How Many Of Us Are There ? ( Concertina Players )

[Peter Laban]

That aside, there are people doing jobs on instruments all over the place outside the collective knowledge. Around here there are anyway.

[Rod]

'Around here' Peter ?.......but you tell us you live in 'the back of beyond' !!

[Marcus]

Don't forget me out here in the Bermuda Triangle! +1 for anglo!

[Peter Laban]

'Around here' Peter ?.......but you tell us you live in 'the back of beyond' !!

 

That doesn't mean there aren't any concertinas that need fixing, or people to take on the job. :-)

[Anglogeezer]

Mmmmm!! Interesting!! Lets see now!!

I live in Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire, UK. Population 30,000.

From that number I know of, 3 Anglo players (includes myself), 4 English players, and 1 Duet player.

The UK population stands at about 64,000,000.

Sooo?

3 Anglos in 30,000 gives 6,400 for the whole UK and 8533 English and 2133 Duet. Yes??

Not exact, I know and takes no account of players I have no knowledge of; but then they would always be under the radar, wouldn't they??

 

 

 

regards

Jake

[JimLucas]

I think we have a better handle on this than you might suspect...

From your examples, I think one might claim to have the possibility of a better estimate, but has anyone been taking a census of the repairers/restorers -- not to mention the makers -- of how many instruments pass through their hands? So far, I'm not aware of anyone reporting or even gathering that sort of statistic. I'm pretty sure it's not yet reflected in the reporting here on concertina.net.

 

Based on my observations it's an unusual event when a well loved concertina in good working order turns up at an auction, pawn shop, music store, estate sale or other venue. The fact that they don't turn up implies that there isn't a large pool of concertina players who fly under the radar.

My experience differs. Compared to those needing work, I couldn't guess at the proportion, but I'm aware of quite a few that, while they could certainly be improved by an expert general overhaul, were and are quite nicely playable "as is".

• Two of my own in that condition are currently on loan to friends who are enjoying them, while others have passed through my hands in the past.
• Within the last month I've been asked to look at two others which fit that description, instruments that I hope will soon be in the hands of players, but which may not get a full overhaul for one more years.
• Another was bought by a friend within the past year. It's now scheduled for an overhaul next spring, but in the meantime said friend and I have both been playing it in performance.

And I'm in Scandinavia, where concertinas are very rarely seen for sale. The only other concertina I know of that was bought locally within the last year did need an overhaul, including a new bellows, but that's 3-to-1 within the past year. Oh yeah, of the four, two were offered on auction, one was a personal contact, and the one needing the overhaul to be playable was found at a flea market.

 

Another factor is that there is a very limited number of people to do repairs, supply parts, or act as dealers in used concertinas. A concertina in need of service, or one that's for sale, is probably going to one of, what, 2 dozen possible places?

Seems to me there are quite a few individuals just here on concertina.net who have undertaken to do their own overhaul/restoration of a newly purchased vintage instrument. Many we know about (if we've been keeping track) because they've asked us for advice. I wonder how many others have just jumped in -- with or without Dave Elliott's book -- without coming to us for advice... maybe even without knowing we exist. And the number who take concertinas to "accordion" repairers? (I've seen good work as well as bad done by such folks without prior "vintage concertina" experience.)

 

The same is true with new instruments, there are so few people making them, and their output is so small that the number of new instruments annually can be easily tracked--you can almost do that math in your head.

If you have the data. Who is collecting that data?

 

Again, if there were a pool of hidden concertina players they would quickly show themselves in the form of much higher demand for service work and spare parts.

A well cared for concertina in good condition often doesn't need to be "serviced" for many decades. I think that the amounts you're suggesting are likely only the tip of an "iceberg" of concertinas in the hands of players.

 

So I still contend that any method of counting suggested here so far -- with the possible exception of Dan Worrall's -- can at best give us a lower bound that is necessarily well below the true number. And I'm glad of that. (Hmm. I just noticed that Anglogeezer Jake posted while I was composing my post. I do think it's possible that due to non-uniform distribution of concertinas his method might well give an overestimate. But not for sure. )

[Irene S.]

Mmmmm!! Interesting!! Lets see now!!

I live in Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire, UK. Population 30,000.

From that number I know of, 3 Anglo players (includes myself), 4 English players, and 1 Duet player.

