Ideal concertina?

[RP3]

When I saw your famous Shantyman on the Button Box sales page, I feared the worst. Glad to see you're still with us, but it is a bit worrying when one sees a fellow squeezer part with an old friend.

 

Wish you the best up there in the Commonwealth,

 

Ross Schlabach

[Mikefule]

The Jeffries I already have, which is beautifully restored, except I sometimes wish it was in G/D so I could play it wth other people. In the Morris world, G D melodeons rule by weight of numbers. My Jeffries is B flat/F, which causes some consternation: the general view appears to tbe that it is an unnatural abomination. The fiddler sometimes makes the effort, and one of the lads now has a Roland electronic melodeon that can transpose to any key!

 

Or failing that, my friend and teacher's G/D Dipper is a work of art: light, nimble, beautifully finished, with a lovely tone.

[RP3]

Mike,

 

Your Morris friends may have condemned the Bb/F but there's many a Irish piper with some C pipes who'd love to share a tune with you on that box!! And I, for one, believe that Bb/F is about the best pitch combination there is-- much mellower than C/G -- and consequently I have a 28 b. Jeffries on its way to me from Greg J.

 

Regards,

 

Ross Schabach

[Frank Edgley]

Another vote from me on the Bb/F. Just as fast, and mellower than C/G.

[asdormire]

Another vote from me on the Bb/F. Just as fast, and mellower than C/G.

 

 

you know, it is funny, last night I almost posted that you had highly recommended to me a few years back that I get a Bb/F as my next concertina. I am still thinking in that direction.

 

Alan

[Mikefule]

Oh, I don't dispute it's a lovely key. But when in Rome and all that.

[Jim Besser]

Oh, I don't dispute it's a lovely key. But when in Rome and all that.

 

Ditto here. Bf/Fs are my favorite concertinas - but I almost always play with others who seem to believe those keys are forbidden by law.

 

The F/C at the Button Box has a glorious tone, but I'd rarely use it for the same reasons.

 

The "ideal concertina" question is sort of specious; to me, different concertinas work best in different situations. When I"m playing solo Morris, nothing beats my C/G, which plays like a dream (or did, at least, until I blew out the bellows) and can be heard above the clatter of sticks, clanging of bells and street noise. In my ceilidh band, on a good sound system, nothing beats my G/D Jeffries. Same when I'm playing French dance music or for contra dances.

 

And I've played in some interminable Morris parades; in those situations my Morse G/D hybrid is "ideal" because it's so light and because of the feather action.

 

So "ideal" depends on what I'm doing.

 

That said, if I was marooned on a desert island where matching keys with others wasn't a factor and could have only one concertina, it would be a Bf/F Jeffries, maybe 38 keys or so.

 

 

Or the low F/C Dipper.

[Mikefule]

 

That said, if I was marooned on a desert island where matching keys with others wasn't a factor and could have only one concertina, it would be a Bf/F Jeffries, maybe 38 keys or so.

 

 

Coincidentally, I was asked this very question for an interview in a works newsletter last week, and gave the same answer, but with the word "my" somewhere in there.

[graham else]

Difficult to choose between my two Dipper anglos. I invariably choose the C/G for accompanying the morris but prefer the more mellow tone of the D/G when playing for ceilidhs

 

Take Chris's advice and get your order into Colin now!!!

 

Graham

[Tootler]

Bf/Fs are my favorite concertinas - but I almost always play with others who seem to believe those keys are forbidden by law.

 

 

 

I play alongside clarinets, trumpets and saxophones so a Bb/F would be very useful.

 

I'm getting quite familiar with the accidental row on my C/G

Edited October 31, 2011 by Tootler

[Mikefule]

I'm getting quite familiar with the accidental row on my C/G

 

Positive thinking: it's the "bonus row".