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First Tune You Learned On The Concertina


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Okay, I'll fess' up...age 10, 20 button Scholer and the tune "I Don't Want Her, You Can Have Her, She's Too Fat For Me." Had to do it for the recital my teacher insisted I attend. There I was a chubby kid singin' that song...the shame of it all. :( My second tune was much better, "Little Brown Jug".

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Helen ,my first tune was "Shepherd Hey" learnt one note at a time on my big white button GD German Concertina.I played it constantly and in no time at all, played it badly ,but dancers danced to it and when the other musicians did not turn up on time , I played it solo.That was my first Concertina thrill of achievement and it was a moment I have never forgot.

Al :rolleyes:

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"Off to California" learnt on a 20 button Stagi, all on one row, not knowing any better. When I played this in front of an accomplished player, he remarked, "well, that's one way to play it." I've since relearned it on 3 rows. Much better that way.

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Crikey - I can't play "off to California" NOW, let alone as my first tune ...

 

"The Lincolnshire Poacher" was the first tune that suggested itself starting with the first finger second row left hand, then first finger, 2nd row right hand experimentation I was doing with my Scholer in the car on the way home from the "antiques" fair where I bought it.

Samantha

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I don't really remember. I think it happened to be an obscure little church hymn, simply because I knew it well, but...at least around that same time, I learned to play 'Banish Misfortune.'

 

I can hardly play it now, since I haven't kept practicing jigs and reels and such, but....I wore that one out, for sure, back then!

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I don't remember, but I suspect it was Bold Fisherman from Richard Carlin's English Concertina tutor book. All the others in the book were far too fast for me to play along with on the vinyl record that came with the book.

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I am just curious. What was the first tune that you learned on the concertina and why did you pick that tune?

 

 

Some insipid kid's song by Rafi, now blessedly forgotten, played for my daughter on a garage-sale concertina. She was unfailingly delighted to hear one of her favorites rendered on that awful sounding box.

 

That repertoire unexpectedly served me in good stead. At a retreat a few years later, the planners asked us to do a contra dance (my wife was a caller). I had no other musicians with me, but in the group were several who could pick things out on various instruments. And the only tunes we had in common were kids tunes.

 

So we did an evening's worth of dances using kid tunes ("and bingo was his name-O..." was a great hit with the dancers.).

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The tune was "The Springtime it Brings on the Shearing" - because we were doing a production of "Reedy River" at the time.

I was playing the mouth organ in the play, but the director (Maria - my wife) decided that a concertina would be more appropriate - so we decided to buy one second hand.

After months of searching ("we used to have lots of them"), we finally found one - and then, I had to learn to play the thing.

I finally learned to play The Springtime it Brings on the Shearing a couple of months after the play finished!

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Helen ,my first tune was "Shepherd Hey" learnt one note at a time on my big white button  GD German Concertina.I played it constantly and in no time at all, played it badly ,but dancers danced to it and when the other musicians did not turn up on time , I played it solo.That was my first Concertina thrill of achievement and it was a moment I  have never forgot.

Al :rolleyes:

Is this the twilight zone?!? Its a good job I read the posts first or I would have been accused of plagurism! The only difference is that my big white buttoned german anglo was a C/G!

 

Derek. :)

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I was lent a rather tatty german 20 button anglo to see if I wanted to buy it. The first tune I managed on it was "The sweet nightingale", mainly because the notes required for that tune were ones that were working!

I didn't buy the concertina as it there was too much to put right, but got a 30 button C/G Lachenal about 18 months later.

 

Robin Madge

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"London Bridge" was the first recognizable tune I played. (Becasue it's in the Jackie tutor manual). My wife applauded at actually recognizing the sounds as music for the first time. Ah, it makes me nostaligic.....Oh, wait that was last week! :rolleyes:

 

Greg Knipe

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I don't know if I speak for other silent persons here, but I have absolutely no idea what my first tune was! (back in 1992) Maybe it's because I haven't played a complete tune yet.

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My first tune was the Far Away Waltz. Received my Elderly Instruments English which I bought on ebay the morning of a New Years Eve party I was giving for our local Irish Session group. I spent all day learning this one tune - so long in fact that by the time the first guests arrived I was still in the shower :blink:

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