Minstrel Anglo

[gremich]

 

I’ve recently received a Minstrel Anglo from Concertina Connection. I traded in my Rochelle and am very happy with the Minstrel. 

Wondering if anyone else has a Minstrel and their impressions of it. It’s a great improvement and even though it cost considerably

more it’s money well spent!

gremich

[adamhuestis]

I have the clover.  Love it.

[John1949]

Hi, how is the Minstrel different to the Rochelle.

I am new to concertinas since October, 2018.  I have a Rochelle that I love to play. I am ignorant to its shortcomings at this point in time.

I look forward to the near future when I will upgrade the Rochelle to an Anglo hybrid. Which one is the burning question. How do you make that decision?

 

John1949

[adamhuestis]

Get the best you can comfortably afford.  

[Peter Laban]

When I saw the thread title I was expecting something long these lines:

 

[gremich]

7 hours ago, John1949 said:

Hi, how is the Minstrel different to the Rochelle.

I am new to concertinas since October, 2018.  I have a Rochelle that I love to play. I am ignorant to its shortcomings at this point in time.

I look forward to the near future when I will upgrade the Rochelle to an Anglo hybrid. Which one is the burning question. How do you make that decision?

 

John1949

The Minstrel is different in a number of ways. It is 6.25 inches across the flats as opposed to 7.25 for the Rochelle! This doesn’t seem to be that much until you get it in your hands, this makes the Minstrel standard size for an Anglo. The bellows are leather instead of the material used in the Rochelle, which provides much quicker control and easier air button use. The Rochelle is really hard to play up to speed and the Minstrel is a big improvement. With the Rochelle tradein it cost about $1000.00 including the hard case. The Clover would have been about $2000.00 more which is considerable. This seems to be a great next step up the Anglo line without having to spend a lot more money to have a very playable and enjoyable instrument.

 

 

gremich

[Fane]

2 hours ago, Peter Laban said:

When I saw the thread title I was expecting something long these lines:

 

 

I was hoping it might be about the sweets...

[Kimric]

A bunch of things are different. Better grade of reeds, better button material, better bellows and better construction (hardwood rather than plywood with celluloid skin).

[John1949]

Thanks all for your comments. Very useful.

 

Cheers

[Anglo-Irishman]

19 hours ago, Peter Laban said:

When I saw the thread title I was expecting something long these lines: 

Same here! As a banjoist, I associate the term "minstrel" with black-face entertainment. "Minstrel banjo" designates a particularly archaic form of the instrument, or an archaic playing style. I wonder what Wim was thinking of when he chose the name. Perhaps it was the knightly poets of the Middle ages. Or Moore's "Minstrel Boy," (who ""to the war is gone").

Cheers,

John

[Takayuki YAGI]

5 minutes ago, Anglo-Irishman said:

Perhaps it was the knightly poets of the Middle ages.

I thought of that. The English model named Busker and Duet model named Troubadour (not yet available?), all of them are kind of travel poets/musicians.

 

YAGI ?

[Anglo-Irishman]

@Peter Laban,

I liked the photo of the three gents in the clawhammer coats. I've often wondered what concertina, banjo and penny whistle would sound like together. We had all three in my folk group - but unfortunately, I was the only member who could play them.

 

Cheers,

John

[Stephen Mills]

2 hours ago, Anglo-Irishman said:

I liked the photo of the three gents in the clawhammer coats. I've often wondered what concertina, banjo and penny whistle would sound like together. We had all three in my folk group - but unfortunately, I was the only member who could play them.

 

 

John, there was a talented multiinstrumentalist named Aldon Sanders who posted occasionally many years ago.  One of his tunes, the Orange Rogue, was on Henk van Aalten's Recorded Tunes Page.   You can still access some of those tunes with the Wayback Machine, but Aldon's link is dead.  It can be downloaded here as an .asx file, which can be played with Windows Media Player.  Aldon played it on English concertina and pennywhistle, so all you need to do is break out your banjo and it's then all in your hands.

[gtotani]

Hi Gremich, 

 

Sorry for late reply. I have my Minstrel with Wakker Bellows since last April. 

Minstrel is my first concertina and cannot compare with anything else, but I am very happy about it.

Well tuned, smooth bellows, relaxing black ends (I do not have to worry about fingerprints!). 

In the initial stage, one of the buttons was somehow "stuck" but Mr. Wakker gave instructed me how to solve the problem. 

 

I think you can use this instrument for ages. 

Enjoy!

 

Gen Totani

[reenact12321]

On 2/4/2019 at 5:18 AM, Anglo-Irishman said:

Same here! As a banjoist, I associate the term "minstrel" with black-face entertainment. "Minstrel banjo" designates a particularly archaic form of the instrument, or an archaic playing style. I wonder what Wim was thinking of when he chose the name. Perhaps it was the knightly poets of the Middle ages. Or Moore's "Minstrel Boy," (who ""to the war is gone").

Cheers,

John

The choice of a top hat logo in the woodcut makes me think otherwise.

[Don Taylor]

Hmmm..Like this:

[Tradewinds Ted]

1 hour ago, reenact12321 said:

The choice of a top hat logo in the woodcut makes me think otherwise.

The Top Hat logo shows up in the woodcut pattern "Busker" model too, which makes sense to me for both of these models in the sense of passing the hat for tips, as a street performer might do.  Appropriate for a mid-level instrument good enough to put on a show, but still affordable enough that one might be willing to regularly play out on the street.  With the "Troubador" name for a future Duet model apparently in the works, the set of three parallel model names with similar meanings ties together nicely.

 

While the term "minstrel show" did come to mean the insulting style of black-face entertainment which was unfortunately popular for a while in 1800's into 1900's in the US, that more specific term did originally develop from the more common use of "minstrel" to mean any travelling performer (usually musical), and that in turn derived from the medieval use of "minstrel" to mean a court performer. (as mentioned previously)

 

I wouldn't want to promote insult through misunderstanding, but it seems a loss to give up on a perfectly acceptable and innocent meaning of a word.  Wouldn't it be better instead to reclaim the word for proper use?

[reenact12321]

Re-reading my comment, I think I gave a different impression than intended. I did not mean to imply that CC is invoking minstrel shows, simply that I didn't think of an association between a top hat and a medieval minstrel. Ted's idea makes perfect sense.