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How Accidental Was Your Choice Of System?


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My first choice was driven mostly by my childhood dream - when I was 11y.o. I saw a concertina player at a shanty festival (only recently I found, that he was playing an Anglo)... It was 19 years later, when I finally got my hands on a box from Ebay. I didn't know anything about concertinas then, so I bought the cheapest German-Anglo available in playable condition, just to check if the concertina really was something for me. I spend a year learning to play it - it was hard to get along with bisonority and "random" layout outside the home 6 buttons, but I liked the sheer fun of its bouncy nature. I did considered English briefly, as I missed chromaticity very much, but alternating hands is even worse for me than bisonority. And when I finally ran out of notes on a 20b and started looking for an upgrade, I came across the newly released Elise and fell in love with Wicki-Hayden layout at first sight. Finally I was looking at the instrument which fitted how my brain works, so no more changing systems for me.

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I have never held an English and have never even been curious to do so. I was suspicious of what I read about the English system but the Anglo was love at first sight. I wonder if the English system is more attractive to those into musical theory and dots on paper, aspects of music which I can happily live without. Is there anyone out there who plays both systems ? I doubt it.

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Completely accidental, and based on pure ignorance. I'd heard concertina played on an album by the late Tony Rose. I liked the sound, and thought it an appropriately 'folky' instrument. I knew nothing of the different types, neither did I know that Tony played English. My local music shop had a bright red Chinese concertina in the window for about £5 so I saved up and bought it. I struggled with it for a while, kept picking it up and putting it away again, but eventually persevered. However when I started playing it properly it soon gave up the ghost, but by then I was confident enough to get a proper concertina, a 26 key Lachenal.

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I have never held an English and have never even been curious to do so. I was suspicious of what I read about the English system but the Anglo was love at first sight. I wonder if the English system is more attractive to those into musical theory and dots on paper, aspects of music which I can happily live without. Is there anyone out there who plays both systems ? I doubt it.

Certainly, Rod. I did, for many years. You're right about EC and dots. Before owning a concertina, I used to stay with someone who repaired them. (Mick Butler on the IOW - I wonder whatever happened to him.) I tried some of the instruments lying around and found I could quickly get a tune out of an anglo by ear. But the English was a complete mystery - I couldn't even find a scale until I sat down to learn it formally, using Ali Anderson's course. I effectively learned EC and music simultaneously (having only a rudimentary knowledge of the dots up to that point).

People sometimes ask if it isn't confusing playing more than one system but, in my experience, there's no crossover or interference whatsoever.

 

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My choice was researched and planned. Paul Hardy came over to my house one day with a collection of concertinas, and I found that the buttons on the Anglo were easier for my huge hands. I wish the layout was more amenable to playiing in all keys, but since I was planning to play folk music on it anyway, I decided to accept its limitations.

 

Having chosen, I scoured the internet and found concertia.net just when Chris Timson was parting with a 32 button Lachenal. It was every bit as good as he promised, although it's even better now with new bellows and restoration by Greg Jowaisas!

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I guess my initial (and obsessive multi-year) choice of Anglo was simply a result of falling in love with Clare music and being in Ireland and seeing/hearing some of the Clare concertina players. Had no problem learning to play it fluidly, and played it obsessively for several years. .But as time went on, I started to question the party line about EC being less suited for Irish music, and began to wonder if perhaps it might give one MORE expressive control, albeit not in the "one-row-melodeon" paradigm imposed in ireland on people who play free-reed instruments. the poster who mentioned they were drawn to EC because they had always wanted a violin kind of said it for me. given that i was drawn to irish music by the east galway/east clare "long-bow" fiddle sound, ec, and unisonoric accordion (CBA), are making me expressively much happier. plus, i love the way you can play EC in any key. i also like the fiddle music of numerous other genres of world-folk, instrumental dance music, and EC is giving me an expressive freedom and scope i just wasn't getting with anglo.

 

i got into duet after becoming fascinated with it on this site and finally realizing you could play instrumental world folk on it adapting accordion arrangements that i already know how to do. i don't like english songs, sea chanteys, or the other song-accompaniment areas many duet clips often showcase, i don't like ragtime on free-reed instruments, and i'm not interested in classical music on concertina, though i see that concertina plays it beautifully. but finally, i saw some examples of tango, eastern-european, french musette, etc., on duet, and that was it.

 

i guess i'm not playing my anglo a lot right now. just hit one year on EC last month, and continuing with that, plus CBA and some duet. it's EC and CBA as the main lines, duet as the sideline. RE EC and dots, I have musical training, but except for looking at a button layout picture now and then, i have made zero use of dots to learn EC. the only time i use dots for concertina, is when arranging for my unisonorics, to look at books i have of french musette accordion music, tango, and other european instrumental folk stuff. i get irish off records by ear, and some european folk, but love my musette, tango, klezmer, and gypsy books...

