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The Concertina Museum website


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The website, which is now accessible at www.concertinamuseum.com features Neil Wayne's entire Concertina Museum Collection and is the first major on-line resource for the study of over 380 rare and early examples of this uniquely-English instrument, of its players, and of their bands, music and images from the past 180 years. The collection also contains Charles Wheatstone's own research items, many related instruments, early music and tutors, and over 4000 original photographs and written data about the instrument, its players, bands and its role during the past two centuries of musical culture. The new web site is designed to be an open-access database that will facilitate access and encourage research upon all matters pertaining to the concertina and its history.

 

Well folks, that's what the press release says. But just to say that Neil, Chris Flint and I have been working on this for a couple of years now, and we hope you will find it useful.

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This looks great Wes.... well done to all concerned.

I've only dug into the site shallowly yet but it looks to be really usefull and interesting for those who'll be doing their own research.

Congratulations,

Geoff.

 

Edited to add; since I have had a second and longer look I was wondering how interactive this could be ? For instance; I have an area of interest specifically about Reed pan design changes towards the end of the 1900's and their effect on tone, with respect to the EC. Would it be possible for others,like myself to participate with descriptions (and photos )of their instruments with the idea of expanding the data base ?

Edited by Geoff Wooff
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Really excellent website, however is Neil Wayne's Concertina Collection now somewhere other than at the Horniman Museum?

Inventor.

 

No Brian; the website is a catalogue of a second "Wayne Collection". After selling the first collection to the Horniman, Neil started buying again, and again, and again...

 

Nothing on the website is part of the Horniman Collection.

 

And I forgot to add that Neil wrote:

I have had a few Twitter followers join up to @ConcertinaMuse - so if Wes can bear mentioning Twitter in his posting to concertina.net tomorrow, that could help: If there ARE lots of "Twit-Followers", I'll use twitter to announce new additions, new changes to the site etc, as and when they mount up.

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....since I have had a second and longer look I was wondering how interactive this could be ? For instance; I have an area of interest specifically about Reed pan design changes towards the end of the 1900's and their effect on tone, with respect to the EC. Would it be possible for others,like myself to participate with descriptions (and photos )of their instruments with the idea of expanding the data base ?

That's exactly what's intended Geoff, and we hope to do this in future. The website has been 'probed and commented on' by a group of concertina fans over the last six weeks, and one comment that came back a couple of times was the lack of Jeffries, Crabb and similar. Neil has concentrated on collecting early and unusual instruments, rather than playable ones, so there are holes in the coverage. But we hope to fill these with photos and notes by other people on their particular instruments. I've just got to figure out and program a way for people to add what they want :blink:

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....since I have had a second and longer look I was wondering how interactive this could be ? For instance; I have an area of interest specifically about Reed pan design changes towards the end of the 1900's and their effect on tone, with respect to the EC. Would it be possible for others,like myself to participate with descriptions (and photos )of their instruments with the idea of expanding the data base ?

That's exactly what's intended Geoff, and we hope to do this in future. The website has been 'probed and commented on' by a group of concertina fans over the last six weeks, and one comment that came back a couple of times was the lack of Jeffries, Crabb and similar. Neil has concentrated on collecting early and unusual instruments, rather than playable ones, so there are holes in the coverage. But we hope to fill these with photos and notes by other people on their particular instruments. I've just got to figure out and program a way for people to add what they want :blink:

Thumbnail pictures in the listings would be a useful addition to each concertina.

Also I'm seeing some pictures on the right hand side severely cropped - do you know about this (I'm using Firefox).

There is also a lot of text repetition - unnecessary IMO.

The website is a very welcome resource.

Edited by SteveS
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Thumbnail pictures in the listings would be a useful addition to each concertina.

Also I'm seeing some pictures on the right hand side severely cropped - do you know about this (I'm using Firefox).

There is also a lot of text repetition - unnecessary IMO.

The website is a very welcome resource.

Thanks Steve, comments noted!

By listings do you mean the 'Wayne Waffle' where certain notable instruments in a particular group are described, or the indexes?

Edit: Put more simply 'Wayne Waffle' has shelves of concertinas in the background, indexes and catalogue pages don't.

Yes, there is a lot of repetition. Personally, I blame Neil :ph34r:

But I think you need to RTFM - click on the help link at the top of the page where you see the cropped pictures - all will be explained!

Edited by wes williams
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Congratulations, what a fascinating collection & site! My personal favorite - for completely irrational or maybe I should say aesthetic reasons - is C.014 Wheatstone No 560, with its radial end frets and, more amazingly, radial reed pan: http://www.concertinamuseum.com/CM00014.htm. The reed pan is like a sunflower or a sea urchin hidden in a case. Too bad that this design for some reason did not hold. (I guess that the reed pan kept rotating inside and the reeds ended up in the wrong place every time you did a bellows shake?)

Thanks a lot!

Mark

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