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It's here and question about hand straps


frw

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Well, my concertina finally arrived 2 hours ago and I have had it in my hands non-stop. I am happy and excited. Quick question for the group. How tight do you make the hand straps.

 

By the way, our dog hates it. He has been whining with every sound that has come out of the concertina, but at least he doesn't try and go away. Just lays there. :blink:

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Well, my concertina finally arrived 2 hours ago and I have had it in my hands non-stop. I am happy and excited. Quick question for the group. How tight do you make the hand straps.

 

By the way, our dog hates it. He has been whining with every sound that has come out of the concertina, but at least he doesn't try and go away. Just lays there. :blink:

 

 

The dog has stopped whining, but is now laying down on the other side of the room. Poor guy! :unsure:

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Well, my concertina finally arrived 2 hours ago and I have had it in my hands non-stop. I am happy and excited. Quick question for the group. How tight do you make the hand straps.

 

By the way, our dog hates it. He has been whining with every sound that has come out of the concertina, but at least he doesn't try and go away. Just lays there. :blink:

 

Sounds good... What did you get?

 

Dave

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Well, my concertina finally arrived 2 hours ago and I have had it in my hands non-stop. I am happy and excited. Quick question for the group. How tight do you make the hand straps.

 

By the way, our dog hates it. He has been whining with every sound that has come out of the concertina, but at least he doesn't try and go away. Just lays there. :blink:

 

Sounds good... What did you get?

 

Dave

Just read your last topic... A Edgley C/G... Must be great... have fun!

 

Dave

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To answer your original question about hand straps:

 

There's an awful lot of discussion about this, just search the forum. You need the straps to be tight enough to have a proper grip on the instrument, but not so tight that they prevent your fingers from reaching all the buttons. For some fingerings (especially chords) you may need to change the position of the hand, and tight straps may restrict this. Too tight may also hurt your hands and give you sore tendons.

 

It also depends to an extent on the style of music you want to play. If you play with a lot of fast bellows reversals you need full control over the bellows, and may need tighter straps. If you play a more legato style then this is perhaps less important, but you may need more freedom for your hands to reach the alternative fingerings.

 

It's often a compromise between a firm grip on the instrument and freedom of movement. The size of your hands is obviously a major consideration.

 

You need to experiment until you find something you're comfortable with. Many players tend to start off with the straps fairly tight and then loosen them as they become more experienced.

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Well, my concertina finally arrived 2 hours ago and I have had it in my hands non-stop. I am happy and excited. Quick question for the group. How tight do you make the hand straps.

 

By the way, our dog hates it. He has been whining with every sound that has come out of the concertina, but at least he doesn't try and go away. Just lays there. :blink:

 

Not unusual for a dog to object to the sound of free reed instruments. I reckon that the sound may well be actually physically painful to their very sensitive hearing. Not all dogs are affected. If you love your dog half as much as I love mine you MUST find somehere to practice/play out of immediate earshot of the dog. Do not make the mistake of thinking that he is entering into the spirit of it all by singing along with you.

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Well, my concertina finally arrived 2 hours ago and I have had it in my hands non-stop. I am happy and excited. Quick question for the group. How tight do you make the hand straps.

 

By the way, our dog hates it. He has been whining with every sound that has come out of the concertina, but at least he doesn't try and go away. Just lays there. :blink:

 

Hand Straps ? A matter of trial and error. Everything I have ever achieved on my Anglo has been a matter of trial and error !

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Well, my concertina finally arrived 2 hours ago and I have had it in my hands non-stop. I am happy and excited. Quick question for the group. How tight do you make the hand straps.

 

By the way, our dog hates it. He has been whining with every sound that has come out of the concertina, but at least he doesn't try and go away. Just lays there. :blink:

 

Sounds good... What did you get?

 

Dave

 

 

I have an Edgley C/G Performers Model. It is absolutely beautiful.