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I'm not sure about the common conjecture that people who read music are more inclined to play EC.

 

I do read music, and think it's an absolutely invaluable tool for remembering old tunes, learning the basics of new ones, and communicating ideas in group situations. However I also feel that I don't really know an instrument until I can pick things up by ear on that instrument; and I certainly don't think that I've used music with the EC any more than any of my other instruments.

 

From the great discussion on this thread and others down the years I'd suggest the choice of system comes down to some combination of the style of music you play; how your brain works and how you personally find the ergonomics of the different systems; what brought you to concertina in the first place; and very often just whichever system you happened to come across first!

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I found my ec in an antique/junk shop and didn't find out what system I was buying 'til I called in the local library and looked it up - I found out it was an Amboyna brass reeded Joseph Scates (subsequent research determined that it was in fact a Rock Chidley that Scates rebadged - not uncommon!)

Since then I have tried both McCann duet and Anglo - totally beyond me!!

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I wonder how many potential players have tried one or another system essentially at random and thought, "what on earth, how does anybody ever get a tune out of this thing?" and thus been put off all concertinas for good, when if they had tried a different system that fit their brain better they might have been hooked.

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I found my ec in an antique/junk shop and didn't find out what system I was buying 'til I called in the local library and looked it up - I found out it was an Amboyna brass reeded Joseph Scates (subsequent research determined that it was in fact a Rock Chidley that Scates rebadged - not uncommon!).

 

I simply love these junk-shop stories... B)

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My initial choice was a result of boundless ethusiasm and pre-Internet innocence (or ignorance).

 

As a young child, back in the early 1950s, I was frequently taken to the Salvation Army Citadel on Sunday mornings. The Corps in Ballymena in those days was musically well endowed, with a good band, enthusiastic Songsters - and a concertina. I still like a good brass band and a good choir, but it was the concertina that caught my childish fancy. It was so evocative in those slow, meditative songs. It had a sound that went right through you.

When I was 7, we moved to a town without an S.A. Corps, and the concertina was only a memory. With a house full of instruments: piano, autoharp, mandolin, violin and mouth organ (and for a while even a harmonium!) I had plenty to do, musically speaking. I had formal piano lessons for a short time, my father taught me the basics of mandolin, fiddle and mouth organ, and I self-taught myself the 5-string banjo that had found asylum in our house. (You don't really have to learn the autoharp - you just start playing it ;) )

Then, in the late '50s or early '60s, the BBC Radio started a series of shanty programmes. And the concertina surfaced again, with its characteristic, evocative timbre. That was when I realised that I had the "Musical Instrument Acquisition Syndrome" (MIAS)! Even with all the above instruments, I still needed one more. So I wished for a concertina for my 19th birthday.

 

The nearest music shops were in Belfast, and all they had in the mid-1960s was 20-button East German concertinas. These were, however, hexagonal with lots of buttons, as I remembered from the S.A., so I got one.

I was rather disappointed that the timbre was not as hard as I remembered it, but the ease of playing it made up for that. After the one diatonic row of the mouth organ, two diatonic rows were almost an embarras of riches. And it was loud and suitable for accompanying both solo and community singing.

 

It was only very much later - with the advent of the Internet - that I realised how many concertina systems there are, and how the traditional German and traditional English constructions differ. It was in this phase of my development that I realised that what I had heard as a child must actually have been a Crane/Triumph Duet. Obviously, I had to have one, and promptly found one on Ebay. It even had "The Salvation Army" embossed on the handstraps! After 40 years, I had the concertina that had been on my mind all the time!

 

Though thoroughly familiar with the Anglo (having acquired a 30-button model later on), I had no real difficulty adopting the Crane. What I would point out, however, is that after decades of playing the (Anglo) concertina purely by ear, I soon began to correlate notes on the Crane with dots on paper. But only sometimes, with an unfamiliar tune.

 

My take on it is that the Anglo is best for people who can hear a harmonic structure beneath a given tune. This makes it pretty obvious whether you have to press or draw the bellows. Bisonority, I would think, would get in the way of dot-to-note correlation. The Crane, with its "one dot, one button" rule and its accidentals in the outlying columns, is much more staff-oriented and thus easier to sight read for.

 

Cheers,

John

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I'd describe my choice of EC not as "accidental" but largely determined by my community.

 

I didn't play an instrument or read music when I decided to try the concertina. I knew about the English and Anglo systems and I thought the English would be easier to learn. Actually, I thought it was the only system I had any possibility of learning!

