Learning to Play Chords on the English Concertina

[David Hanssen]

Hi folks, 

I’ve played the English concertina for many years and made a commitment a while ago to learn to play chords on it. I couldn’t find any useful instructional material so I put some exercises together and taught myself. It took me a while to develop the physical skills to play chords and I fell down several deep rabbit holes during that time learning how chords work in traditional music. I wanted to share how and what I learned, so I wrote a book about it. It’s called Introduction to Playing Chords on the English Concertina, and it’s available on my website: https://hanssenstudios.com/    The book is free to read online and available for purchase as a spiral bound hardcopy.

 

Please let me know if anyone has comments or questions. I’ve never had an opportunity to hear how others have learned to play chords and I hope that sharing my approach will spark some conversations.

 

If anyone is interested in ABC technology, I wrote all the scores in the book in ABC notation using a chord shorthand and wrote software to transform the shorthand into fully fleshed out ABC scores with a kind of tablature for the concertina. Other software adds structure to EasyABC playable HTML files that go with the book. Please let me know if anyone would like to learn more about that.

 

 

My best to all.

David Hanssen

[David Barnert]

If you want to hear some chord playing on an English Concertina, have a look at @Steve Wilson's contribution to the International Concertina Association’s 2025 annual concert released today, https://youtu.be/SoebeqTTZ9E&t=807 (or, of course, anything from @Randy Stein).

[Cliff Ermatinger]

Hi, David.

 

Thanks so much for doing this!

 

Once I heard you play The Fairy Queen by O'Carolan, I knew I had to get an English concertina. Thank you? Blame you? Both, I suppose.

 

I very much look forward to working through his book once I get the basics down.

[Cliff Ermatinger]

Erratum!

 

It's been brought to my attention that the surplus of David Hannsens and David Hansens playing the English concertina has engendered some confusion and misattribution. See above.

 

After my social secretary was made to apologize profusely for the error he was given the sack.

 

The book is en route and I look forward to it very much.

[RAc]

@David Hanssen: What exactly is the correct spelling of your last name? Hansen, Hanssen oder Hannsen (or even differently 😉)?

 

Aside from that - sounds good, chapeau. The only thing I wonder about is that you claim not to have found "useful material on EC chord playing." A quick search on this forum alone has led to numerous hits some of which have been referenced here (entire thread): 

 

May I ask what aspects of chord playing was missing here? Just out of curiosity. 

[Don Taylor]

40 minutes ago, RAc said:

What exactly is the correct spelling of your last name? Hansen, Hanssen oder Hannsen (or even differently 😉)?

There are two different members of this group:  David Hanssen and David Hansen.

[David Hanssen]

I am David Hanssen, not to be confused with David Hansen, who has a wonderful YouTube channel of concertina and other music. I live in Rhode Island, USA, and have a website, hanssenstudios.com, where my book is available.

 

Different people arrive at playing chords on the EC from different starting points. Some might be able to find everything they need in online forums and from fellow musicians. I didn’t, so I did a lot of research, spent a lot of time practicing, and wrote a book that’s essentially a journal of how and what I learned.

 

You can read the book and play the music files for free on hanssenstudios.com so please take a look and let me know what you think. I know that different people approach these things differently and I’m hoping to learn how other people have approached learning to play chords.

[Cliff Ermatinger]

My copy arrived today! Thanks for packing and shipping with such alacrity, David.

 

What a labor of love this book is.

 

This looks fabulous and will, no doubt, become a well known and consulted resource for decades to come. I appreciate all the hard work you out into this and look forward to learning form this.

[David Hanssen]

Thank you Cliff.

 

I hope you find helpful guidance and inspiration in the material. I am very happy to answer questions and respond to comments.

 

Thanks again!

[4to5to6]

Very well done.  I look forward to going through the material.  Thank you.