As someone who does play Irish music on an English concertina this has set me off thinking about what I actually do! Clearly in order to play Irish successfully on the English you have to be much more dynamic with bellows movement than it recommends in the English Concertina tutors and I have consciously developed a style where I change bellows direction pretty frequently. But where and how often? So that means I have to play while watching the bellows. Ok...

So I reckon I change direction at least with every phrase, and depending on the tune that can be more or less often. Any kind of emphasis note needs to be on a change of direction as well. When I'm playing in a session I tend to move the bellows even more often because in playin gloud you need more air.

Watching Goran, that seems to me to be what he is doing. Apparently I do "fan the bellows" a lot of the time as well - though without the aid of a strap but I can see that it might assist if you have a lot of air in the concertina. Mine are standard 6-fold Lachenal trebles and I like them a bit leaky because then you have to move them faster!

There are times when the natural "long breath" of an English is handy, especially when accompanying songs or playing chords so I would not choose the restriction of the strap but I can see it would be useful to people trying to play more rhythmically. And I'd apply this to any players of any kind of (dance) music on the English concertina - moving the bellows a lot improves the rhythmicness of any kind of music and there are a lot of English players who in using all the air they have, play in a very stodgy manner!

Interesting

Helen