Concertina Sighting

[Bruce McCaskey]

I was quite surprised to see the image of a concertina show up in a prime-time GMC truck commercial recently. It is sandwiched in with a series of brief sequential images that make up a small segment of the commercial, but it is a full screen view. I can't name the maker but it looks to me to be one of the inexpensive models, with metal corner protectors and a divider plate in the middle of two four-fold bellows. Looks like two of the folds are stuck together on the right side of the image.

 

I stopped the video and took a photo with my phone that I've included here. If anyone thinks this might violate some sort of copyright, let me know and I'll remove it.

[Mike Franch]

I don't know much about copyright, but I imagine the sponsors would be delighted at your mention of the words "GMC truck" to this huge audience of concertina enthusiasts. Maybe some of our multi-instrumentalists would need one to haul their collection of concertinas and other instruments to gigs and sessions.

[Bruce McCaskey]

My theory is that most of the concertina crowd has all their spare funds invested in instruments.

[david_boveri]

this is pretty cool, actually! we are now on the fringe of being interesting for 1/10th of a second on national tv. X Factor, here i come!

[asdormire]

After reading this, I keep thinking about all my old high school mates, as well as friends of my father who are working (or retired from) the Chevy truck plant in Flint (they made both Chevy and GMC pickups there) who now have more work because of all of the free reed enthusiasts buying new pick up trucks.

 

Alan

[chris]

rather battered anglo on the cabin wall of a Swedish ship in the BBC program 'Call the Midwife' last night - spotted by my wife

chris

[CrP]

Hoping I haven't missed someone else's posting about a sighting, here goes: There's a concertina -- an anglo, I recall -- being carried across the stage from upstage L to downstage right by someone in the recent "Anna Karenina." It comes very soon after the opening of the film, as the camera gradually moves onto the stage from the hall; onstage, there's lots going on and much confusion and movement. I didn't hear any music coming from the soundtrack (the pertson carrying looked as if he were playing) and it had all of 2-3 seconds of fame.

 

My hat off to the person who thought of including it in the film, since there most definitely is a concertina tradition in Russia, mainly anglo, though to the best of my knowledge there's virtually nothing written about it (the tradition) that I've found during cursory research of my own. The instrument tended to be used by comedians who played brief interludes or riffs in between jokes, satirical comments, and that sort of thing. There were a couple of virtuosi who played it well, even up into the 1960s. Now there's a topic for a research paper!

[Ransom]

The Russian tradition is mainly Anglo?? I'm surprised to hear you say so, and would appreciate any supporting information you have. I've always supposed that the Russian tradition was mainly English, principally on the strength of Grigory Matusewich and Pavel Rudakov.