The UK population stands at about 64,000,000.

Sooo?

3 Anglos in 30,000 gives 6,400 for the whole UK and 8533 English and 2133 Duet. Yes??

Not exact, I know and takes no account of players I have no knowledge of; but then they would always be under the radar, wouldn't they??

 

 

 

regards

Jake

Nice idea, but I would have thought rather unsound to be basing it on the number of population in one particular town. These are only the players that you personally know about - what are the true figures? It's far too simplistic a model to be at all statistically significant, and ignores a number of variables that need to be considered .For instance, there are going to be many factors affecting the numbers of players of any type in the town - musical participation in Beverley may be very different from a neighbouring town, and one county may have different characteristics from another. Furthermore your base level should probably be the actual number of instruments manufactured. On the matter of the duets, how many were actually manufactured over the years ... how many have suffered the effects of natural wastage and damage, what number were still available to play etc etc. A figure of 1 duet player in one town is really not a sample large enough to be basing any considerations upon. Those are just a few immediate thoughts that occur to me anyway.

 

As to the number of Maccann players that Geoff quoted me as having identified it was certainly over 100 by the time I had ground to a halt with the list (and I know of several others identified since then). Unfortunately the list got lost when my laptop at the time died! When I was first inveigled into trying a Maccann out in the first place I was told that there were only 150 known players - a figure quoted at me more than once by more than one person, although nobody has yet been able to say where it came from. It is obviously nowhere near correct .. my 100+ does not include various other Maccann players whose names I know not but have come across at workshops - or those people playing quietly in privacy ... all subjects previously discussed, of course.

[Dirge]

Yes but that is the way you estimate something; you find a number you know, and if the only number you have is, say, 'the people in this room' then that is what you work with. (That gives me an estimate of the entire population of the world playing concertinas as I am alone here...)

 

Jake's technique is perfectly valid and improves his chances of getting a meaningful number. The larger the sample, the better your estimate of course. I'd have said starting with the 30,000 folks of Beverley is quite a decent sample. I bet lots of government policy is based on smaller numbers than that.

 

As for the Wheatstone duet/Maccan thing, there was a different problem there; lots of them are owned by players of other systems who do little or nothing with them (or people who don't play concertinas at all and do little or nothing with them, presumably) and it very quickly became a list of owners rather than players. You only needed to have been seen holding one of the things to get added to the numbers, so I think it was inflated, but that opens another can of worms; how do you define player?

[Łukasz Martynowicz]

Extrapolation is a good method, but IMHO based on players in small town it gives a top estimate: 15,000 players in the UK only seems rather large, looks more like an order of magnitude of all instrumentalists in UK. Concertina in general is a folk instrument and traditions tend to be carried on more in smaller towns/villages than in big cities. And while I don't know the strict numbers on demography in UK, I assume it is similiar to any other developed country so majority of people live in big cities, where there are more kinds of different pass time activities and careers available. And like Irene said, there are many other factors that may alter distribution of concertinas within different populations.

[Dirge]

Extrapolation is a good method, but IMHO based on players in small town it gives a top estimate: 15,000 players in the UK only seems rather large, looks more like an order of magnitude of all instrumentalists in UK. Concertina in general is a folk instrument and traditions tend to be carried on more in smaller towns/villages than in big cities. And while I don't know the strict numbers on demography in UK, I assume it is similiar to any other developed country so majority of people live in big cities, where there are more kinds of different pass time activities and careers available. And like Irene said, there are many other factors that may alter distribution of concertinas within different populations.

That may well all be completely true, but Jake's method is reasonable and gives a number that isn't TOTALLY guesswork, which is better than anyone else has managed, isn't it?

 

My complete guess for "Maccan" players in the world who can hold a competent tune is 50 tops. From that perspective the number of Anglo players in the world is clearly several million...

 

I think you might be surprised by the number of instrumentallists in Britain though. 15,000 is only one in 4000. I'd be willing to wager money that at least one in forty is actually quite GOOD at his chosen instrument.

 

There's another start point. How many instrumentallists do we know vs how many concertina players? Does that take us anywhere?

[gcoover]

Short of asking the NSA or MI5, perhaps the answer is simply "not enough"......or...."too many"!

[JimLucas]

Short of asking the NSA or MI5, perhaps the answer is simply "not enough"......or...."too many"!

