm not sure though. If you or anyone else knows that it indeed was an Anglo on that recording, then I would stand corrected! Cheers, Dan

Gorgeous, Geoff....your usual. I hope that clown appreciates it!

Well, let's just say I write a bit more comfortably than I speak! You can get more detailed information on my website about the project, which is now complete: www.angloconcertina.org . The one reason to listen to that podcast is to hear Angela Crotty and Josephine Marsh play two German concertinas together....now that is a sound that is very rarely heard! The CDs are being printed today in Clare and will be ready for the launch at the Cruinniu next week. The six great Clare ladies (Angela, Josephine, Ann Kirrane, Mary MacNamara, Dympna O'Sullivan, and Jacqueline McCarthy) have done some really marvelous work on Mrs O'Dwyer's old German concertina, and I hope you find the booklet insert interesting. I'm sure some of the regular outlets, like Custys in Ennis and the Button Box (and, I hope, Stephen Chamber's 'J McNeill's' music shop in Miltown Malbay?), should have copies in coming weeks. It is all for a good cause, supporting the Oidreacht an Chlair in bringing about these annual Concertina Cruinnius.

Glad you all liked the analysis. I've been thinking about all that a lot lately, in off moments. I am learning a lot from studying Faan Harris, and one day will share it all in writing, I hope. Geoff, what a superb keyboard chart! Best I've ever seen. From it, one can see straightaway that a 40 button is good to be played in either direction for a solid octave and a half...enough for most tunes. And it is partly bidirectional in another half octave or so in either direction. So one is good to go to play it as a duet in almost any key. Making a key choice might entail knowing the key in which your fiddle friends like to play it, or better it could entail knowing how that tune's range falls on the octave and a half of the bidirectional territory. There is more to it than that, of course, but that would be the start. One other thing I forgot to say about the Boers. After 40 button, multi-key unidirectional mania had permeated the culture in the 50s to 70s, a fair few of them began to realize that they were beginning to lose the plot....that the music no longer sounded particularly traditional. Many didn't care, of course, being modernists in taste. But for those few, they spun off and started building high quality two row German style concertinas, which they gladly play in the old push pull manner (although they cross-row those two rows in novel ways). You will see them coming to a (usually TBK) session with two boxes. One when they want traditional bounce, another for when they might want something else. Why not just play the inner two rows of their 40 buttons when they want a traditional sound? It is a bit like my dieting; hard to maintain that discipline if there is a plate of cookies on the table.

