Concertina.net community

[Marcus]

It always strikes me how welcoming and helpful the free reed community and concertina.net members in particular are.  People a so free to share a good tune, technique, repair suggestion, obscure discontinued recording and other number of things.  It's such a wonderful thing and an amazing resource as we are spread so widely around the globe.  I know for me - being stuck out on a 21 mile long piece of rock in the Atlantic hundreds of miles from the nearest landmass I would be at a complete loss without it!

 

Thanks to you all - and Happy Holidays!

[Ken_Coles]

Yes the days before the internet were lonely for many interests. I heard of, and got interested in, the concertina around 1980, when I was a poor student in the U.S. I had no idea where to even see one, let alone buy one. No ordinary music store seemed able to tell me anything. In 1992 I finally encountered a red Italian anglo, the first concertina I ever set eyes on, and bought it. Now we have new players who find us, and an instrument, much faster. Lucky in one sense are you who were born more recently.

 

While as an admin I get to deal with the few challenging characters here, it is less than 1/10 of 1% and everyone else understands how to maintain a friendly and international community. Keep it up.

 

Ken

[Łukasz Martynowicz]

9 hours ago, Ken_Coles said:

Yes the days before the internet were lonely for many interests. I heard of, and got interested in, the concertina around 1980, when I was a poor student in the U.S. I had no idea where to even see one, let alone buy one. No ordinary music store seemed able to tell me anything. In 1992 I finally encountered a red Italian anglo, the first concertina I ever set eyes on, and bought it. Now we have new players who find us, and an instrument, much faster. Lucky in one sense are you who were born more recently.

 

While as an admin I get to deal with the few challenging characters here, it is less than 1/10 of 1% and everyone else understands how to maintain a friendly and international community. Keep it up.

 

Ken

Sounds familiar  I first heard a concertina on a shanties concert when I was 11 and immidiately wanted to play one. It was 1990. I got my hands on my first DDR made Anglo only some 20 years later, when Ebay became accessible in Poland. At that time I still knew nothing about concertina types, makes or history, as before that point no music shop clerk even knew what concertina was and no library I checked had anything on concertinas. Some time after acquiring this first Anglo I discovered this site and was amazed by just how much knowledge and resources were readily accessible. Sadly, this site saw a noticeable decline in activity after FB introduced groups (same thing happened to few other forums I was active on back then).

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

When I first bought a concertina, it was really intended to maybe accompany my ( late) father on his button accordion, and also through curiosity; as I had never really considered even playing one at all..Had no idea how they worked, and so bought one of those robust German made 20 button Kligenthal makes.. and it started everything off.

Later I needed more range of notes, and went to 30 key type.. and never looked back, it opened up a world of different tonal keys and music.

It seems often people find their way into concertinas by all kinds of ways more by chance, or curiosity, as well as by considered choice beforehand.

[Steve Schulteis]

I started out with the benefit of this forum. Without it, I might not have started concertina at all. In addition to all the helpful info, I've purchased each of my instruments from the buy/sell forum. I'm quite thankful, both for the work that goes into running the forum, and for all the interesting folks that populate it.

 

Here in Iowa, the concertina is pretty novel. I know one other player - they play English and I play Anglo. I doubt I'm the only Anglo player in the state, but I have yet to find that I'm not, so I'm really glad for a place like this to learn and share tips, music, repairs, and so on.

[Mike Franch]

On 12/10/2022 at 8:47 AM, Steve Schulteis said:

Here in Iowa, the concertina is pretty novel. I know one other player - they play English and I play Anglo.

 

Well, the upside is that you're the best Anglo player most of your listeners will have ever heard. Even in relatively concertina rich Maryland (emphasis on "relatively"), I seem to amaze people with my (at best) intermediate level playing.

[Clive Thorne]

On 12/9/2022 at 12:52 PM, Marcus said:

I know for me - being stuck out on a 21 mile long piece of rock in the Atlantic hundreds of miles from the nearest landmass

Ah, but what a lovely piece of rock it is.

[Marcus]

So true Clive!  Have you been here?  I wish more C-netters travelled here and would bring their instruments!  It's quite a solitary hobby for me here!

[Clive Thorne]

No not been there. Basing my comment on video and pictures. Retiring in 6 days time, so perhaps next year.

[Marcus]

Nice one Clive - retiring! Congratulations! Let me know if you are headed this way!

[David Barnert]

On 12/15/2022 at 7:48 AM, Marcus said:

Have you been here?

14 minutes ago, Clive Thorne said:

No not been there.

 

I’ve been there, but not recently. Trying to pin it down, it was shortly before Peter Benchley’s novel about Bermuda was published (“The Deep”). I remember that when I read it I knew all the locations. So I just googled it and that was 1976.

 

Good luck with the retirement. I’m recently retired, and all I can say is this is a strange time to be retired.

[d.elliott]

Best part about retirement is lying in bed listening to other people scrape the ice off their cars in an effort to get to work on time!