The Trouble With Anglo Concertina Availability

[Missing Song]

Guilty of thread drift!

 

Maybe this topic should be retitled "The Trouble With Conker Availability" as it looks to be a problem the other side of "the pond".

 

Regards,

Peter.

 

 

Let them use coconuts

 

Dave

 

Would they be wheastone variety or just your run-of-the-mill stagi nuts?

[CaryK]

 

 

 

Hi Gary,

 

This is a traditional schoolyard game.....taken very seriously by children and adults alike.

 

The conker is the hard nut from the Horse Chestnut tree and is perhaps a little smaller than a walnut.. It is drilled and threaded...traditionally onto one of your bootlaces, and while one player dangles his conker...it must be kept still, ...his opponent swings his own conker on it's string attempting to strike the other's.

All sorts of local variations to the rules .... most of which cause playground punch-ups from time to time.

 

A great game for broken fingers and busted knuckles

 

Now imagine 80 odd overgrown kids attempting this game after umpteen pints of ale and whiskey chasers.....as I said.... Mayhem and mirth

 

 

In the midwest what call horse chestnuts "buckeyes." Collected them as a kid, polished them up and made "jewelry" of sorts out of them. Also threw them at teach other, but never knew they had another use. Thanks for the info.

see here for more http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/conkers.html

 

Dave

 

Quite how this thread drifted here I know not... but who cares ?

[Clive Thorne]

Is this actually thread drift? I habitually refer to my concertina as my 'Conker' (as in 'Darling, where have you put my conker?) so it seems a natural progression.

 

I do have a question however: When playing conkers, should I thread the string through the bellows from side to side, i.e. drilling the holes in the folds of the bellows, so that the ends hang loose? Or should I drill through the middle of the ends and thus thread the string along the length of the bellows and out the other end?

 

Clive.

[Paul Read]

Is this actually thread drift? I habitually refer to my concertina as my 'Conker' (as in 'Darling, where have you put my conker?) so it seems a natural progression.

 

I do have a question however: When playing conkers, should I thread the string through the bellows from side to side, i.e. drilling the holes in the folds of the bellows, so that the ends hang loose? Or should I drill through the middle of the ends and thus thread the string along the length of the bellows and out the other end?

 

Clive.

 

I wonder if the weaker conker players should stick with the Wheatstones and Jeffries and let the really good players have the Stagis?

[Missing Song]

I wonder if the weaker conker players should stick with the Wheatstones and Jeffries and let the really good players have the Stagis?

 

Not that old (horse) chestnut again...

[ceemonster]

well, i just caught up with this thread for the first time. i can't believe it....a sixteen-page controversy thread on concertina.net.

 

but i really don't get some of the wacky assumptions made by the original poster, among them:

 

a) people in concertina classes are beginner/intermediate players who will never be any better and should not own high-quality concertinas----um......? sir, you are completely unqualified to make that call. i myself loathe group classes, but have managed to tolerate several rounds of them, and will probably do a few more, because they are the only way i can log some time around "authentic" irish masters of the tradition i wish to follow, and one does need SOME exposure to the actual presence of such role models. you can go a long way with records, but you have to have some up-close-and-personal exposure. i do the classes not so much for anything they tell you (that is variable in helpfulness)...but to be there up close in that room, watching and listening while that person plays. and while there are indeed folks in those classes who don't seem to be progressing, i have seen some extremely impressive instances of the opposite phenomenon----people who came to this music and this instrument as adults and with a few years of hard work have become lovely players, with even more progress yet to come. which brings me to the next wacky assumption:

 

the statement that one must start as a small child and train rigorously for life to be a good concertina player. i think you must mean, classical symphony virtuoso. this is folk music. and a bright, motivated adult who isn't totally devoid of musical ability can become a lovely traditional player in several years of devoted practice. i would refer you to the liner notes for the recent release by martin o'brien of east clare, who has apparently been playing for about 5 or so years and has a lovely relaxed sound in the mary macnamara style. the liner notes to the cd, by eoin o'neill of ennis, detail how delighted everyone was at how quickly he became a good player and how cool it was to see his devotion and passion for this music. he also notes that mr. o'brien assiduously attended festivals and workshop classes. it's lucky he didn't run into you---perhaps we wouldn't have this gorgeous cd today if he'd gotten a load of your prejudiced and ignorant views....

 

 

i'd agree that not everyone puts in those several years of devoted practice needed to become a good folk player. but blanket statements about entire classes of people are lunkheaded. they almost sound like the blinkered bias you often get from individuals with classical training.

 

 

agreed, it's somehow karmically off-kilter that nice instruments sit unplayed while players of potential must scramble to get nice instruments, but such has always been true. this is true of violins, grand pianos and guitars no less than concertinas. during the era of wheatstone and jeffries production, they were available to any bozo or drawing room dilettante who wanted one and could afford to buy it. and when they fell out of favor, they sat in molding attics or were used as bowling balls or thrown out with the trash. it is true about all instruments. it is as true of young learners as of adult learners. and it is as true in ireland as in the usa or japan.