The South African players are the masters at this, playing a CG Anglo in C, G, D, A, F, Bb, and Eb (and more). The key to what Kato is doing -- and to what these South African 40 button players are doing -- is to observe that he is playing each differently-keyed version of Greensleeves in the same, legato manner (a long phrase on the draw, then a long phrase on the push, with little or no push-pull bouncing going on). When you have enough buttons (and the modern Boers have nearly all gone to the 40 buttons) then it ceases to be a push-pull anglo with push-pull scales, and instead can be seen as a bunch of nearly randomly located notes on the left side: one set of random locations for the press, and another set of random locations for the draw. The right presents yet another two sets of randomly located notes, only these are an octave higher. Thus one has the makings of a duet, with the bass side on the left. Hence Kato's point: he is playing it like a "unisonoric" 'duet', with the melody played on the right an octave higher than the oom-pah left chords. Note that he changes bellows directions mainly to manage air in the bellows, not to push-pull his way up the scale. If his bellows were long enough, one senses that he could play the whole tune in one direction, and then play it again in the other direction. To play in this manner requires two things: 1) You have to have enough notes to make nearly every 'important' note duplicated on the press and the draw 2) You must memorize two complete sets of button locations (one on the push, another on the pull), rather than just one, as for a unisonoric duet or an EC. Twice the memory work. On an evolutionary scale, modern Irish players have only just ventured into this heavily cross-rowed territory in the past 25 years or so, and of course they are only playing one note at a time. They can only go so far with this, because they are severely limited by the number of duplicated notes on a 30 button. They fit this knowledge however into choosing different types of phrasing (bouncy or legato) to fit to a particular phrase of a tune, and hence straddle both the push-pull world and what bits of the uni-directional world (if you will allow me that made-up phrase) that the 30 button allows. Similarly, most British harmonic players are still based in a world of push-pull scales, typically in the two home keys, but they use more complex chording than the Irish, of course. A few, especially Fred Kilroy, have ventured into the fully chorded, more uni-directional, multi-keyed world. He played mainly in octaves, and used a lot of chromatic notes, and played in keys like Bb...very like the Boers. Few in his country followed him into that territory, from my limited viewing point. 40 button Boer players play in a completely chorded manner this way, and not just with left hand oompah chords -- they chord on both sides of the box. And they play lots of jazz-like improvisations too in these 'strange' keys like Eb etc, which indicates a level of familiarity with the keyboard that is difficult for others (like me), who tend to be stuck in the push pull world, to envision. The answer is in the 40 buttons with its repeated notes. With a 40 key, and the ability to memorize button locations on the push (or all on the pull) in various keys, the Anglo ultimately becomes much simpler, which seems counter-intuitive. I've been spending too much time lately unravelling the playing of Faan Harris, who played the 30 button in the 1930s and who, in my humble opinion, is one of the greatest Anglo players to ever have been recorded anywhere. LIke Paddy Murphy and Noel Hill several decades later, he was pushing the limits of his 30 button, playing entire phrases on the push or pull, and in non-home row keys like Bb and F. And chording on both hands and doing jazz improv all the while. He set the stage for the somewhat later arrival of 40 button concertinas in South Africa in the 1940s and 1950s, which were eagerly snapped up by hundreds of players who pushed along farther down that route; almost no one there uses 30 buttons now. If you listen to some of these modern players -- Nico van Rensburg and Neels Mattheus are examples -- their playing is so unidirectional that they sound like they are playing a piano accordion....which is precisely the territory Kato is wandering into. Once you get there, playing in many keys is fairly straightforward. Another bit of Faan Harris's genius is that he fit the needs of a piece to the appropriate key. One of the waltzes that he composed was named Hartseer (Heartache) in memory of his son, who was killed in a car accident (hit and run, I think). To make it sound sad, he needed to play legato....hard to do on a 30 button bounce box. He chose the key of Bb, because one can play it all on the draw with hardly any bellows directions changes needed, so very legato. He didn't play in Bb to impress anyone....he fit the characteristics of the Bb key on a 30 button to the needs of the whole tune. Quite a few steps ahead of the Irish players of today, who just fit phrases this way. And he did it with chords and improvisation. Amazing. It is a wondrous instrument, this Anglo.

Thanks for posting this, David. I've never met him, or even seen a Contra Dance in New England, but I certainly knew of him. Your post brought back floods of memories of the old LPs I listened to in the mid 1970s of the Canterbury Country Dance Orchestra, in which Bob played the piano. Those lively, wonderful recordings helped get me through grad school....such an infectious optimism they had, and a lot of it due to the underlying rhythm - the heartbeat - provided directly by Bob. In later years I played a bit for contras here in Texas, and learned several wonderful tunes during that time that were written by him. RIP. By the way, after lying dormant for many years, those recordings were released in CD form not too long ago by CDBaby. If winter cabin fever ever gets to you, try these out! http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/canterbury

Nobody is advocating renaming anything. The body of water will still be the Tappan Zee. The Tappan Zee Bridge will be torn down after being replaced by a newer, as yet unnamed, bridge. The web site describing the project calls it "The New NY Bridge" suggesting that it will not be called "The Tappan Zee Bridge." The petition suggests naming this bridge (the first span is scheduled to open in 2016, the second in 2018) after Pete Seeger. Well, David, that website may call it "The New NY Bridge", but that is because it is owned by pragmatic and perhaps political types running State and Federal Agencies, who know that sometimes they need to name something after a politician to get a project moving at a critical time (BTW, the road served by the bridge is officially the Governor Dewey Thruway, but no one calls it that; it is the New York State Thruway to everyone who uses it). Have a look at this page on that same website, where nearly all of the many persons voicing public support for the effort call it either the 'Tappan Zee Project' or the 'new Tappan Zee Bridge.' Not one of them calls it 'The New NY Bridge' or suggests that a name change is needed. In like manner, the Brooklyn Bridge is the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge is the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. I agree with Jim on the critical point here: Pete Seeger would not draw attention to himself in that way. His legacy is far too important for someone to splash his name on a bridge like some politician. That is all I was trying to say. Not being a New Yorker, I won't have a vote. But I promise to play a Pete Seeger song on my concertina the next time I camp at Lake LBJ.

