Baritone or treble concertina? Are there issues specific to each?

[neilfein]

I'm currently looking for a beginner English concertina, and have zeroed in on the Concertina Connection Jackie or Jack. They both sound quite good to me, at least from the audio files I've heard online. The Jackie and the Jack are the same instrument, but one is a treble and the other a baritone. Both use accordion reeds.

 

While I'm partial to lower tones in general, I'd probably be quite happy with either instrument.

 

Are there any particular issues I should keep in mind when choosing between the two instruments? For example, I understand that chords need to be more widely spaced to sound good on a concertina. Is this problem more pronounced with a baritone concertina? Are there any other issues I should be aware of?

 

Thanks!

[ceemonster]

i don't know anything about relative chord spacing, just noting(pun!) that it's been observed that very low reeds of the cheaper variety don't always respond optimally. HMT recommends against Stagi baritones on their site....now, perhaps there's something about the Jack/Jackie reeds or fitting/installation that gets around this...but...just sayin'.....

 

there are two used Morse Albion baritones on the BB site....much different price bracket, but....

Edited November 8, 2012 by ceemonster

[Steve Mansfield]

i don't know anything about relative chord spacing, just noting(pun!) that it's been observed that very low reeds of the cheaper variety don't always respond optimally. HMT recommends against Stagi baritones on their site....now, perhaps there's something about the Jack/Jackie reeds or fitting/installation that gets around this...but...just sayin'.....

 

there are two used Morse Albion baritones on the BB site....much different price bracket, but....

 

I've got a Jack and the low reeds do speak a little slowly, they're fine for accompaniment basses but you wouldn't want to try playing a polka on them! Morses are lovely and much quicker to speak, but even second-hand are at least 4x the price of a Jack, so it depends on your budget.

As regards the OP I don't think its necessarily a matter of keeping the chords far apart, as avoiding strings of successive thirds -a good effect used sparingly, very dull sounding if over-used. Have a search through the forum for some of the audio recordings the great player who calls himself Ratface has put on here and you'll get a good idea of the variations of chords (and single note bass 'emphasis' notes) that the rest of us can only aspire to and be inspired by.

Good luck

[Don Taylor]

I'm currently looking for a beginner English concertina, and have zeroed in on the Concertina Connection Jackie or Jack. They both sound quite good to me, at least from the audio files I've heard online. The Jackie and the Jack are the same instrument, but one is a treble and the other a baritone. Both use accordion reeds.

 

While I'm partial to lower tones in general, I'd probably be quite happy with either instrument.

 

Are there any particular issues I should keep in mind when choosing between the two instruments? For example, I understand that chords need to be more widely spaced to sound good on a concertina. Is this problem more pronounced with a baritone concertina? Are there any other issues I should be aware of?

 

Thanks!

 

I bought a Jack as my learning concertina.

 

As a beginner, I found it quite frustrating. Some of the lower notes were slow to sound and occasionally would not sound at all!

 

I contacted Wim and he advised me that the instrument needed to be played in for at least 100 hours. For a beginner, that 100 hours is the worst time to have a poorly performing instrument. I did manage to mostly fix the worst problem by following the advice in this thread:

http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=5937&st=0&p=55578&hl=+jackie%20+reeds&fromsearch=1entry55578

 

But I still found it frustrating so I then 'aged' the instrument by opening and closing the bellows quite forcefully on the notes that were giving me grief. After a couple of rounds of this, it became usable.

 

Since then, it has steadily got better and better and I now feel that it is quite good.

 

I have also found that transposing tunes in C (which the tutors all use at the beginning) up to G (which is very simple) they generally sound much better and you don't hit those low notes that caused me grief.

 

I have since bought a standard treble, but I still use the Jack. I feel that the Jack is sometimes too low and the treble is sometimes too high. The answer would be a tenor-treble but we are talking real money now.

 

If I were starting again I might look for a used Jack or Jackie that the owner had played in.

 

If you buy new then the other thing to consider is the trade-in policy. I bought mine directly from the Concertina Connection but, at this time, Wim does not sell an upgrade that I want or can afford (his Rose EC is still not available). Take a look at buying from the Button Box as they have some really nice hybrids that you could trade a Jack/Jackie against when the time comes.

 

 

Don.

 

Edit: The CC Rose is now available.

Edited November 16, 2012 by bufflehead

[neilfein]

Don, I did end up finding a used Jack. It has a slightly mellower sound than the new jack I tried out. A couple of notes do seem a bit unstable, but it's hard to tell if it's the instrument or my concertina-virgin-hands; holding this thing is hard, particularly when playing while pulling at the bellows. Or just my lack of playing ability to date. (I can play a scale! Mostly without mistakes.) Time will tell.

 

If I do replace the Jack eventually, I imagine I'd look for a 48-key treble; I tried some at the Button Box that hit the high notes without sounding screechy.