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I hesitate to put this up here since I haven't had a chance to get to the patent office yet, but why not try my newest invention, fore arm straps?

straps.jpg

Of course it takes 2 people to get them on and off but you'd have complete control of the concertina... and anyone wearing them. :P

I thought of these during my last stay at the county lock-up. :ph34r:

Edited by drbones
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QUOTE (frw @ Aug 5 2009, 01:40 AM) *

Well, my concertina finally arrived 2 hours ago and I have had it in my hands non-stop. I am happy and excited. Quick question for the group. How tight do you make the hand straps.

 

By the way, our dog hates it. He has been whining with every sound that has come out of the concertina, but at least he doesn't try and go away. Just lays there. blink.gif

 

 

Not unusual for a dog to object to the sound of free reed instruments. I reckon that the sound may well be actually physically painful to their very sensitive hearing. Not all dogs are affected. If you love your dog half as much as I love mine you MUST find somehere to practice/play out of immediate earshot of the dog. Do not make the mistake of thinking that he is entering into the spirit of it all by singing along with you.

 

Not so- the sound does not hurt the dog at all. Nor does the dog hate it or object to the sound. This is a common misconception. The dog is answering the concertina. If it were painful the dog would move away. The whole business is probably more of a nuisance to the human. My pal, who is a vet, told me that "it's an instinctive pack behaviour. In the wild the alpha wolves will howl to assemble the pack for hunting. Howling, or calling, also lets the wolves keep in touch with other pack members. If the pack leader does anything that sounds like a howl the other animals will vocalize too. Pack members vocalize in different ways. Some dogs will even start to howl when they hear a police siren - they take it as a pack member at a distance and start to vocalize too."

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the solution is to do whatever works for you but always try out different tightness for the straps, and don't do it based on what we say here. i find that in life it is often necessary to do something that is considered wrong in order to learn, not because we learn from mistakes, but often times "improper" technique has essential lessons to teach us that we cannot learn anywhere else. or, in other words, i believe in doing something because it makes sense to you and because you have found the need to do it, not because you feel that someone else thinks you need to do it. i also believe that what you need to do and what is right for you to do changes with time, and that what will be right for you tomorrow or in 10 years may be WRONG for you today. just like it may be right for you to buy a house when you are 25, but it would be wrong for you to buy one when you were 15. so, the end is not the same as the means (though the end CAN justify the means, :P).

 

the best part of taking into mind what people suggest but ONLY doing it when it makes sense for your playing is that you can learn things along the way that a teacher can never teach. i can't tell you how much i would never have learned if i had listened to good advice blindly. this may sound contradictory, but i think it is essential to learning. smile and nod now, understand later.

 

To answer your original question about hand straps:

 

There's an awful lot of discussion about this, just search the forum. You need the straps to be tight enough to have a proper grip on the instrument, but not so tight that they prevent your fingers from reaching all the buttons. For some fingerings (especially chords) you may need to change the position of the hand, and tight straps may restrict this. Too tight may also hurt your hands and give you sore tendons.

 

It also depends to an extent on the style of music you want to play. If you play with a lot of fast bellows reversals you need full control over the bellows, and may need tighter straps. If you play a more legato style then this is perhaps less important, but you may need more freedom for your hands to reach the alternative fingerings.

 

It's often a compromise between a firm grip on the instrument and freedom of movement. The size of your hands is obviously a major consideration.

 

You need to experiment until you find something you're comfortable with. Many players tend to start off with the straps fairly tight and then loosen them as they become more experienced.

 

i agree mostly, but disagree that legato playing takes looser straps, and think that experienced players loosen their straps. i have usually found beginners have the loosest straps. what "loose" means and what "tight" means, however, is beyond the scope of this discussion, and i agree fully that it can be a tradeoff between all things you mention.