 

 

people can shed as many crocodile tears as they like about where the precious jeffries belong, but the bottom line is that it's not because of hoarders that there won't be enough jeffries for the legions of little tykes who supposedly are so deserving of them. it is because the supply of fine vintage instruments is limited, partly because plenty of folks in their isles of origin let them rot in attics and rubbish heaps while they were out of fashion, but partly because, hey, they're old, there were only so many of them, and "things fall apart." any student who wants a fast, good concertina can acquire a hybrid and then get on the list for a new concertina-reeded box, and the quandary of kids who can't afford them is no different from that of children who deserve or don't have the money for any number of instruments---cellos, saxophones, fine violins, grand pianos, and more. it's a quandary that deserves to be addressed, through cultural funding, philanthropy and even innovations in concertina-making, but it is no different from that faced with any other instrument in any other culture or musical form that features fine instruments. perhaps you would like to be the founder of a concertina fund for deserving young learners.

[ScottC]

What a hoot! I routinely see the same rant on violin and mandolin boards, except there the $8000 that's being lamented for a Jeffries is just a small downpayment on a decent hand-made instrument.

 

How about Lloyd Loar mandolins, $100K and up, and a good number of them are locked in humidity controlled cabinets by collectors and are NEVER played.

[Mikefule]

How nice to find an ongoing debate that will never be resolved without disappointing all of the participants. There is one in every forum.

 

Here's a view as a complete beginner on concertina, but with a 25 year background on the fringes of folk music, and 20+ years as a Morris dancer and musician.

 

From the outside, concertinists are often seen as the musical equivalent of trainspotters or ornithologists, obsessed with the history and technical detail of their instruments. It is a little bit elitist and a little bit of a barrier to taking up the instrument. I've been doing some reading up on the internet, and the balance of advice could easily be interpreted as "If you can't spend the price of a small car on a genuine old instrument, don't even think about it." No beginning violinist is told, "Get a Strad or don't bother."

 

Something genuinely unique about concertinas is that most modern ones are not built to the same standard as the older ones. Therefore, there is a market for genuine old ones which are preferred by good players. If the limited supply falls into the hands of collectors and hobbyists, there will be fewer instruments fro the "real players". Objecting to that sort of makes sense.

 

There is a similar debate amongst enthusiasts for old motorcycles. If there are only a few hundred (or a few dozen) of a particular model left, does each owner have a responsibility to "the community" to preserve his machine? or ride it? or keep it "authentic"? The same with scooterists (is it sacrilege to "chop" a vintage Lambretta?) and vintage car owners.

 

In the world of art, paintings are often bought as investments and hidden from view. What good is a painting you can't see? But if you put it on display, will it fade, or get damaged? Should great painings be in galleries than provate collections? And so on.

 

Surely, though, there is no fundamental reason why it is impossible to make a concertina as good as an old one? There are specialist craftsmen making brand new ones. The supply is limited, and the prices are correspondingly high. That's basic economics.

 

So when the price gets high enough, won't that make something happen to increase the supply of good new instruments? More manufacturers should come into the market; the big musical instrument manufacturers might bring out a range of good quality instruments at a sensible price.

 

If this happens, then the shortage of vintage instruments will be less important tot hose who need them for purely musical reasons. Then the vintage instrument market becomes just another collectors' market, and the good players can have as many excellent new instruments as they need.

 

Maybe that's simplistic, but as there is nothing any of you/us can do to prevent the market forces that are pushing prices up and restrictng the supply, perhaps all you/we can do is rely on those same market forces to operate in the normal way and redress the balance.

 

All that from someone who doesn't own a concertina, and can just about play a scale of G on an English. Never let ignorance get in the way of a good opinion, that's my motto.

[Phantom Button]

If this happens, then the shortage of vintage instruments will be less important tot hose who need them for purely musical reasons. Then the vintage instrument market becomes just another collectors' market, and the good players can have as many excellent new instruments as they need.

I think there's more to the vintage instruments than just their age. My understanding, (possibly flawed,) is that it has more to do with the reeds. Many newly made concertinas are of combatable quality with the vintage models in as far as their basic construction. The difference is in the metal used to make the reeds. The vintage models were made at a time when the technology of the day was steam or spring driven. There are certain metals that were specifically manufactured for characteristics that are no longer necessary and as a result have become obsolete now due to the conversion to combustion and electronic driven technology. The concertina makers of yore had metal to choose from that simply isn't available today. It’s the qualities in the metal rather than the pedigree of the concertina that make the sound of the vintage instruments so desirable.