Much as I admire Pete Seeger - what a wonderful contribution to folk music! - I would not support renaming that bridge. The Dutch named that wider part of the Hudson for a 'Tappan' branch of the Delaware Indians (one of the groups who bore the brunt of first contact with the Europeans); Zee means Sea in Dutch, meaning that wide part. There are few enough place names that take us back to that earliest European period in our history (what happened to New Amsterdam?) and to the Indian tribes who lived here before being pushed out. And in general I prefer not to rename things for popular current events. In Texas, some political folks renamed our beautiful Granite Shoals Lake when Lyndon Johnson died back in the seventies....so now it is forever 'Lake LBJ.' I would never equate Seeger with LBJ (!), but somehow I would think even Pete would prefer the musical sound and historical connections of Tappan Zee. Pete would likely be more pleased if they would name some water purification plant for him!

Any candle shop should have some beeswax candles for sale. Or try a Catholic church....they use beeswax for candles and may have a few stumps of old candles they could give you. You don't need much. Don't use glue. Someday you may have to replace one of those reeds, or tune it.

Best not to use plain beeswax, as it is too brittle. Try the recipe listed here http://forum.melodeon.net/index.php?topic=7910.0, which is what the accordion makers use (you have accordion reeds in your concertina). While the wax mix is still warm, try to roll it into long thin braids, say 1/16 inches thick or so. Then you can place a rope of it next to the reed frame, and melt it more or less in place with a soldering iron..much easier. Make sure to clean the reed frame and the board thoroughly of any old wax first....bumps of old wax can cause leaks and poor adhesion. And keep it out of the hot attic in the future. This wax is ok to 100F or so, but after that it is all downhill. All of these things were shown to me by the late Harold Herrington. He and most concertina makers screw their reeds in rather than wax them, but he thought that waxing worked just as well....and sometimes better. Your instrument is worth repairing, as those individual reeds are better than the big plates of reeds used in other German and Italian concertinas.

Just a note to say that the forum Clare Women and Mrs O'Dwyer's Old German Concertina mentioned above will be accompanied by the launch of the CD that marks the completed project (see post). All of the project's outstanding women contributors, plus Mrs. O'Dwyer's son Sean O'Dwyer, will be there to celebrate the old concertina and the conclusion of the effort....as well as play some tunes on it and tell stories of the old German concertina in the west of Ireland. A night not to be missed! For those in North America, the CD launch for areas to the west of the pond will coincide with Ann Droney Kirrane's visit to the Palestine concertina weekend, March 27-29 in east Texas, described here. Come join us at one of these events!

Just a note that the 'Mrs O'Dwyer concertina project' mentioned in the first post above (also known as the 'Irish German concertina project') is now complete, with a CD issued by the Oidreacht an Chlair (see post). The offical launch of the CD will be at the Concertina Cruinniu in Miltown Malbay, February 14-16, but the North American launch will be at this Palestine concertina weekend, coinciding with Ann Droney Kirrane's visit with us. Come join us!

