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A stitch in time...


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Good afternoon, y'all.

It's been a while.

Ken (tall ship) dragged me over here

and I thought I might use the opportunity

to say a general 'howdy'

and to ask for the thoughtful advice of the group.

 

 

 

With the encouragement and assistance of you good folk

 

I adopted a Rochelle last autumn

 

and have never regretted it for a minute.

 

In fact, I'm very grateful to you and for her.

 

I don't know that my playing has reached any stellar heights

 

but my enthusiasm for the instrument has never flagged.

 

Very few days have passed

 

without my playing it, at least for a few minutes

 

and I often spend a good bit of the evening

 

playing Irish tunes and pr-1980 favourites.

 

 

 

I just play the melody line in a one-note-at-a-time style,

 

like a wood wind or a hand-operated harmonica.

 

I haven't heard many decent players use that technique,

 

but it's all I can manage

 

and I get a lot of pleasure from it.

 

 

 

Actually, it just occurs to me that you might be able to advise me...

 

 

 

I pretty much live in bed,

 

and most days I lack the strength to hold the tina up

 

for more than a few moments.

 

Typically I rest it on the bed clothes while playing.

 

As you can probably imagine,

 

the 'bottom' creases of the bellows

 

are becoming quite worn.

 

I'm sure that prevention is easier than repair

 

but I don't know what sort of prevention to apply.

 

 

 

 

I look at these increasingly threadbare folds

 

and think about gluing on chafe patches

 

of cloth or soft leather,

 

but my courage fails me

 

when I consider that my modifications

 

could spoil the action

 

or create excessive resistance.

 

I would be very sad to damage her.

 

 

 

Suggestions, please?

 

 

 

 

After looking at Pete's shoulder harness

 

I'm thinking the ultimate solution might be

 

to hang a pair of long straps from my ceiling

 

to suspend the instrument just a centimetre above my bed!

 

 

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Oh, dang, dang, DANG!

I can't believe I did that.

It was sidesqueeze Ken who dragged me over here.

Man, I miss my brain.

Sorry, Ken.

 

That picture, which I cannot find,

is no doubt a pre-Rochelle photo of my first concertina,

a leaky Stagi my in-laws brought home from Ireland.

Either that or you caught me plinking on my ukulele...

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I pretty much live in bed...

Hi brother Chas,

 

that's a real pity; imagined you roving around through the Fraser Valley and all...

 

Straps from the ceiling might be the solution for at least the concertina problem; fine that you're sticking to playing your black shiny beast anyway!

 

I whish you all the best!

 

W.

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