What is your 'Concertina Face'?

[Ptarmigan]

Howsabout a thread where we each display our dreaded - 'Concertina Faces' ... no matter how grotesque or depressing! 😉

.

Here's my depressing mug from the session last night ... honest I was having a wonderful time. 🙂

 

Cheers,

Dick

 

 

 

[gcoover]

It's hard to beat Rick Spencer!

 

 

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

I think this is such an amusing subject 😊

Dick, I would say your pose on those images are concentration pure and simple.

Myself..I think It's best not to look.. 

Or just film instead  the hands playing the music..

Just think of all those great pianists that gurned all the time when playing piano..but the performances were wonderful.

😊😊

[David Barnert]

The brief smile at the end of this video is the only face my wife recognizes.

 

 

[richard]

I quickly delete the worst of those. I have a friend who is a professional real French accordionist and she has the affable smile down when she plays in public. It's quite impressive. 

[Randy Stein]

https://link.medium.com/JuWxEZB20yb

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

It isn't just concertina faces that can crop up; there's also a difficulty in looking relaxed ( I have found) when playing flute like instruments..my own recent new venture into playing a Chalumeau ( A sort of ancient clarinet).. does nothing to enhance one's general countenance, as you blow away on it!😊😊😊😊

I shall not put picture on here to illustrate the fact thank you!😊

[Oberon]

This is my typical resting concertina face. If I attempt to consciously change my face while playing it all just falls apart. Funny that. 

[Lester Bailey]

Slightly more scary than my melodeon face

[Anglo-Irishman]

As it so happerns, my wife took a couple of snaps of me playing during our recent holiday in Ireland, so I'll join in the "fun!".

This is me playing Thomas Moore's "The Meeting of the Waters" at the actual meeting of the waters in the Vale of Avoca. Just for my own edification, no audience, hence the rapt mood. I'm playing my Dallas-Crabb Anglo.

Cheers,

Jed

 

 

[gcoover]

Here's one from back in the day...

 

I know what you're thinking - "Nice legs, shame about the face"!

 

Gary

[Mike Franch]

I've had people comment on my concertina face. But I think it's a generalized face of concentration. A woman in a contra dance line asked me why I looked so serious, which caused me to reform my facial expression as I've danced.  I've seen photos of me doing my very occasional morris or longsword dancing, and there's the same look; I'm enjoying on the inside, but it looks like I'm going to my execution on the outside.

[RAc]

A long time ago I resolved to not having a picture of my face on the internet (I am a computer pro, so I know what happens when you do that kind of thing), but for the sake of this thread, I decided to make an exception. Soooo, the first image is the face of my concertina, also a concertina face, right? Ha ha, nice try. So the second one is my real true unedited concertina face. Please do not pass this on to anyone.

[David Barnert]

9 hours ago, Mike Franch said:

I've seen photos of me doing my very occasional morris or longsword dancing, and there's the same look; I'm enjoying on the inside, but it looks like I'm going to my execution on the outside.

 

That’s  pretty much a direct paraphrase of Cecil Sharp: “When he is dancing, the true Morris-man is serious of countenance, yet gay of heart...” (The Morris Book, Part 2, 1909, page 6, 4th line from the bottom, and remembering, of course, what “gay” meant and didn’t mean in 1909).

 

I guess the same goes for concertina players (and perhaps double for us Morris Dance concertina players).

 

(Notice similar concertina face as previous post)

[Anglo-Irishman]

2 hours ago, David Barnert said:

“When he is dancing, the true Morris-man is serious of countenance, yet gay of heart...”

I'm not really into dancing myself, but I have heard that, in Irish Dancing competitions, you get points deducted if you smile.

 

As to instrumental music, a fixed grin on the player's face tends to make me think he's not taking his music seriously. Or, perhaps, that his brand or genre of music is not something to be taken seriously (by me, the listener).

 

Cheers,

John

[Ptarmigan]

8 minutes ago, Anglo-Irishman said:

I'm not really into dancing myself, but I have heard that, in Irish Dancing competitions, you get points deducted if you smile.

 

As to instrumental music, a fixed grin on the player's face tends to make me think he's not taking his music seriously. Or, perhaps, that his brand or genre of music is not something to be taken seriously (by me, the listener).

 

Cheers,

John

 

John, a couple of years back a woman approached us & rather pointedly told us she was leaving, not because of the music, but because none of us were smiling as we played, not like the musicians she was used to going to see. When she explained that her favourite music was the dreadful - Irish Country 'music' ... no more needed to be said & we certainly didn't feel guilty. 😀

[Anglo-Irishman]

5 hours ago, Ptarmigan said:

When she explained that her favourite music was the dreadful - Irish Country 'music' ... no more needed to be said & we certainly didn't feel guilty. 

Precisely!👍

John

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

A concertina face ideal to aim for!