It;s that sailor squeezbox thing again

[Stephen Chambers]

I thought that Dan Worrall had already demonstrated convincingly that concertinas did go to sea?

 

Is anybody saying that they didn't?

 

But the image might seem to some of us a tired (and rather unjustified) cliché, in that sailors have played lots of other instruments too...

[Dave Rogers]

Is anybody saying that they didn't?

 

I thought Chris Timson sounded a little unsure:

 

"true enough, but then if concertinas did go to sea"

[Fiddlehead Fern]

At least one concertina has gone sailing on all five of the Great Lakes on a square-rigger in recent years, and lived to tell the tale.

I hear objections to the salty sea air, now, I've not done any ocean sailing, but from my experiences on large vessels belowdecks is quite dry, and, for the most part, comparable to living in a house on land. (If you lived in very close quarters with your housemates and didn't bathe often, that is.)

 

Sailors seem to be a rather misrepresented lot in general though. Most anyone who sees a sailing vessel of any description immediately thinks "PIRATE SHIP!!!" and resists any attempts made by the crew of such a vessel to educate them on the actual history of it. (Which, for the overwhelming majority, is not a storied history of mermaids and cutlass-swinging rogues.) I figure that "every Jack Tar played a funny little round accordion" is one of the last notions I'll try to wipe out of their brains, since assuring them that the ship isn't actually on an underwater track, and yes, we actually use the sails takes priority.

 

P.S.

Solas plays a tune called "Vital Mental Medicine" on their CD For Love and Laughter. Hmmm.

 

P.P.S.

I play concertina no matter what mood I'm in, usually if I'm going to channel emotions by making noise I reach for the 'tina before the fiddle, because it's easier to just fool around with and experiment with different sounds on.

Edited April 7, 2011 by Fiddlehead Fern

[Dan Worrall]

Is anybody saying that they didn't?

 

I thought Chris Timson sounded a little unsure:

 

"true enough, but then if concertinas did go to sea"

Yikes! Not this debate again!!! I thought I had driven a stake into its heart!

 

Chris seems to perhaps doubt that concertinas went to sea, and more certainly that quality ones did not:true enough, but then if concertinas did go to sea (a subject that has given rise to much discussion on this forum in the past) then it wouldn't have been someone's loved and valuable Jeffries or Wheatstone but one of the German concertinas so widely and cheaply available at that time.

 

My article (http://angloconcertina.org/research_articles.html) gave plenty of information of not only German concertinas at sea but also Wheatstones, Jeffries, Jones and Lachenal.....

 

At the time I wrote it, there seemed to be a feeling that they weren't at sea...and I provided quotes from John Kirkpatrick and the head of a USA whaling museum. My conclusion was that its image as a key (though not the only) seaborne instrument was quite justified, but that it was the Hollywood and British cartoon images --and the long gap in actual playing of the instrument--that gave people doubts.

[Rod Thompson]

Always amused by the vast number of folds cartoonists give tina bellows. Reminds me of Geoff Crabb's story of the skipping rope concertina.

 

Chris

 

But we have conclusive proof that frogs play concertinas with vast numbers of folds.

[Theo]

Is anybody saying that they didn't?

 

I thought Chris Timson sounded a little unsure:

 

"true enough, but then if concertinas did go to sea"

Yikes! Not this debate again!!! I thought I had driven a stake into its heart!

 

Chris seems to perhaps doubt that concertinas went to sea, and more certainly that quality ones did not:true enough, but then if concertinas did go to sea (a subject that has given rise to much discussion on this forum in the past) then it wouldn't have been someone's loved and valuable Jeffries or Wheatstone but one of the German concertinas so widely and cheaply available at that time.

 

My article (http://angloconcertina.org/research_articles.html) gave plenty of information of not only German concertinas at sea but also Wheatstones, Jeffries, Jones and Lachenal.....

 

At the time I wrote it, there seemed to be a feeling that they weren't at sea...and I provided quotes from John Kirkpatrick and the head of a USA whaling museum. My conclusion was that its image as a key (though not the only) seaborne instrument was quite justified, but that it was the Hollywood and British cartoon images --and the long gap in actual playing of the instrument--that gave people doubts.

 

Here is a concertina on ebay with a link to a sailor.