What if your tastes don't run to traditional genres of concertina music?

[Jane_in_UK]

Hmmm, I expect this is a daft question and I may get slaughtered for posting it, but here goes. 

 

I've only had my Anglo C/G concertina 7 months, and I LOVE playing it - it's given me so much pleasure and is a daily source of joy. I'm learning through the Caitlin Nic Gabhann online course, mainly because when I first got my concertina and googled 'online concertina lessons' her course was the first one I found (along with Jack Talty's and the one from OAIM. ) So, by sheer accident and ignorance, I started off with ITM, rather than English folk music or another genre...

 

The problem is that through colossal ignorance I've chosen to play an instrument that is used predominantly in musical genres that I don't really enjoy listening to. I'm not especially enamoured of ITM, but neither am I keen on English folk music or sea shanties. My tastes run more to old time music and americana, where the banjo and fiddle rule and there's no traditional role for the concertina. My husband plays clawhammer banjo and I think I fondly imagined us being able to play some tunes together...but there appears to be no common ground/shared tunes that are available for both clawhammer banjo players and concertina players. I think I may have to accept that my husband and I will have to play to each other rather than with each other. I can live with that, I guess, but I AM sad that I don't enjoy listening to the musical genre that I'm learning, as listening is such a huge part of learning an instrument. But, hard as I try, I can't warm to ITM or English folk music. 

 

You may be wondering why - with this distaste for ITM and English folk music -  I chose to play concertina in the first place. The reason is embarrassing. A decade or so ago I went to an open-mike night in a pub and a man sang two Bob Dylan songs (Girl from the North Country and Boots of Spanish Leather) accompanied only by himself playing a concertina. I have no idea if it was an English or Anglo concertina...all I know is that I was absolutely mesmerised by his playing and I vowed that if I ever learned to play an instrument it would be a concertina. I had no idea they were used almost exclusively in ITM and English folk music and there was no place for a concertina in old time or americana music. I also didn't realise that the musician who so mesmerised me was a bit of an maverick in using them to accompany Dylan songs. 

 

Now...given that I love playing my instrument and certainly don't want to quit, what should I do if I can't force myself to love ITM or English folk music? Are there any other genres I could explore that might be more to my taste and perhaps have more in common with old time/americana? Recommendations of genres, musicians and tunes would be greatly appreciated! 

 

 

 

 

[Geoff Wooff]

Firstly,  if  you  can  read  music  there  is  a host  of  material  available  in most  genres  but  if  like  a lot  of  people,  who  play   ITM  and  English  folk  music  'by  ear'    surely  you  can  learn  tunes  from you  husband  or  his   sources.

 

I  play  the  English, for  the  most part  and  enjoy  ITM,  Scottish ,  French Trad and  period  accordeon  tunes   also  classical music,  ragtime    ....  well,  almost  anything  that  takes my  fancy.  I'd  say  the  world's  your  oyster.  Good  luck .

Edited February 15 by Geoff Wooff

[jgarber760]

Check out Bertram Levy’s book the Anglo concertina demystified. Levy played old time banjo and then got into concertina. I also play old time fiddle but like playing Irish music so haven’t really tried playing old time on my CG Anglo.

 

the other person to connect with is Jody Kruskal who lives not too far from me, he plays a lot of contra dance music on concertina and I have played in old time sessions with him as well. From what I understand he uses a G/D instrument to play those tunes with others. He is pretty active on this site.

Edited February 17 by jgarber760

[wunks]

I'm an old tyme fiddler and contra dance musician.  The rhythms and voicings are different but nothing you can't handle with a concertina.  Stick to the melody at first and use your ear to add that "folksey" flavor....😃

[Johanna]

Not sure I see what the problem is.  You know that there's at least one "maverick" in the world who plays Dylan songs on the concertina, so why can't you be another?

 

I'd argue that strictly speaking, there's no such thing as a "traditional genre of concertina music."  The concertina itself is less than 200 years old, and English and Irish traditional music are a lot older than that.  Those genres were going strong before the concertina was even an idea in Charles Wheatstone's mind.  Then the concertina came along and invited itself in, and now it seems like a welcome part of the tradition that's always been there.  And if that happened before, it can happen again with other genres.

