Vegetarian concertina

[SteveS]

I have recently been doing some restoration work on a couple of instruments - those restorations have necessitated my handling various materials derived from animals - i.e. hide glue, leather parts, etc. It set me musing while I was replacing valves on a box, whether effective use of natural or man-made alternatives to parts that have been derived from animals could be made in the construction and repair of concertinas.

 

I have been vegetarian for over 30 years, and vegan for few years of that time, and have never really been able to balance playing 'tina with being vegetarian.

 

Has anyone tried any alternatives? Is the vegetarian concertina even possible? Are there any materials that are equivalents to those derived from animals? If alternatives have been tried, what is the impact on performance and longevity of the instruments?

 

Steve

Edited April 12, 2010 by SteveS

[Chris Drinkwater]

I've no idea Steve. Dunno what you would use instead of leather for the bellows unless it was some sort of chemically derived material such as oil-based plastic. I've also been a vegetarian for thirty years. Thankfully I don't eat concertinas for breakfast or I would be stumped. Also, I am a realist and know that products that are derived from animals, such as ones made with leather, have to be used in the making of such products, as there is no viable non-animal alternative. I guess a strict vegan concertina player would have to swop his concertina for a fiddle, instead.

 

Chris

[TomB-R]

I guess a strict vegan concertina player would have to swop his concertina for a fiddle, instead.

 

Chris

 

Not a traditionally made fiddle - hide glue!

 

Herrington square concertinas have/had accordion style bellows, mostly cardboard, paper, cloth, metal, but there's still the issue of corner diamonds, normally leather.

[michael sam wild]

Not a fiddle with catgut strings I hope!

[Steve Mansfield]

I can (and do) buy excellent quality vegetarian shoes and boots made in a synthetic leather analogue; and there are bagpipe makers (the gaita makers Seivane for one) selling pipes with Goretex bags, so there can't be any air-leak problems with veggie bags and therefore, I would guess, bellows.

 

So a maker could probably get a good way with those materials - I'm no glue technician so can't comment on that side of things.

 

I regret that my Wheatstone has leather detailing, but I'm not going to bring the 150 year old cow back to life by not playing the instrument - though I wouldn't want an ivory-buttoned concertina ....

 

(Mind you I've only been vegetarian for 27 years, so I'm a mere beginner in present company )

 

 

[SteveS]

Steve prompted me to think about the other animal-sourced products used in concertina construction:

 

ivory (rare ivory ended 'tinas & buttons)

tortoise shell (hornbilled turtle)

bone (for buttons)

 

Any others? (apart from the obvious glue & leather)

Edited April 12, 2010 by SteveS

[Rod]

Steve prompted me to think about the other animal-sourced products used in concertina construction:

 

ivory (rare ivory ended 'tinas & buttons)

tortoise shell (hornbilled turtle)

bone (for buttons)

 

Any others? (apart from the obvious glue & leather)

 

Animal free concertinas? Yes, why not. 'Where there's a will there's a way' but I guess that it ultimately depends upon how strong the 'will' is ?

[Mikefule]

I have been a vegetarian since 1992, and I have no problem with the tiny amunt of leather in my concertina.

 

Every lorry load of carrots runs over an animal somewhere along the journey.

[hjcjones]

There's some relevant advice on bellows repairs in the song "The Funeral Party:

 

Now, we got a concertina for to aid in the rascality

But none of us could play it though we tried our best, and worst

We made an awful noise, and if it's any benefit

We played the thing so carefully that all the bellows burst

So we got an old potato skin to mend the concertina with

When someone hit Maloney with the carcass of a cat

He bottled up his whiskers, and he read out the riot act

He swore he'd put two heads upon the fellow who did that

[gavdav]

I think I'd rather see (as in, maybe be more intrigued by) a recycled concertina than a veggie one - without wanting to get into a debate about the pros and cons of vegetarianism there is an awful lot of wasted leather in woefully out of fashion clothes doing the rounds of our local charity shops - rather than that ending up in landfill it'd be nice to see stuff like that used. Similarly recycled wood (which was good enough for Paul Reed Smith's first guitars) can be interesting (and better than burning). Swings and roundabouts - maybe it is good to have a concertina that never degrades but I have a kind of instinctual dislike of plastics and petro chemicals. And is it just me, but I love the smell of my concertina ?

