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Hi All... It's now been almost 2 months since I started to learn to play the concertina. I have been plodding along very slowly with my 20 keyed Anglo, sometimes trying to learn to play tunes by ear as well as using tabs for a variety of different musical styles. While squeezing away over this period, I've made a few general observations about my 'playing' and my concertina, as well as faced a few difficulties that I would like your expert opinions about... One observation is, I remember thinking at the beginning that I would have problems with the air-button because of the shape of my thumb, etc. but, strangely enough, I've got used to this now and hardly ever give it a thought these days. But, remaining on the topic of air… a really big problem for me has been running out of puff. For example, I have been learning a few tunes from Gary Coover's 'Civil War Concertina', and, if we take the very first tune 'Amazing Grace', I have been playing at exactly the same speed as Gary (on YouTube) but, my 5 bellows run out of air while Gary's 6 seem to cope easily. I find myself pulling the bellows open to almost their full extent in an attempt to play a complete passage along with Gary without the need for a quick gulp… but it still doesn't quite make it. This is a shame as it breaks up what should be a nice, smooth phrase… Gary's able to play these phrases without any extra air but I'm not. is this really the lack of bellows or is it me? However, my main question is what to do about those odd tricky passages that come along every now and then… there are a few tunes that I can play reasonably well (well, that's what my wife tells me and I never disagree!) until I reach a certain spot that throws a spanner in the works! I have tried and tried to play them for weeks now, I have broken the difficult section down into bite-sized portions, tried to learn just a couple of notes at a time,and then tried to string them together, very slowly but, for some reason, I just cannot play them and they remain, after weeks of practice, just as difficult and unplayable as ever. I can manage if I find an alternative way to play them but, I feel as if this is cheating, that it's a negative way forward, and that I'm letting myself down by avoiding the problem. I'm sure that other players, past and present, have conjured up their own way of playing a well known and established tune, ways that suit them best, but I'm not sure if they do/did this because they just prefer another way, or if, like me, they were faced with a problem that wouldn't go away. Should I keep persevering or just enjoy the concertina, not worry too much about keeping to the original way and find an alternative way to overcome the problem? I know that 2 months is a ridiculously short period in the scheme of things and, most certainly things will get easier (he says with fingers crossed while rubbing his lucky rabbit foot charm!) as I gain more experience, but what do some of you newer players do when/if faced with a difficult passage that seems impossible to master… at least for the time being? Cheers, John