You may remember that back in May 2013 I posted a notice on the beginning of an "Irish-German Concertina Project" that involved the old German concertina that had belonged to Mrs. Ella Mae O'Dwyer, which was making its rounds within a group of six outstanding women concertina players in Clare (Angela Crotty, Mary MacNamara, Ann Kirrane, Jacqueline McCarthy, Josephine Marsh, Dympna O'Sullivan). Each of these women has now recorded several tunes, the CD and an accompanying 16 page booklet have been prepared, and the project is now completed. The project details have been updated on my website (www.angloconcertina.org), including the tune choices the ladies each made, some photos, and some other historical information. The CD launch will be at the Concertina Cruinniu in Miltown Malbay, Feb 14-16. The evening of the 14th, each of the six ladies, along with Mrs. O'Dwyer's son Sean O'Dwyer, will talk a bit about their own family and community history with the German concertina and play a few tunes on the old instrument. It should be a lot of fun, in addition to being a rare opportunity to hear the sound that all but defined the old house dances in western Ireland in the late 19th and earliest 20th century. Following the launch, CDs will be on sale via the Oidreacht an Chlair. All proceeds go to the OaC for the purposes of holding future Concertina Cruinnius. The old concertina itself is donated to the OaC for preservation, so that future generations can hear its old country-house sound. Many thanks to all who took part in the effort! ps. For North American colleagues, Ann Droney Kirrane, one of the project participants, will be visiting us at the concertina weekend in Palestine Texas on March 27-29, which will include the CD launch on the western side of the pond.

Hi Stephen, Ann is originally form North Clare, and was heavily influenced by her father, Chris Droney. I'd say that the Droney style is somewhat similar to that you describe, certainly in its relative sparseness of ornamentation. The Droneys use octaves as a frequent ornament, along with (at times) rapid triplets on a single note, and of course a lot of rhythmic drive, as this style was shaped by set dancers. Ann will of course discuss that style and its background in her workshops. Hope this helps. Have you got Chris Droney's The Flowing Tide, from the Clare Set CDs of Free Reed Records? That is the best example of that style. Cheers, Dan PS. Edited to add that here is a link to a site where you can hear audio samples of that album. http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,4435146,00.html

Stephen, Stephen, and Rick (sounds like a law firm!), Thanks for the kind words, and glad you are coming. Should be fun indeed...some real cross-culturalism that doesn't typically happen at these sorts of events (Co. Clare meets old time American). And Rick, you won't be the only Hayden player with an inner Anglo yen....Stephen Mills is that way, too. Many of the workshops will be good with either, and some have an Anglo focus. And usually we try to do one massed playing of the whole gaggle of concertinas, playing usually an old time waltz just for the fun of it, and the duets are always most welcome for their chording! See you there. Dan

That is a bit like Zulu and Xhosa squashbox playing, where the repeating rhythm and chords are the thing, not the melody...useful in long treks across the veld. Not my cup of tea, but interesting.

Gary, Nice to know that Anglo players are not in goose-stepping synch! Anglo-German aficianados have always been a homespun lot, so it is not surprising to see such variety in approaches. One thing to think about is the purpose of the tablature. For means of showing complex chords in the harmonic style, for example, where many notes are being played at once, then it is useful to be specific, somehow identifying hand, row number, button number, and push or pull for each button. That is a lot of information to show in a simple manner. For a style where only one note at a time is usually being played, as in Irish music, for all but beginners it usually suffices to say which row is being played....hence no left or right, no button numbers, and no push-pull indication. That way one can address cross rowing without a lot of un-needed clutter. One should know that middle G occurs on all three rows without someone having to spell it out, but cross-row usage (i.e., which G one might choose in a certain situation) is usally the unfamiliar part that needs addressing in tutors. When showing chords in the harmonic style, one has to be more specific, as several rows may be being used at once. Just a thought. I know you like minimalism! Dan edited to add: After thinking about this (briefly!) during a walk, I guess I should mention how to accomplish that. For a workshop in Australia a few years ago, I put a dashed line over notes in the score when they were meant to be played in the G row, and no line when they were meant to be played on the C. This was for a workshop on octave playing a la Dooley Chapman, who cross rowed his octave playing in a way that was not random, but part of a pattern (for example, the 'double z' scale is a pattern when playing in octaves in the key of C; the first four notes are played on the C row, and the last four notes on the G row). The note G, for example, could be played in octaves on the C row or on the G. The dashed line gave a little crutch to learning that double z scale pattern. No other information is required as tablature in this particular case. Clear as mud? The only idea here, such as it is, is that there sometimes is a 'horses for courses' approach to tablature, and maybe some of the folks in your chart had some reason for their otherwise odd-looking tablature. Others were perhaps less than minimalist and maybe even obtuse!