 

I often take my (English) concertina out to rock and pop music jams, and people love it (or at least, they say they do).  The concertina can mimic parts for fiddle/strings, harmonica, keyboard, brass/horns, or it can just add a welcome difference of musical texture in a room where everybody else is playing guitars and ukuleles.  I also accompany myself at open mics (on all kinds of songs, including country and Americana) all the time, to the same effect.  I firmly believe that all music needs more concertina, and all you need is the confidence to show up and play.

[David Barnert]

I’m tagging @Jody Kruskal here to attract his attention to this thread. As mentioned above, he plays many genres on the Anglo (and very well), certainly including old-timey. He also gives online lessons. Until he comments, try searching through his web site.

[Steve Schulteis]

38 minutes ago, Jane_in_UK said:

My tastes run more to old time music and americana, where the banjo and fiddle rule and there's no traditional role for the concertina.

 

I play in an American folk band. I mostly just play melody, and the concertina blends in with the fiddles nicely. Nobody has complained about it not being traditional. On the contrary, my concertina tends to be one of the things people are most excited about, because it's so novel.

 

You might check out "Civil War Concertina" by Gary Coover.

[RAc]

Hi Jane, just to add what the others have justly pointed out: Please look at World Concertina Day 2026! – International Concertina Association and watch the videos linked to there to be assured that the concertina is being used for the full bandwidth of musical styles. Music is music, and no instrument is wed, let alone shotgun wed, to any particular style of music. Also make sure to look out for the next Online concertina gathering where you can see the whole thing happen life.

 

Best of luck!

[David Barnert]

33 minutes ago, David Barnert said:

I’m tagging @Jody Kruskal here to attract his attention to this thread. As mentioned above, he plays many genres on the Anglo (and very well), certainly including old-timey. He also gives online lessons. Until he comments, try searching through his web site.

 

And I should have also mentioned, at the Flurry Festival in Saratoga Springs yesterday I found myself playing Angelina Baker and Cluck Old Hen on the concertina (not an Anglo, but just sayin’).

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

You do not have to play tradtional music if you do not want to; concertina is a reed organ in miniature really, notes in a box, and it is up to the musician to find music to play that you want to play on it.

I do not play tradtional music [in the usual sense of the term] on my anglo - and have hundreds of pieces from [classical/ baroque] elements - covering a wide compass of time.  There's very few musical things that do not work on them - they are very versatile [even more than many standard orchestral instruments] in fact, when you compare.  Search out what YOU want to play and you will find it endlessly rewarding,

 

Edited February 15 by SIMON GABRIELOW

[wunks]

Hit Jody's "Slow is more" thread under Teaching and Learning  It's very helpful for this.

[Matt Heumann]

You might want to get a hold of a copy of Ryan's Mammoth Collection aka Coles 1000 Fiddle tunes! It changed my playing a lot. There are a huge number of fiddle tunes in the 19th Century American styles as well as banjo/fiddle pieces from the Minstrel stages. There is a YouTube Channel, https://www.youtube.com/@LelandPlaysRMC/videos

He plays his way thru the collection's Irish, Scottish, English, American, and stage novelty pieces, like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjcvMu-ksD8

 

Here's a link to my friend Al Smitley on fretless banjo and me on English playing William & Sullivan's Sand Jig, an American minstrel banjo piece.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/iaxnqhymmympdpo3drxcl/William-Sullivan-s-Sand-Jig.mp4?rlkey=qw456jsbpurarznykgr0sgz06&st=o9xrjiui&dl=0

 

 

[Richard Mellish]

Not sure, Jane, whether you learn tunes by ear or from "the dots". If the former, you should be able to play anything that you can sing, if possibly not in the same key. If the latter, tunes that are not in the instrument's two basic keys, C and G, or one key away (F and D), will be more difficult, even if all the notes are somewhere on one end or the other, unless you transpose. Anyway I echo RAc's advice to watch those videos.

Edited February 16 by Richard Mellish
Removing underlining which had somehow appeared.

[wschruba]

The instrument is but a vehicle for the music being played.

 

I play everything from "this was written with the concertina in mind" to "the instrument, let alone it's mechanics, didn't even exist".

