An Marcach

Thanks a ton everyone, I feel a little bit better about it now. I don't know how to quote in posts, so bear with me: It is not a good plan to learn Anglo melodies and then think to go back and add in the accompaniment later. The instrument really does not work that way. As you have noticed, it's like learning the tune all over again. If you want to learn an English tune like Constant Billy with the melody right / accompaniment left way of playing, then it is best to break it down into small bite sized pieces and at a very s l o w pace use both hands. Then, bit by bit, put the little pieces together into fragments, then the fragments together into phrases, then the phrases together into sections and then finally the sections together into the whole tomato... all done with both hands at the same time. That's what I've started doing it seeing as I couldn't play the melody that I'd learned and merely add in the accompaniment in a rhythmic manner as I went. It's going along quite nicely doing it this way, bit by bit, but I just wanted to make sure that it (i.e. re-learning the whole it like this) wasn't going to do any harm to my playing in the future by means of being a bad habit or something of that sort. And thanks much for the link to the lesson offer; I can't afford them at all right now with my final semester starting (I'm an art student working on her thesis, so it's going to be an intense and expensive semester preparing for my thesis exhibition) but I am hoping that in the near future I can pick up a lesson or two. Reminder to self: patience is a virtue. Does anybody have any suggestions for a good Irish-playing tutor book? I play by ear with my flute and I'm hoping to do that with the concertina, but until I can become more acquainted with the way it works and all of it's notes and fingerings so I can get to that point (though I've managed to pick out the basic melodies to a few jigs so far already), I'd be interested in finding anything that can help with styles of playing or techniques that are commonly used (as opposed to just a tunebook with sheet music). Again thanks a lot everyone! All the help and suggestions are much appreciated.

Hello all, I'm very excited to have finally started playing the Anglo; I've wanted to for years, but being an extremely broke college student, there was no way I could afford to invest in a decent instrument (or even a not-so decent one, really). Now I'm loaning a Rochelle, and am plugging away with Bertram Levy's Anglo Concertina Demystified tutor to familiarize myself. I'm currently at the part where he's on about the accompaniment for the tune Constant Billy. I've feared this day, but I knew it was inevitable; my coordination is awful. I've played the guitar, the flute and whistle, and bass clarinet, and have also played around with the piano (my brother plays, so we have one here that I've dabbled with a few times). The problem I always had with the guitar and the piano are very similar to what's happening now with the accompaniment for this song; one hand does one thing, while the other does another (in the case with the guitar, after years of playing, I'm still not able to sing while I play, despite how natural some of the playing may be and that I can hold a conversation while playing). I've only just begun to be able to tap my foot while playing the flute/whistle, and can only do it with a few reels that I'm very familiar with playing. My question would be this; is this the sort of thing that eventually comes out of loads and loads of practice and playing, or am I forever doomed to being unable to focus attention evenly on two things at the same time? My rhythm is fine, I can play with a metronome, so I'm not worried about that, it's just the coordination or sort of 'divided focus' that's required to do two things at once that throws me way off. I can play constant billy at the same speed as he does on the cd without a problem, but when I try to throw the accompaniment in there, it's a disaster and everything falls off the rails. My approach now is that I'm basically re-learning the song with the accompaniment, slowly, bit by bit. It's quite frustrating, but I'm wondering if that's an okay approach to take and one won't mess me up in the future. Is it okay to move forward with the book and just come back to constant billy's accompaniment as I go, or should I wait until after I've gained some coordination to move forward? If anybody's wondering/if it helps any, the style of music/playing I'm aiming to do would be Irish. Thanks a mil' for any suggestions!