How Many Concertina Players Are There?

[CaryK]

As someone fairly new (8 months) to the Anglo concertina and a regular reader of these threads I've become curious as to how many concertina players there are in the world. Prior to joining this website I heard little or nothing about concertinas in my area of North America (though piano accordions are common here). But from cnet I see that concertinists are found in various parts of North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. I have not noticed any participants in cnet from South America, though I may have missed this.

 

Does anyone have any data regarding how many concertina players there are in each country? I would imagine on a per capita basis that Great Britain and Ireland have the largest numbers. I would also imagine that Germany and Russia would have a relatively large absolute number of concertinists. Any ideas about how many there might be in the US, Canada, South Africa, Italy, Japan, Spain, France, Sweden, etc? My guess for the USA would be that concertina players might number somewhere in the range of only 1000-2000. Too high? Too low? Any thoughts or data on this?

 

Just idlly curious about this. But I think it would be kind of interesting to know which countries have the greatest absolute number of players, the greatest number per capita, and whether more chose English or Anglo instruments as their chief instrument. Anybody ever see any statistics regarding these numbers? If no statistics, what are your impressions regarding numbers of players in your country? Thanks.

[Peter Brook]

It's a really interesting question but I don't think there is a straight answer.

 

In England there are approaching 100 players of English, Anglo and Duet systems that meet each September at Witney in Oxfordshire (in the heartland of "Cotswold" Morris). My very rough estimate would be that this is probably less than 1% of active players in England. So somewhere approaching 10,000? (what do others think? am I wildly over optimistic!) [We have over 40 morris sides in Kent with a population of about 2.2 million people]

 

I base this on some (very) rough approximation of the number of other players I know or have seen playing within 30 miles of me. The majority seem to play English of various types, the next biggest contingent are anglo players, although I know of at least one chap who plays Duet for Morris. Off the top of my head I could probably name (or bring to mind) 25 to 30 active players that I have met within the last 2 years. I live in a rural part of England so would expect there to be more players in large cities. I have only seen 2 of these players at Witney. When I first started playing I didn't think there were any players nearby but the longer I play the more I meet other players.

 

Anyway I can't offer a scientific answer - the ICA may release the number of members but I don't know if that would be classified information and/or how representative ICA membership is of the wider concertina community.

[Ken_Coles]

We tried to figure this out a few years ago and came to no conclusion. (Another question someone asked back then was wanting to inventory every single antique concertina in the world. Good luck with that one!) In the mid 1990s my guess based on travels all over the U.S. was that there were hundreds of serious, primary players (all systems summed), and perhaps ten times as many dabblers (guitarists who do a few tunes in public on anglo, etc.). This was based on the small cohort at concertina workshops, and knowing of (I believe) every single serious player who wasn't a complete hermit in the state of Indiana circa 1997 - fewer than a dozen, in a state with about 1/50 of the U.S. population.

 

I'll bet the number is considerably bigger now. Instead of maybe 20 total alums of Noel Hill school, there are now hundreds - I will never meet them all. Stagi sells a lot of concertinas each year - maybe Rich Morse can guess at this number - and some of them must lead to serious playing. Rich also knows how many are on the BBox mailing list - another indicator, but he may not wish to share that! The prices of antiques remind me of 1930s guitars by Martin and Gibson in the 1950s and 1960s (post Weavers and Kingston Trio) - once all the old ones were gone, new makers appeared, and we are seeing this now in concertinas. I wouldn't be surprised if we had 5 to 10 times the number of players in the U.S. compared to 15 years ago. If there is ever a Riverdance or Titanic that features the concertina, watch out! The result will make today's Jeffries/Wheatstone market seem tame and moderately priced!

 

For a figure circa 1985, you could ask Geo Salley how many people took Concertina and Squeezebox magazine back then.

[John Wild]

Anyway I can't offer a scientific answer - the ICA may release the number of members but I don't know if that would be classified information and/or how representative ICA membership is of the wider concertina community.

 

I can no longer give an official answer, but as the recently retired treasurer of the ICA, I can say membership is in the region of 300. It has been higher and lower - there is always a fluctuation from year to year. There are many others out there, some of whom just are not 'joiners'.