 

control of tone comes from controlling the bellows, and it is hard to do so with loose straps. i played several concertinas for an extended period of time just this week which could not be adjusted to fit my hands. yes, i could play them fine, up to speed, and with all the usual stuff i would normally put into my music. however, it came at expense of subtlety and control, which thus affects the quality of the music, as music is more than the sum of it's melodic, ornamental, and chordal aspects.

 

i also disagree that more advanced players play with loose straps. there are very advanced ways of controlling the bellows, which involve putting pressure into the instrument in different ways to supplement the "in and out" of bellows direction. there are many ways of doing this. brian peters pushes against the palm of his hand with the corner, and noel hill often puts a downward pressure on the bellows instead. i do not know how others approach this need for extra pressure, as i have never spent much time looking at another player's bellows up close or asked them how they control the bellows. however, both these methods accomplish the same thing: that of stabilizing the instrument and increasing control over backpressure without compromising the integrity of the pads and valves.

 

i find it difficult to imagine any efficient method of accomplishing these two things that would involve loosening the straps, as secondary bellows pressure involves increasing the number of points where you would input energy into the concertina; loosening the straps decreases the reliability of the primary contact points on the instrument, and makes it harder to use others to input energy. if you had loose straps, you could not push the instrument into the heel of your palm as it would create too obtuse an angle and could cause tendon damage in the long term. likewise, as i often create more control over backpressure and increase stability by putting downward pressure on the bellows, i cannot do this efficiently with loose straps. with loose straps, i cannot push down on the bottom of the strap (towards my lap), because my hand is lifted up by the force of holding the straps tight with my thumb. this changes the secondary energy input (different from the primary inputs of palm rest and back of strap for in and out) from the whole hand against the bottom of the strap, to just my thumb on the TOP of the strap. it makes no sense to put downward pressure by pushing ONLY on the top of the strap.

 

of course, this all precludes that bellows control is more than just pushing in and out. this goes back into what i said earlier: if you don't think that there is anything more to playing press and draw notes than just pushing in and out, then don't listen to me! if i'm right, then it might not do anything for you now other than confusing you, and if i'm wrong, you're saving yourself a lot of grief.

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I hesitate to put this up here since I haven't had a chance to get to the patent office yet, but why not try my newest invention, fore arm straps?

straps.jpg

Of course it takes 2 people to get them on and off but you'd have complete control fo the concertina... and anyone wearing them. :P

I thought of these during my last stay at the county lock-up. :ph34r:

 

where can i order my pair?

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I hesitate to put this up here since I haven't had a chance to get to the patent office yet, but why not try my newest invention, fore arm straps?

straps.jpg

Of course it takes 2 people to get them on and off but you'd have complete control fo the concertina... and anyone wearing them. :P

I thought of these during my last stay at the county lock-up. :ph34r:

 

Is that some sort of prisoner restraint?

 

I've thought about the cuff used with the blood pressure devices where you

used a squeeze bulb to inflate it to tighten the hand connection, and a valve release

next to the thumbs.

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In reply to David, I agree that loose straps can result in a loss of bellows control. What perhaps I should have said is "less tight".

 

I don't know whether this applies to Irish-style playing, but English-style (well, my style anyway) often calls for the pinky and ring fingers on both hands, across all three rows. I'm also playing chords, often with both hands, which require me to place several fingers in sometimes awkward positions. Finally, my 40-button has a couple of extra buttons inside the G row which I find tricky to reach from the home position. I therefore find it helpful to have sufficient slack in the straps to be able to move the hand slightly, when necessary. However, it is very much a question of finding the right balance between facilitating fingering and control over the bellows. Ultimately, it's what suits the individual, their instrument and their style of playing.

 

I am writing specifically about my own experience on my own instruments, but I have observed that a number of other players take a similar approach.

 

I am interested that your experience of beginners is different from mine - you say they generally have the straps too loose, my observation is usually the opposite. I wonder whether this may be due to differences between Irish and English styles, although I'm not sure why it should be.

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