A happy New Year to all on this site! Mercifully, this frigid winter cannot last forever. It is only a little over two months before the dogwoods and azaleas will be blooming in the Southland, which means that the Palestine concertina weekend in the east Texas Pineywoods is drawing near! Here is an update on the goings-on, in this our tenth year, on March 27-29. Our big news, as I reported on this forum late last year, is that Clare concertina player Ann Kirrane - Chris Droney's daughter and a splendid old time Irish player - and her friend Gerry Hanley, a button accordion player from Galway, will be with us that weekend. Ann will teach a number of concertina workshops, as well as perform in concert with Gerry. The two will do workshops in Irish song as well. Some of Ann's workshops will of course focus on Irish anglo playing - in the North Clare style of the Droney family - but others will be for general systems and for song accompaniment (and all systems are welcome at all workshops). She has been singing a fair amount of Stephen Foster in the past few years, so there will certainly be some American music tie-ins too. For those with an eye to tradition, some of her workshop tunes go back to the very beginnings of concertina playing in Ireland. As mentioned on my website piece about the 'Mrs O'Dwyer's German concertina project' (of which Ann is a participant; see details at http://angloconcertina.org/), Ann's great-grandfather Michael Droney purchased a German concertina in the early 1850s and was in great demand for house dances at weddings in and around north Clare and the Burren. Her easiest tune at the workshop will be Bellharbour Hills, a waltz that has been carefully handed down in the family from Michael's playing. A polka, Tripping to the Well, she learned from her grandfather Jim Droney, and some reels (The Furrow and the Bellharbour Reel) are from her father Chris's playing. That and more will make this a unique chance for North American players to hear and learn some old tunes in a pre-session days regional Clare style. But there is more. Our Palestine Regulars will have workshops on demand for beginning English and Duet (Crane and Hayden) systems. I'll be happy to sit down with anyone on Kimber-style playing, as well as my latest passion, the South African style playing of the old player Faan Harris. We will of course also have our annual 'Concertina Dinner', where the after dinner entertainment is....you and everyone else. Time for those party pieces! And that is in addition to the main festival itself - the Palestine Old Time Music and Dulcimer Festival - all sorts of old time music workshops, two concerts every day, friendly, approachable old time sessions all day long, and even some Sacred Harp singing! We concertinists are only a small part of the overall festival; here is their website www.oldpalmusic.com Finally, some info on logistics. Check the festival link for accommodations; there are several inexpensive hotels in small-town Palestine, as well as camping. For spouses, besides the festival concerts, the dogwoods and azaleas are in full bloom in nearby Davey Dogwood Park, and there is a wonderful old time steam train ride that runs between Palestine and Rusk. Not to mention the barbecue. Because we concertinists are a small community, we try to help defray some of the costs of our headliners. We collect an extra $30 from each concertinist, on top of the festival main fee. We collect this 'concertina fee' at the workshops. This year that fee will be especially important, because it is extra expensive to pay for airfare across the Atlantic from Ireland. Please support this concertina workshop....the only one in the south central and southwestern US. If you plan to come, please drop me a confirming email (via this Forum's private messaging site), so I'll get a count for planning - and let me know what concertina system you play (Anglo, English, Hayden, Crane, etc) and whether you have any specific wishes (ie, for beginning instruction, etc.). For those who confirm attendance beforehand, we will have some pre-mailing of sheet music for Ann's workshop, so you can get a head start on that material. See you there! Dan

I guess that was Concertina World that came earlier this year. Sorry for the wrong info! If what Daniel says is correct, and I suspect that it is, then we all owe Allan Atlas our gratitude for ten years of work at the helm of PICA (predeeded by several more years at a related free reed journal). PICA has set a solid foundation (and standard) for those of us who enjoy considering the history of the instrument, and Allan will be sorely missed at that job. Let's hope he does some recording, and more writing, in his retirement!