 

- John Wild

[Flip Delport]

It has been two years now since I started gathering information about South African Anglo players and their instruments. I maintain a data base of all the Wheatstone Anglos and their owners. At the moment I have 197 players on my list and I believe there are many more. There are more than 400 concertinas on my list.

 

Flip Delport

[dwinterfield]

Being a beginner, I don't know a single one. From an analytic point of view, another way to think of this would be through sales of concertinas. The number of beginner model sales (Italian, Chinese etc) would provide one number. I suspect the number of quality concertinas (both types of reeds) manufactured and sold each year is available as the quality makers are pretty well known. Then there's the resale market for all types - e-bay is a good source and there are several re-sellers of quality instruments.

 

One restorer suggested to me that the demand for top of the line instruments is perhaps a few hundred a year.

 

Peter Laban referred on another thread to thousands (?) of Irish school kids being introduced to the instrument.

 

When I think about all this, it suggests to me that there are tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of people around the world who have at least picked out a simple tune on a concertina at some point in their lives. I'd also guess the number of peole who have played for more than a year is a tiny fraction of that, perhaps a few thousand.

[Richard Morse]

When I think about all this, it suggests to me that there are tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of people around the world who have at least picked out a simple tune on a concertina at some point in their lives. I'd also guess the number of peole who have played for more than a year is a tiny fraction of that, perhaps a few thousand.

The Button Box alone has sold almost 2000 concertinas including 347 of ours (not inluding the presale numbers of our waiting list customers). Mind that a fair chunk of those sales were to players trading up, and a few were sales of low-end boxes as gifts (which may not have "taken"). There were also several hundred sales of concertina method and tutor books/videos to custombers who haven't bought a concertina from us.

 

But I can't help but think that we're small potatoes compared to a company like Castiglione (though they sell predominantly Stagi concertinas).

[greenferry]

Anybody ever see any statistics regarding these numbers?

 

 

One thing that comes to mind when considering the statistics is that the absolute number of concertinas that exist is not equal to the absolute number of players -- how many players own more than one concertina? It seems that many of the people on these posts own two or more, and some own legendary numbers. Perhaps it evens out with the number of people who own them, but don't play.

[Robin Madge]

I think that the number of concertinas per player is likely to be similar to that mythical average family number of kids, about 2.4!

Just basing this on the players in my area. There are quite a few with just one, and only a few of us with more that three each.

 

Robin Madge

[Guest Peter Laban]

Peter Laban referred on another thread to thousands (?) of Irish school kids being introduced to the instrument.

 

Maybe to illustrate above point: I am just back from a cocnert organised by whislteplayer Brid O Donohue. Once a year Brid organises a concert of her whistle pupils. Many start at a young age at the whistle but branch out into flute, fiddles, pipes and concertina. Here sis a small section of a 'band' which grew out of the 'Ceol na nOg' session that Brid organises for teenagers, all players in this group are between 14 and 18 and they played lovely.

All in all there played 125 or so children in the concert and I saw at least 15 concertinas while there were several children present who do play the concertina but didn't in the concert. This in a rural town of pop. 1500 in the West of Ireland.

 

 

Edited December 4, 2005 by Peter Laban

[Daniel Hersh]

Here's some similar info from Wim Wakker, from an e-mail exchange that started on a different topic (I have his permission to quote here):

 

"I know that in some parts of the world anglos are the most popular... In fact, 90% of our own production (concertinas with traditional "real" concertinas reeds) are anglos for Ireland.. However, the rest of the world seems to prefer english. We've sold about 500 jackies the last 2 years. They go all over the world, from Japan to Australia, Korea, Finland, Russia etc.. Most of these players have no interest in the Irish music. They play their own stuff, ranging from local music to classical and pop music."

 

Daniel

 

When I think about all this, it suggests to me that there are tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of people around the world who have at least picked out a simple tune on a concertina at some point in their lives. I'd also guess the number of peole who have played for more than a year is a tiny fraction of that, perhaps a few thousand.