[Mikefule]

It may be that the metals are no longer available, but sufficient demand could make them available. Look at the specialist alloys that are made for other leisure activities - titanium bolts for bicycles and so on. I assume that these 100 year old instruments need their reeds replacing from time to time. Is there simply a dwindling supply of "original" reeds? When I was in a motorcycle club speciallising in older machines, they used to get limited runs of special components made, for example.

 

If concertinas had had "modern" accordeon reeds from day 1, would they have been any less popular or versatile? The sound would have been different, of course. The sound of violins has changed with the introduction of metal strings instead of gut, and so on.

 

Either way, I can sympathise with the frustration of a "real musician" who sees a rare box not being "properly used" by a "mere hobbyist".

 

Can the "real musicians" equally sympathise with the mere hobbyists who gain equal pleasure from the instruments in a different way? It's not going to change, because market forces are beyond the control of a small group of enthusiasts. Perhaps it's better to harness those same forces to make it possible for new instruments and new reeds to become available.

[Phantom Button]

It may be that the metals are no longer available, but sufficient demand could make them available. Look at the specialist alloys that are made for other leisure activities - titanium bolts for bicycles and so on. I assume that these 100 year old instruments need their reeds replacing from time to time. Is there simply a dwindling supply of "original" reeds? When I was in a motorcycle club speciallising in older machines, they used to get limited runs of special components made, for example.

I can't remember who told me this (it was a long time ago) but apparently there was a certain spring manufactured for a completely different purpose that is long since become obsolete. This particular metal had characteristics like no other and was highly sought after by concertina builders such as Wheatstone and Jefferies. The problem is -- there was a limited supply. I heard that someone found a stash of it, Dipper maybe, but I'm stretching my memory as it is. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than myself could elucidate and let us know if there’s any truth to this.

Edited December 3, 2006 by The Phantom Button

[Woody]

I can't remember who told me this (it was a long time ago) but apparently there was a certain spring manufactured for a completely different purpose that is long since become obsolete....

I think somebody was winding you up!

[Phantom Button]

I can't remember who told me this (it was a long time ago) but apparently there was a certain spring manufactured for a completely different purpose that is long since become obsolete....

I think somebody was winding you up!

Ar ar ar...

[Paul Read]

"Something genuinely unique about concertinas is that most modern ones are not built to the same standard as the older ones. Therefore, there is a market for genuine old ones which are preferred by good players. If the limited supply falls into the hands of collectors and hobbyists, there will be fewer instruments fro the "real players". Objecting to that sort of makes sense."

 

I can think of at least three current makers whose instruments I would want as much as (if not more than) a Jeffries.

 

The best current makers are every bit as good as the old ones (for anglos anyway).

Edited December 4, 2006 by Paul Read

[Theo]

I can't remember who told me this (it was a long time ago) but apparently there was a certain spring manufactured for a completely different purpose that is long since become obsolete. This particular metal had characteristics like no other and was highly sought after

 

You can make just about anything from VW beetle suspension springs....

[Mikefule]

"Something genuinely unique about concertinas is that most modern ones are not built to the same standard as the older ones. Therefore, there is a market for genuine old ones which are preferred by good players. If the limited supply falls into the hands of collectors and hobbyists, there will be fewer instruments fro the "real players". Objecting to that sort of makes sense."

 

I said "most" and meant that in terms of numbers of individual instruments manufactured, not number of models available. Most instruments manufactured these days are the cheaper Chinese (etc.) ones. I am not qualified to comment on whether some modern instruments are as good as or better than older ones.

[Paul Read]

"Something genuinely unique about concertinas is that most modern ones are not built to the same standard as the older ones. Therefore, there is a market for genuine old ones which are preferred by good players. If the limited supply falls into the hands of collectors and hobbyists, there will be fewer instruments fro the "real players". Objecting to that sort of makes sense."

 

I said "most" and meant that in terms of numbers of individual instruments manufactured, not number of models available. Most instruments manufactured these days are the cheaper Chinese (etc.) ones. I am not qualified to comment on whether some modern instruments are as good as or better than older ones.

Hey Mike,

 

I think we both need practice with the system!

[Larry Stout]

It might well be that most of the old anglo concertinas were cheap German models---described in another post (which I don't remember how to find) as perhaps being used up in one night's heavy playing. When we think of the quality of vintage concertinas we are thinking of the quality of those that survived for a hundred years or so.

 

"Something genuinely unique about concertinas is that most modern ones are not built to the same standard as the older ones. Therefore, there is a market for genuine old ones which are preferred by good players. If the limited supply falls into the hands of collectors and hobbyists, there will be fewer instruments fro the "real players". Objecting to that sort of makes sense."

 

I said "most" and meant that in terms of numbers of individual instruments manufactured, not number of models available. Most instruments manufactured these days are the cheaper Chinese (etc.) ones. I am not qualified to comment on whether some modern instruments are as good as or better than older ones.