The National Library of Australia has a lot of unpublished recordings of old time Aussie players. I have combed through all of them for my House Dance CD, which also features traditional old time Anglo performers in Ireland, South Africa and England. Standouts in Oz for old time players are George Bennett and Dooley Chapman, but there are others. I don't recall anyone singing with the c., although several of them sing without it. There are also some clips of some of the current players in Australia too in House Dance....but no vocals. You can get that CDRom (digital book and about 200 archival tunes) from the Button Box or from the publisher, Musical Traditions in the UK. I don't know of any comparable comprehensive source of old time bush music available (ditto for Boer music). There are individual CDs for modern performers, of which Dave de Hugard is a favorite of mine. And my good friend Peter Ellis of Bendigo Victoria recently compiled a wonderful album of traditional Bush music recordings of the 1960s and 1970s entitled Music Makes Me Smile....available by written enquiry at enquiries@vfmc.org.au . I could be surprised, but I don't recall any solo c. with singing on this 2 disc set.

As far as I can tell, a number of pages on the web site haven't been properly updated in a long time, though others have been updated more recently. PICA is an annual printed journal, and the 2013 version came out earlier this year. There is a certain ambivalence, shall we say, in the ICA about its posting online, even old copies, for folks who don't contribute financially to the cause - it takes money to make good things happen. That ambivalence may explain the lack of recent postings (or perhaps it is just a lack of volunteer labor to help make it happen). Best way to get it is to join. BTW, Marcus neglected to mention PICA in his post above. It is one of the best things about the ICA, IMHO. Otherwise, concertinas would have no real scholarly journal. It is written to a higher standard than other ICA publications or, of course, this website. This is not snobbery to say that, and the other mediums have their own purposes and places. PICA articles are well researched, with an insistence on full references and peer review.

Good points, Peter and John. I was figuring that many of the folks in the various schools (with programs bursting at the seams) were repeats each year, and lots of them from outside of Ireland, and that some of the kids would quit. Maybe more of those kids have quit than I was thinking. Looks like my 1200 best guesstimate might be a little rich...I'll shave a couple of hundred! Any credible way you cook the numbers, you get three or four thousand Anglo players worldwide, give or take 50%. I don't think discussing guesstimates like this is too useless or hopeless, by the way. Anyone thinking about getting into instrument building for a living, for one example, can use some community thoughts on numbers of players before deciding whether he should keep his day job. Merry Christmas, all....see you in the New Year!

Peter, interesting observations. There is one place in the world where a very determined person has made a careful canvas of all concertina players, and that is County Clare. You probably already know this, but for others who may not, Gearoid OhAllmhurain did such a listing for his 1990 PhD thesis and Queen's University Belfast. He placed a dot on a map for all persons, living or dead, who played the concertina in Clare between the years 1900 and 1990. He came up with 416 persons (147 women and 269 men). Assuming he did his count meticulously, then, there were perhaps 200 or so known (to him) Clare concertina players alive in 1990. I am estimating on that bit, as many would have been deceased....if I had his dissertation in front of me I'm sure the precise count of how many were on which side of the grass would be in there. That was nearly 24 years ago, and we all know that the number has grown...but how much? Double? Triple? Again I'm guesstimating, but I'd say that triple is not too rich, given the numbers that show up to Willie Clancy school each year, and the photos of the attendees at the old Mrs Crotty weekend. There were several hundred at the Cruinniu last year, in dead winter. And that estimate is just for Clare. Hence my overall estimate of about 1200 or so living Irish concertina players. Again, the real number might even be double, or perhaps is a bit less too. With a population of about 4.6 million in Ireland, that best guesstimate would give a rate of 0.003% concertina players. If my best estimate for the England is to be taken (400 versus a population of 53 million; I'm leaving out Scotland and Wales), the rate there is a little less than 0.001%, or a third as popular as in Ireland. That feels about right, from my experience. For my own country, my estimate of 500 vs 320 million, or about 0.0002% seems embarassingly low in comparison, but I don't know how to blow air (or smoke) into that low estimate. We must be too busy watching reruns of Downton Abbey or something.