The Button Box alone has sold almost 2000 concertinas including 347 of ours (not inluding the presale numbers of our waiting list customers). Mind that a fair chunk of those sales were to players trading up, and a few were sales of low-end boxes as gifts (which may not have "taken"). There were also several hundred sales of concertina method and tutor books/videos to custombers who haven't bought a concertina from us.

 

But I can't help but think that we're small potatoes compared to a company like Castiglione (though they sell predominantly Stagi concertinas).

[Guest]

Here's some similar info from Wim Wakker, from an e-mail exchange that started on a different topic (I have his permission to quote here):

 

"I know that in some parts of the world anglos are the most popular... In fact, 90% of our own production (concertinas with traditional "real" concertinas reeds) are anglos for Ireland.. However, the rest of the world seems to prefer english. We've sold about 500 jackies the last 2 years. They go all over the world, from Japan to Australia, Korea, Finland, Russia etc.. Most of these players have no interest in the Irish music. They play their own stuff, ranging from local music to classical and pop music."

There are plenty of Anglo as well as English players on the yahoo Australian concertia players mailing list, many of whom play Irish music, so I think the comment on "the rest of the world" is a little general

 

Cheers

Morgana

[Cream-T]

(...) I am just back from a cocnert (...)

 

Now, those two concertina girls on the left in your picture, don't they just look like they're really enjoying it?

[JimLucas]

I am just back from a concert...

Now, those two concertina girls on the left in your picture, don't they just look like they're really enjoying it?

Looks to me like they're wishing the piper would get done, already, and let them play some music!

[geoffwright]

A more interesting question (from the viewpoint of anyone still looking for a box), would be, are there still more non-players owning a concertina (in attics etc) in the world than players?.

 

I suspect there are. When there are more players than owner/non-players, that is when we start to worry.

[JimLucas]

When there are more players than owner/non-players, that is when we start to worry.

Definitely!

When there are that many concertina players, playing our beloved instrument will certainly have become just another fad.

[ucyljad]

There are at least 25 Maccann Duet players worldwide, and probably less than 50 in total.

 

I'd guess you could count the Jeffries Duet players on your fingers.

 

How about Crane players anyone?

 

 

 

Andy

[JimLucas]

There are at least 25 Maccann Duet players worldwide, and probably less than 50 in total.

I think you're way off. Among ICA members alone, John Wild reports 20 listed as Maccann players and another 15 listed as duet of unspecified type, which most likely means Maccann, since the Wheatstone company always called that system just "duet", while identifying the Crane/Triumph by name.

 

Meanwhile, I just quickly counted the Maccann duet players I know personally and came to 11, sure I'm still missing some. Of those, I doubt that half are ICA members. Add myself, though I'm still fairly novice on the Maccann. Then there are all those I've seen at Witney and the Northeast Squeeze In but don't really know, and however many C.net members that play Maccann but aren't in any of those other groups.... And I know there are also duet players (both Maccann and Crane) among the South African concertina players.

 

And from how and where I've met the ones I know, I'm sure that for every one we could account for among the above groups there must be at least another -- and I suspect more like five others -- that are out there somewhere not interacting with us.

 

I'd guess you could count the Jeffries Duet players on your fingers.

How about Crane players anyone?

A similar case could be made for both Crane and Jeffries duet players. Just consider all the duets that have sold on eBay over the past couple of years. To count Jeffries players you should need at least the normal complement of fingers and toes.

 

Crane players? I quickly count 8 that I've met, plus myself. Again, I'm sure I've forgotten some, and I haven't count most of those I've seen at Witney and the NESI. And I know two others who have played some Crane, but currently don't have such instruments to play. Among the C.net Craniacs, I've so far counted only myself and Jamie B., so add in a few more. Ditto for ICA members. I'm pretty sure that at most three of those I've counted are ICA members. Once those are added up, multiply by a significant factor for those we don't know about.

 

I think the only duet group we might begin to get a count of would be the Hayden players, since the system is so recent and so few instruments have been made. But even there we could be way off if we don't know how many of the Stagi Haydens have been sold.