Concertina for beginners

[ulujm]

Thanks to every one.

 

I finally bought an Anglo CG 20 made from Germany.

after talking to the guy from the big accordion store it seems that the Anglo will be easier for me.

it's a nice instrument, I start to practice and it's fun.

 

thanks for all your input

[Anglo-Irishman]

However if you cannot make a real commitment to learning an

instrument, then learn to play the harmonica. It is cheap and can

sound as good as any other instrument.

 

ulujm,

 

This ties in nicely with my personal musical biography!

As a child, I was allowed to play around with my father's harmonica. It was a 2-sided Hohner Echo Harp model in the keys of C and G. After a while, I could get tunes out of it quite nicely.

 

When I got a concertina (not knowing the difference between English, Duet and Anglo) it happened to be an Anglo. And thanks to my harmonica experience, I was playing tunes with accompaniments in next to no time. Exactly the same arrangement of notes!

 

So get a harmonica, and if you can develop a feeling for it, you'll probably be able to play an Anglo concertina fairly easily.

 

Your girl-friend plays classical violin, you say - but if she uses her violin for other, more folksy music, the Anglo can be a good accompaniment to it. Violinists usually play folk and similar tunes in their "easy" keys of C, G and D, and you can manage chord accompaniments on a 30-button C/G Anglo like the Rochelle quite well in these keys. You'll have to work at it, of course, but you already know that!

 

Cheers, and good luck with your decision,

John

[Larry Stout]

Violinists usually play folk and similar tunes in their "easy" keys of C, G and D, and you can manage chord accompaniments on a 30-button C/G Anglo like the Rochelle quite well in these keys.

 

That depends a lot on which folk music you are playing. The ECD tunes that I play for dancing use C, G, D, A, F, Bb, Am, Gm, Dm, Cm, Fm. Scottish fiddle music is often in A, E, Bb, or Eb as well. In an Old Time American session you might never get out of D or G (so the banjo won't have to retune).

 

If you are playing with whistle players you will probably stick to keys with one or two sharps (D, G, A dorian, Em) so for many (but not all) of the Irish session tunes those are the common keys.

[shaunw]

There have been several long discussions in this forum on the matter of Anglo versus English, which usually get closed down when people get too angry!

 

Given that your girlfriend is a classical musician, you like Gypsy music as well as Celtic, (do you like French/Breton traditional music too?) that seems to me to tip the balance towards the English system, so the Concertina Connection Jackie could be a good place to start.

 

(The English concertina is deliberately laid out to make reading music easy.)

 

Although it's not crucial, if you do get on well, and decide to upgrade your instrument in due course, vintage Englishes tend to be less expensive than equivalent Anglos.

 

I think people here are generally relaxed over the question of whether you play an Anglo or an English or Duet.

Edited November 29, 2010 by Paul Schwartz
trolling

[ulujm]

hi thanks everyone for you concern and advice, but after 2 weeks I realized that concertina was not for me so i return it and got a Diatonic accordion. accordion fit perfectly for what I wanted to do.

 

 

thanks