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30 key anglo guides and tutorials


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Hi, as i am generally new to an anglo, but quite experienced on melodeon, EC treble (and fiddle Lol) i was looking at all those published tutorials.

 

Now what might be a good one for a 30 key C/G with practical tips on how to come to grips with the system.

Most seem to be covering all sorts of items i don't really need; as other keys and tunings, most with 50% of the book (DVD?) filled with pure beginners exercises etc.  Tips welcome .. thanks.

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You may find Gary Coover's book Anglo Concertina in the Harmonic Style suitable. It has a small and concise amount of beginner info on fingering layout, reading tab, chord theory and scale exercises then launches you straight into tunes, building into using both hands very quickly.  The tunes are varied in  complexity so it will be some time before you've mastered them all.  He's also recorded them on YouTube.  I've also found his tab format the easiest to read too.  

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+1 on Gary's books, and they're even useful if you read the dots.  I haven't really warmed up to Tabs yet.  I'm also told the Bertarm Levy's book (Anglo Concertina Demystified?) is really good ... I haven't bought it yet, though so can't speak from experience.

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Thanks, ordered Coover, momentarily fairly priced on Amazon.de (Germany).

Bertram certainly adds some bandoneon flavor to his anglo playing, and the American tunes concertina book seems to be on sale now:

 

 

Edited by fiddler2007
correction
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5 hours ago, fiddler2007 said:

Pff, this darn scale of D. Not very much logic there, èh?

By its nature, an anglo works best in its two basic keys and is immediately much harder even in the next adjacent keys (e.g. F and D on a C-G instrument); whereas most other musical instruments get gradually more difficult as one moves away from their basic keys. Some of us deal with this issue by having multiple anglos in different keys.

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6 hours ago, fiddler2007 said:

Pff, this darn scale of D. Not very much logic there, èh?

Depends how you play the scale of D! The way I play it, the press-draw pattern that you use for C and G along the rows is simply reversed. Starting on Button 3 on the LH side, it goes: draw, press, draw, press, draw, press, press, draw.

 

There are "illogical" ways of playing  it - and the C and G scales, for that matter - which may be easier in certain situations.

Cheers,

John

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I should mention that while it is an excellent resource, Bertram’s second tutor “American Fiddlestyles for the Anglo Concertina” is not intended as a beginner's first guide.  It assumes the student knows the basics of the instrument and can read music.  An absolute beginner would likely be lost, but someone who can already play a dozen or more tunes would be able to work with it.  It is targeted at intermediate level players but I dare say many that consider themselves proficient would still find it beneficial.  What I like best about it is that it really explores the fingering possibilities on the Anglo.  Coming from an Irish Crossrow approach this book was eye-opening for me.

 

Bertram's website has some issues as mentioned above, but this link will take you to the page to purchase this book:

 

http://bertramlevy.com/concertina-tutor

 

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1 hour ago, fiddler2007 said:

PS your Alan Day tutor zip file seems to be corrupted ....

Can you give me some more information about the corruption.

 

I just tried it on an Android tablet and it worked OK although I did notice that the first file (00 - About-These-Files.htm) would not render inside Chrome on my tablet.  All of the other files that I tried, which was not all of them, worked OK.

 

I have replaced the first file with a .pdf version of the same text.

 

Don.

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6 minutes ago, RAc said:

It may be a browser problem. Some versions of Internet Explorer are known to corrupt zip files during download. Fiddler2007 may try to use an other browser for download.

 

Ah, yes.

 

Anyway I just re-created the .zip file with a .pdf substituted for the .htm file.  Perhaps you can confirm that you see it and that it downloads correctly.

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1 hour ago, fiddler2007 said:

Hi Don, still won't open, 7zp and WINRAR ... downloads OK

 

Works for me using UnZip, 7z, and Archive Utility on a Mac. The download link gave me a zip file that contained a Readme.txt and a second zip file called "Alan Day's Concertina Tutorial.zip". The inner zip file has the following MD5 checksum: 57e56b3e8304848a9adfc164a177c1c2 (use a checksum utility on your copy of the file - if the number doesn't match, you have a corrupted copy). I notice your screenshot seems to be saying the archive is only 223KB - it should be about 100MB.

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