Why is it called a concertina?

[fearfeasog]

How did the concertina come to be called "concertina?"

 

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but my sister in law asked and i didn't know and googling yielded me nada useful.

 

Thanks!

[Chris Drinkwater]

How did the concertina come to be called "concertina?"

 

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but my sister in law asked and i didn't know and googling yielded me nada useful.

 

Thanks!

 

 

Dunno what the original historical reason it got called a 'concertina' but the name suggests something like meaning 'a small or little concert', to me. And I can see the appropriateness of it. It's a bit more catchy than the more scientific 'Aerophone', to which musical instrument group this instrument belongs.

 

Chris

[Kautilya]

How did the concertina come to be called "concertina?"

 

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but my sister in law asked and i didn't know and googling yielded me nada useful.

 

Thanks!

 

 

Dunno what the original historical reason it got called a 'concertina' but the name suggests something like meaning 'a small or little concert', to me. And I can see the appropriateness of it. It's a bit more catchy than the more scientific 'Aerophone', to which musical instrument group this instrument belongs.

 

Chris

How far back are we going? Coz everything ain't necessarily what it seems....

 

Yes, a small concert and as websearch may have shown Wheatstone (allegedly) made that up.

 

Concert of course means to bring together (as you would bring together a bellows in this instance) from the Latin con, "with" (plus the ablative case) which is why when making a comparison you compare WITH not TO (dative case - old Shakeshaft's grammar/syntax in his summer day sonnet comparison being open to question..... which is why the 'Darling bud's of May'TV series with posh Del Boy was all slightly dodgy too!)

 

plus certare which can mean to fight or dispute;

 

and when you add the con to the certare then you bring the disputes into harmony and of course that is what a musical concert is - a bringing into harmony of all the instruments.

 

Well, that might be convincing enough for your sister-in-law!

 

ps You may recall that the Christianitynas had some really bad gigs in the Colosseum... which was made of Con-crete but whether there was any con-nection with con-certare, one is unsure; but the Romans made a tonnes of it by squeezing lot of different bits together....

 

http://www.buffaloah.com/a/DCTNRY/mat/conc/conc.html

Edited October 7, 2012 by Kautilya

[Daniel Hersh]

How did the concertina come to be called "concertina?"

Probably because Charles Wheatstone liked the name. He invented another instrument called the symphonium, so you can see the pattern.

 

 

 

[fearfeasog]

So despite Kautilya's very nimble analysis of the etymology of the word, probably it just seemed catchily marketable. dig it.

 

ff

[Mikefule]

It's a whole "concert in a" small box.

[wes williams]

How did the concertina come to be called "concertina?"

So far there's no info on how, but see this thread for background on what we know so far.