 

I picked up the Anglo concertina largely because it was so different to all the other chromatic/diatonic instruments I played, and I was enchanted with the action.  As it sits, I have repertoire that spans pre-Western notation (Cantigas de Santa Maria), to Medieval/Renaissance (there are more than a few dance tunes in the "English Folk" repertoir that are from that period), Baroque (I've transcribed/reset several J.S. Bach pieces, including one "Little Prelude" mostly verbatim), Classical (I adore "The Dainty Fine Bride"), a few ländler from the Romantic era that were popular variation tunes, right up to folk traditions from France, Brittany, and their evolutions in the Appalachians.

 

That is to say, a concertina would be just at home with someone picking a banjo tune (key permitting), as it would with a whistle or an oboe.  Remember that anywhere you might find a harmonica, for instance, you could likely interchange a concertina.

[Roger Hare]

1 hour ago, Matt Heumann said:

You might want to get a hold of a copy of Ryan's Mammoth Collection aka Coles 1000 Fiddle tunes! etc...

You beat me to it! There's a copy of Ryan/Cole in ABC format here. I took a private copy some time ago so I could add accompaniment chords, and reformat it to my own taste. As far as I can see, there are 369 tunes in there which are suitable for a 30-button C/G, of which 238 are suitable for a 20-button C/G - without fannying about doing any transcribing.

 

There's a lot of other collections in various genres at the location where the Ryan/Cole collection came from here.

 

Here's a few other genres with which I have been 'messing about' in the last 3-4 years (I'm happy to report I'm not an expert in any of them, but I'm also having a great time!):

 

Spanish (Muinera from Galicia and Asturias)

German (Zweifacher from S. Germany (Bavaria?))

Swiss (Naturjodels and material from the vast Hanny Christen collections)

Scandinavian (good start point might be Andy Hornby's Scandinavian tunes file)

 

Tunes from some of these genres are available in various places on the internet.

 

Some of these genres may not be amenable to being transferred to the banjo?

 

I've 'private' collections of all those genres which I've amassed over the last several years in order to 'tidy them up' and add accompaniment chords, and one thing doing all that taught me is that (here comes the bad news🙂), I needed to become pretty self-sufficient in the area of music. I did this by learning ABC...

 

I'm just about to start looking at 2 or 3 small collections of American Square Dance/Hill Country/Fiddle music. That should be interesting...

 

There's not really any limit to the genres you could explore...

Edited February 15 by Roger Hare

[Daniel Hersh]

Regarding American old-time music in particular, I've been playing old-time tunes on Anglo for decades and I have played many times with old-time players including banjo players.  I would recommend primarily learning old-time tunes by ear rather than with sheet music (though sheet music can be helpful as a supplement to learning a tune by ear) because old-time playing often has nuances of rhythm and phrasing that aren't easily captured in sheet music transcriptions.  I find it easiest to learn from fiddle players (or recordings of fiddle players) because a fiddle is a sustaining instrument like a concertina and fiddle bowing has some parallels to use of the bellows on a concertina.

 

I really like Jody Kruskal's old-time concertina album Waiting for the Boatsman, but I would strongly recommend listening to fiddle players rather than just concertina players.  

[Alex West]

Jane

 

If you can get hold of a copy of the 3 volume Anglo International CD, you'll hear - as well as English and Irish traditional music - Jazz and blues (Roger Digby and Harry Scurfield), Classical (Andrew Blakeney-Edwards, John Kirkpatrick), Ragtime (Andrew again), Music Hall (John again), South African (Zak van de Vyver and unnamed musicians), Marches (Fred Kilroy),. amongst a smattering of other styles and genres from Jody Kruskal and others.

 

In other recordings and performances, John Kirkpatrick and Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne demonstrate the versatility of the anglo for classical and genres other than traditional music.  I play myself for song accompaniment (to an admittedly lower standard) for all genres from music hall to modern pop.

It's my personal opinion that although they come from traditional music backgrounds, Cormac Begley and Mohsen Amini (and other younger players) are using the anglo to explore ways of playing that are quite divergent from traditional dance-music forms - you may find their approaches interesting and to try to assign a category to

 

It's a very versatile instrument - only limited by the skill and mindset of the performer!

 

Alex West

[Ken_Coles]

I know I started with Irish tunes on my anglo because that was one kind of music for which instruction or classes were available in the US thirty years ago. Within a few years my interests started going in other directions and I interpreted the comment of a teacher in a class I was taking that it was time for me to go explore those directions on my own. And I did. As with most things in music, it is an endless road.

 

Welcome.

Ken