Harder to pull bellows as they extend.

[Phil Hague]

I am a fairly new English player ( Jacke Brand). I am progressing quite well but when playing a long run I find that the bellows become much harder to pull as they extend further and then tend to spring back on the inwards push. Is this normal? Will the bellows ease with use, or do I need to shorten the runs and change bellows direction?

My only other instrument is a string instrument so bellows are something very new to me.

Thank you for reading.

[Tiposx]

There was a recent thread that touched on this, specifically regarding Jackie bellows. It was mentioned that that they have a tendency to contract as you describe.

I haven’t found this effect on vintage instruments, or upmarket new ones.

[Phil Hague]

Hi, That is interesting, obviously as I progress I may need a better instrument. I shall persevere for the time being and see how things develop. Thanks, Phil.

[fred v]

The bellows should not be extended like you see in cartoons with clowns playing them. Work the bellows when playing to gibe bounce and phrasing to your music. Try opening the bellows half way and rotate your wrists so as to flex the folds of the bellows. This will loosen them up. Do this for 5 minutes before playing each day.

[Phil Hague]

Thanks for this, I will give it a try.

[Łukasz Martynowicz]

5 hours ago, Phil Hague said:

I am a fairly new English player ( Jacke Brand). I am progressing quite well but when playing a long run I find that the bellows become much harder to pull as they extend further and then tend to spring back on the inwards push. Is this normal? Will the bellows ease with use, or do I need to shorten the runs and change bellows direction?

My only other instrument is a string instrument so bellows are something very new to me.

Thank you for reading.

Jackie uses accordion style bellows, that is inherently springy. It will ease a bit with time, but some of the springiness will always be present. On an English you are not restricted by note availability on push/pull, so just use shorter bellows phrasing. If you look at some top players out there, many of them use very short, fan like bellows articulation.

 

Pretty much any higher tier concertina you’ll upgrade to in the future will have proper concertina bellows, which has little springiness, and the top ones have pretty much linear response up to nearly full extension.

[Phil Hague]

Thank you Lucas. I am very new to this but learning fast.

[gcoover]

3 hours ago, Łukasz Martynowicz said:

many of them use very short, fan like bellows articulation.

 

Thread Drift Warning!

 

So what's with this bellows "fanning thing" and who the heck first thought this was a good idea? I've even seen a video of an Anglo player doing it.

 

Professional players don't do this.

 

Sorry, but it makes absolutely no sense, and severely limits your ability to express and breathe life into the tunes!

 

Gary

[Łukasz Martynowicz]

1 hour ago, gcoover said:

 

Thread Drift Warning!

 

So what's with this bellows "fanning thing" and who the heck first thought this was a good idea? I've even seen a video of an Anglo player doing it.

 

Professional players don't do this.

 

Sorry, but it makes absolutely no sense, and severely limits your ability to express and breathe life into the tunes!

 

Gary

 

 

 

I don't know, if he's a proffesional, but he is damn good at playinng English concertina with fan-like bellows technique. Additionally, I believe he uses a tape to bind the bottom edges together. Why? Because if you look closely, this way he can play with eight fingers instead of just six, or even only four in case of the Wheatsone intended technique. So, as you can see, this absolutely makes a ton of sense.

 

But I agree, that this is a dumb idea for an Anglo player to do so.