 

I wonder if any member of either organization plays concertina.

Or is secretly a member here?

[Łukasz Martynowicz]

That is why I wrote about order of magnitude not a number, 1:4000 is quite small, 1:1000 is quite probable. In Poland number of musical students vs overall number of students is 1:250 (students, not graduates, based on official numbers, I don't know where to look for UK statistics) which is again a top estimate of a factor of instrumentalist, as we now live in peacefull times of relative prosperity, so there is more room for less productive careers than 2-4 decades ago. This will be different in UK because of different history and folk music tradition. And if you count anyone who can play a guitar for a campfire singing, then you'll probably end up with a factor closer to 1:50, but it raises a question on who to count as an instrumentalist.

 

Those are of course wild guesses, but the very idea of establishing a factor of concertina players to overall number of instrumentalists (and not overall population) may be a good method for UK and Ireland - there are job/student statistics available. For other countries this factor would be too small to be anywhere close to precision (for Poland it is somewhere around 1:10,000, which translates to 5-15 concertina players for almost 40mln people )

 

Jakes estimation is a good top number, but I think it is possible to make a better approximation.

[JimLucas]

Yes but that is the way you estimate something...

Certainly not the way I estimate something.

Nor is it valid statistics.

...you find a number you know, and if the only number you have is, say, 'the people in this room' then that is what you work with. (That gives me an estimate of the entire population of the world playing concertinas as I am alone here...)

An example which demonstrates quite clearly that the method -- as given -- is invalid, since it's quite easy to demonstrate that the conclusion (that everyone in the world plays concertina) is false.

 

Jake's technique is perfectly valid and improves his chances of getting a meaningful number. The larger the sample, the better your estimate of course.

No. "Jake's technique" (I actually thought he was being tongue in cheek) is valid if and only if it can be shown by independent means that the small sample and the larger "universe" can be expected to share a similar distribution in the variable being estimated. And the expectation of a "better" estimate from a larger sample also applies only if the distributions are similar among all the sample sizes being compared.

 

With regard to your extreme example, it's obvious that the distribution of concertina (or Maccann) players in the population consisting only of yourself is most certainly not the same as the distribution of such players in the entire popuation of the world, or even of New Zealand. And so "Jake's technique" is not applicable.

 

I'd have said starting with the 30,000 folks of Beverley is quite a decent sample. I bet lots of government policy is based on smaller numbers than that.

And that is supposed to be a proof of validity? In my experience, the fact that a technique is used as a basis for government policy is a pretty sure sign that it's flawed.

 

As for the Wheatstone duet/Maccan thing, there was a different problem there ... that opens another can of worms...

I believe that can was already opened in one of the earlier threads on this subject.

[JimLucas]

...for Poland it ... translates to 5-15 concertina players for almost 40mln people...

 

I'm pretty sure that in the past I myself have met more than 5 Polish concertina players, and I'd be very surprised if I've met them all.

[Łukasz Martynowicz]

Jim, judging from our first private conversation on this forum, you may have really met them all - those few polish shantymen are the only profesional concertina players in Poland (I personally know of Marek Szurawski, Jerzy Rogacki, Marek Wikliński and Stanisław Konopiński). There are traces of only a couple more amateurs (including me) on the web (shanty and sailing sites, accordion forums, YT etc…). Most conversations with educated or street folk musicians that I had in various polish cities over last 3 years, even those who play bagpipes, bodhrans or other UK/Irish instruments (I have met five to date) end up with an explanation what a concertina is or with one of names I listed above. And given that there is a link of no more than 6 people who shook their hands between you and anyone else in the world, I think that it is perfectly safe to assume, that there is no more than a low two digit number of all concertina players here.

[Rod]

Dirge is right of course. There is a world of difference between 'owners' and 'players'. Perhaps some of those owners are so busy fretting over statistics that they have no time left to to play the instrument !!

[badwellmac]

Hi Dan,

 

Thanks for taking the time to think this through.

 

What a small specialist group we are !!

 

I knew there were not many of us, but it is less than I thought.

 

Just off to play at a local farmers market and answer many many questions about what the instrument I am playing is called ( G/D Anglo )

 

My wife gets a little cheesed off, she plays piano accordion and doesn't get asked !!

 

Seasons greetings

 

Karl