English concertina players: 3 or 4 fingers?

[Fiddlehead Fern]

I play with three fingers, index (first) finger plays the top two rows, middle finger plays the third row, ring (third) finger plays the fourth row, same on both hands. I hold the concertina on my lap, and the few times I attempted to take my little fingers off the pinky rests I didn't feel like I was able to control the bellows at all. Might it be because I don't tip the instrument? More experimentation necessary I suppose.

 

Rod, there are probably plenty of people better suited to answer your question, but my guess is the layout of the buttons. I've looked at those Anglo hand straps, then back at the thumb strap/pinky rest combo on my 'tina and seriously wondered what I was thinking to choose English style.

But the Anglo buttons seem to be laid out in a more horizontal pattern, on the English it's a bit more vertical. The thumb strap/pinky rest combo lets you get the playing fingers further down to reach the low notes. It seemed impossible when I first started playing that one could reach down there, but it's surprisingly easy.

I've heard tell of some English style players using straps that go around the back of the hand, and I actually played a friend's concertina once who had put on hand straps, but I found that they just got in my way and didn't help me play at all, so I just ignored them along with the neck strap.

[buikligger]

4 fingers, one per row.

No pink rests, hand straps i do use

I'm happy to play like this

 

kind greetings to you all

 

Dirk

[Aldon]

The 4-finger method, as that term is normally used, assumes approximately equal use of all four fingers. Some even argue that each finger should be used on one and only one of the four columns of buttons (call them "rows" if you like, but they run at right angles to what are called "rows" on all other concertinas).

 

 

That's what I was assuming when I made this poll, and it's the style I've switched to, but it seems there are more ways to use 4 than I was thinking.

[Aldon]

4 fingers, one per row.

No pink rests, hand straps i do use

I'm happy to play like this

 

kind greetings to you all

 

Dirk

 

Me too!

[tzirtzi]

I learned with the three finger method but playing classical music, especially written for guitar with lots of chords/bass notes, I often find myself needing to use my fourth finger to get out of awkward spots. I have a vague intention to start afresh, as it were, and work all of the way through Regondi's tutors using his four-finger method - as I end up having to use four fingers anyway, I might as well do it properly...

[chiton1]

Two fingers! Or is it 4 (2+2 fingers, two on each side)?

I just started doing so many years ago (no tutors available, no workshops I knew of - those days I must have been the only EC player in the Netherlands). Later I heard that Wheatstone intended the instrument to be played that way. But now I think I am one of a very rare breed of EC players. Anyone else plays 2 + 2 fingers?

Anyway it works for me. If I would choose otherwise I would step over to 4 + 4 directly I think.

[Perry Werner]

Howdy:

When I saw the subject line I though it was going to be a discussion about use of the thumbs!!!!!!

(Just kidding!)

 

Have fun,

Perry Werner

[JimLucas]

When I saw the subject line I though it was going to be a discussion about use of the thumbs!!!!!!

Not about how much whiskey you put in your glass?

[chiton1]

Out of 27 EC players I (and probably someone else, unless he uses 5 fingers or only 1 ) play with two fingers only. That makes me feel somewhat lonely in the concertina community..

So I just ask again; is there somebody else playing with two fingers only?

Edited October 30, 2009 by chiton1

[Leo]

Out of 27 EC players I (and probably someone else, unless he uses 5 fingers or only 1 ) play with two fingers only. That makes me feel somewhat lonely in the concertina community..

So I just ask again; is there somebody else playing with two fingers only?

Hi Chiton1

 

Wellll, if it were in "C", there would be no reason to use the sharps and flats rows, so I guess you could count me in there too. But only part time.

 

Thanks

Leo

[chiton1]

Out of 27 EC players I (and probably someone else, unless he uses 5 fingers or only 1 ) play with two fingers only. That makes me feel somewhat lonely in the concertina community..

So I just ask again; is there somebody else playing with two fingers only?

Hi Chiton1

 

Wellll, if it were in "C", there would be no reason to use the sharps and flats rows, so I guess you could count me in there too. But only part time.

 

Thanks

Leo

 

 

Thanks Leo, that makes two and a half out of 37! I feel much better now

[catty]

As a fiddler, and other stringed instrument player, I am a devotee of using all of my fingers. I tried for years to adjust to having my "pinkies" immobilized in those stirrups, and quit playing english numerous times because of my dislike for them. I finally removed those "pinky stirrups" once and for all after reading this thread.