[SteveS]

Gavdav - you introduce another good debate about the sustainable concertina - yes I agree, a 'tina made from recycled materials or from those from managed resources would be interesting. Widening the scope of the thread, maybe current makers could comment as to their use of sustainable materials?

[Randy Stein]

I imagine that for a proper vegan concertina would have to be with lettuce alone

rss

[gavdav]

I was listening to a thing about sustainable fishing the other day, which basically says you have to farm or at least as a consumer, support quality farmed fish to be genuinely sustainable. here's a by product...

 

http://www.es-salmonleather.com/

Edited April 12, 2010 by gavdav

[gavdav]

Steve prompted me to think about the other animal-sourced products used in concertina construction:

 

ivory (rare ivory ended 'tinas & buttons)

tortoise shell (hornbilled turtle)

bone (for buttons)

 

Any others? (apart from the obvious glue & leather)

 

French polish? oh, and the felt!

Edited April 12, 2010 by gavdav

[SteveS]

French polish? oh, and the felt!

Shellac is the refined resin secretions of the female lac bug - so yes French polish is derived from animals.

Is the felt of woven wool?

[gavdav]

French polish? oh, and the felt!

Shellac is the refined resin secretions of the female lac bug - so yes French polish is derived from animals.

Is the felt of woven wool?

 

yep, and red shellac actually has crushed cochineal beetles in it .

 

felt - normally broken fur fibres so there is no "thread"

 

and *ahem* there's a slight fur ethics issue in historical felt...

 

but really...you could go crazy with this stuff...

 

my Buddhist side says yes, animal products bad, then again, my other Buddhist side says, restricted harvest/illegal wood content, metal content, animal content, plastic parts, poor hourly paid manual labour, blood, sweat and tears etc etc all add up to make yet another instrument I shouldn't play, just like my rosewood guitars, koa cittern, held together with cow glue and so on and so on...but... music is probably the purest, most honest thing I've ever experienced and the more you pursue these things the more ethically futile it all becomes - there's something special about taking an out of fashion hundred year old assemblage of matter and doing somethinf that moves and engages people.

 

academically I'm intrigued by alternatives, but somehow musical instruments are disturbingly and reassuringly alive whatever their origins...

[SteveS]

academically I'm intrigued by alternatives, but somehow musical instruments are disturbingly and reassuringly alive whatever their origins...

My thoughts were prompted while fixing up a couple of very abused and delapidated instruments, and now they have a new lease of life - I will enjoy playing them, and hopefully others will enjoy them being played - and I'd like to think they'll still be playing and giving pleasure when I'm no longer playing.

 

But could the construction of an animal-free (and possibly ethically sound ) instrument ever be feasible from a purely engineering perspective: one that meets the demands of performance, use and musicians?

Edited April 12, 2010 by SteveS

[Ransom]

French polish? oh, and the felt!

Shellac is the refined resin secretions of the female lac bug - so yes French polish is derived from animals.

Is the felt of woven wool?

 

yep, and red shellac actually has crushed cochineal beetles in it .

 

felt - normally broken fur fibres so there is no "thread"

 

and *ahem* there's a slight fur ethics issue in historical felt...

 

but really...you could go crazy with this stuff...

 

my Buddhist side says yes, animal products bad, then again, my other Buddhist side says, restricted harvest/illegal wood content, metal content, animal content, plastic parts, poor hourly paid manual labour, blood, sweat and tears etc etc all add up to make yet another instrument I shouldn't play, just like my rosewood guitars, koa cittern, held together with cow glue and so on and so on...but... music is probably the purest, most honest thing I've ever experienced and the more you pursue these things the more ethically futile it all becomes - there's something special about taking an out of fashion hundred year old assemblage of matter and doing somethinf that moves and engages people.

 

I guess you could burn your concertina in an attempt to discourage anyone from deriving selfish pleasure from the suffering of the poor sheep exploited for their felt so many years ago, but really... is that the best way to honor the sacrifice of all those cochineal beetles who gave their lives?