New member -Tune A Month?

[simon ds]

Hello, new member here wanting to learn to play the concertina.

I have played guitar and ukulele bass, but mainly octave mandolin and mandolin, while posting on mandolincafé.com

Here is my latest posting to this forum: 

https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/group.php?groupid=67

 

 

 

We have quite a popular tune a week social group on the site with very diverse, cheerful, sharing and supportive characters, and a reasonably wide range of different musical genres. So I'm really looking for people who want to do something similar for learning concertina together.  

 

I should add of course that I don't actually even have a concertina at the moment!
So I guess that would be the first step, find a concertina.

I’m looking for advice too, on the different types of layout and at the moment I'm leaning towards the English concertina. A light (touch), rhythmic but monosonoric instrument that I'm going to be attached to, something I can repair if necessary, a tenor maybe with low tones.
I do play a couple of tunes on the melodeon but would consider exchanging that.

 

Thanks for listening to my rather long rambling.

Hope you all have a great day!  

 

 

Edited January 19, 2021 by simon ds

[Gregor Markič]

Hello, Simon. I like this tune, and I dunnot know even why- I simply squeezed it out (kinda) of my box. People do.

 

[David Barnert]

We had a very active and successful “Tune-of-the-Month” program here about 5 or 6 years ago. Jim Besser organized it and put a great deal of work into it.

[simon ds]

Great version Gregor, really nice. I’m always amazed at how quickly people pick up these tunes.

 

Thanks David, I’ve heard lots of good things about the Tune a Week. I agree, managing something like that is a huge amount of work.
I think a lot of the work is taken up in moderating, and this work can be alleviated when people communicate non-violently, avoiding talk about politics, bodily functions, religion and on... just talk about concertinas and music.
And with lots of people from different backgrounds trying to understand each other, and even some people who actually like to be moderated,  this can take a lot of time and effort.

(and just as an example I did consider not posting this latest tune simply because of the title and the present political situation, but I just like the tune)

Edited January 19, 2021 by simon ds

[malcolm clapp]

A Starry Night for a Ramble is popular tune amongst concertina players in Oz, but invariably played as a waltz.

[simon ds]

26 minutes ago, malcolm clapp said:

A Starry Night for a Ramble is popular tune amongst concertina players in Oz, but invariably played as a waltz.

-as a waltz is good too.

But you have to include some film of Australia, Malcolm.

I lived there for about a year, had a wonderful time.

[Ken_Coles]

Simon,

 

Jim B. may comment, but IMO the experience of tune of the month here was that the concertina has a much, much smaller community than mandolin (or guitar or fiddle) players. That made it hard to sustain on a regular basis. After Jim went to some trouble to find several candidate tunes, his poll to choose one would only get a few votes, and just a handful of people would post recorded versions. I'm guilty myself of procrastinating my own contributions - my free time comes in chunks now and then and not on a regular basis, and I tend to work on a tune quite a while before I'm comfortable sharing it, especially if I'm trying to do more than a simple melody line. That forum (Tune of the Month) is still here as an archive and has many fine tunes in it that you can explore. I still play several of them myself. We've found other ways to share here - the posting of videos by members is quite active, in my view. Have fun with it whatever you do.

 

Ken

[Jim Besser]

2 hours ago, Ken_Coles said:

Simon,

 

Jim B. may comment, but IMO the experience of tune of the month here was that the concertina has a much, much smaller community than mandolin (or guitar or fiddle) players. That m

 

Yeah, Jim B will comment.

 

I've long admired the TOTM on melodeon.net, and hoped it would work on c.net; Paul and Ken graciously made it happen.

 

But ultimately, we just didn't have the critical mass of participants to make it work.  The joy of a forum like TOTM is seeing/hearing  different players approach the same tune in their own unique ways, and that wasn't happening most months.

 

Over on Facebook, the Tunesday Tuesdays group is doing that - dozens of folks recording and posting the same tune EVERY WEEK.  One of the enjoyable aspects of that forum is hearing people play tunes in unfamiliar genres, trying something they would never otherwise have tried.

 

But TT is is drawing from a worldwide audience of people playing every conceivable instrument.  Our little concertina world is just too small.  Not enough people posted recordings, or offered comments on posted recordings.

 

And I suspect concertina players are pretty rigid about genres; ITM players don't want to play non-ITM music, oldtime players shun non-OT tunes, and so on.  There's nothing wrong with that, it's just the way it is, but it further narrowed the pool of participants every month.

 

Ultimately, it just wasn't worth the effort of trying to present interesting choices every month reflecting the wide range of music that can be played on concertina.

 

 

 

Edited January 19, 2021 by Jim Besser

[simon ds]

Thanks Jim and Ken, I appreciate your replying. 

Yes Tunesday Tuesdays sounds like a lot of fun, but unfortunately I have certain issues with Facebook itself, ha ha.

I can understand people who are working on a tune who don't want to post it until they have really sorted it out. It's a nice feeling once you've got a tune under your fingertips. At the same time I remember that while I was learning to play mandolin I would have tunes that really weren't ready, but I would post them anyway, just to be on time for the deadline. And that was welcomed. 
I like the idea of being able to encourage people who are learning and don't necessarily play very well yet.

And there are more than 65 million people in the UK alone, all of them potential concertina purchasers... 

I know people who would say that this is just a marketing problem, and at the present time, an incredible opportunity.  
But maybe everyone posting individual tunes is what people want, I don’t know.

Anyone know how many concertinas are built every week?

[Ken_Coles]

 

3 hours ago, simon ds said:

Thanks Jim and Ken, I appreciate your replying. 
 

Anyone know how many concertinas are built every week?

 

Really good quality concertinas (mid-level hybrids and up), outside of the Irish/CCE market, I'm guessing maybe one or two hundred per year. Cheap and cheerful (Chinese/Italian) - lots more, just a few of which may land in the hands of folks who really follow the learning path and become players. I can recall us doing these same estimates twenty years ago...There certainly are a few more makers now.

 

Guess I'm getting old! 8o)

 

Ken

[Geoff W.]

There is a Tunesday Tuesday group on Facebook that has consistently been putting out a tune a week with the dots and a recording. It's not only concertinists, but there are concertinists that submit it. The biggest downfall is that it's on Facebook.

[Robin Madge]

In a similar vein, one zoom session that I participate in had a "Secret Santa" event where various people's names were drawn out of a hat to suggest songs for other participants that they had been paired with. It gave an oportunity to try out a song (or tune) from an unfamiliar genre.

 

Robin