 

But my "choice" was hardly a choice. I was embedded in a community of EC players. I friend lent me his old Italian treble to try. I arranged to take exploratory lessons with another friend who is an excellent EC player and teacher. And off I went! Had those people been Anglo players, perhaps I would play Anglo today. Or, more likely, nothing.

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I decided very early on that the concertina wasn't for me. Having looked at both anglo and English, I couldn't imagine getting anywhere with either of them. So that was that.

 

Then much later I discovered the previously unsuspected 'duet' concept (by carefully watching Tim Laycock on stage). But which system to go for? Someone told me that while the Crane was probably easier to get going on, the Maccann had greater potential in the long run. So I got a Maccann (hadn't heard of Haydens). I think my mate may have been half right (i.e. harder to get started on the Maccann) but I'm not sure about the other half. Sometimes I listen to great Crane playing (Tim Laycock, Paul McCann etc.) and I wonder if I got it right. Then I hear Iris Bishop (who by the way had an even more accidental start on the Maccann, believing she was getting an English) and all my doubts disappear.

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I received a Scholer concertina as a Christmas gift from my mother many years ago. I had casually mentioned to her that I was thinking about a concertina. After so many years as a Highland bagpiper I wanted to try something different. There was no instruction booklet and before the internet, there didn't seem to be anything available. I struggled to decipher the anglo 20 button, even experimenting playing what I later learned was upside down. After what seemed an eternity, I learned a couple of pipe tunes.....The Rowan Tree and The Skye Boat Song. The disaster struck.....one of the reeds broke, and I didn't know where to get it repaired. So much for concertina playing until a few years later I was at Elderly Instruments and they had a 30 button anglo (Italian) and a 30 button English (Chinese). They were both about the same price, and both much better quality than the Scholer. I thought, "Well I can play the Skye Boat song on this one," so I bought the anglo.

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Do check out Keith Kendrick who I mentioned in my opening post. He's a brilliant performer on both systems.

 

I have never held an English and have never even been curious to do so. I was suspicious of what I read about the English system but the Anglo was love at first sight. I wonder if the English system is more attractive to those into musical theory and dots on paper, aspects of music which I can happily live without. Is there anyone out there who plays both systems ? I doubt it.

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Is there anyone out there who plays both systems ? I doubt it.

Though outnumbered by those who play only one system, there are still quite a few of us who play two -- or even more -- systems with more or less facility. Why would you doubt it?

 

I was suspicious of what I read about the English system...

I'm curious as to what sorts of things were said that made you "suspicious". And suspicious of what?

 

I wonder if the English system is more attractive to those into musical theory and dots on paper, aspects of music which I can happily live without.

I don't believe that feeling comfortable with the English leads one to want to use "dots", though a couple of "opposites" may be true. I.e., working from "the dots" on the anglo -- especially when playing more than one note at a time -- is not always simple or even possible. Because of this, folks who are already used to using written notation (abc notation is no better in this regard) may be inclined to avoid the anglo, while dot-free anglo players may be inclined to avoid learning to read notation. (Note: Being able to read notation is not the same as being dependent on it, though the second is impossible without the first.)

 

I learned to read music in school, with trumpet lessons at the age of 10, but even some singing exposure before that. From trumpet I went to French horn and also played around with my siblings' flute, sax, and trombone (thus the bass clef). Late in high school I joined a choir, where I learned to "read" without an instrument. Later, before I discovered the concertina, I took up tin whistle. For each new instrument I first learned how to make the different notes, and then since I already knew where those notes were in the notation, I could "automatically" read the music on that instrument.

 

But as noted previously, that had nothing to do with my choosing the English. In my first encounter I had no notes and no instruction -- so of course, no instruction tied to notation, -- but I simply picked it up and explored it until I (very quickly) could play something familiar. At that point, I didn't know what notes I was playing (I don't have perfect pitch), and it didn't even occur to me to do anything with "dots" until I had one on which to do extended practice. Then I learned where the notes were, so that I could use printed music to learn tunes and arrangements that I didn't already know. And for arrangements, in particular, notation is useful. When many notes are being played at once, it can be very difficult or even impossible (for me, at least) to be sure how many and which ones just from listening.

 

I used the same procedure with the anglo. I routinely read music on the anglo... not as fluently as on the English, but that's because my playing itself is on an inferior level. Additional factors are 1) that when there's more than one way to play a given note, I have to decide which way to do it... without pausing, and 2) realizing that some multi-note combinations are impossible, so that I have to decide which note(s) to leave out. But I have learned to do those things, too.

 

People sometimes ask if it isn't confusing playing more than one system but, in my experience, there's no crossover or interference whatsoever.

And why should there be? Aside from a superficial resemblance, the different concertinas are as different as the various stringed instruments, e.g., a guitar and a banjo or fiddle.

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