G'day Rowan,

Mike's comment" "... the reason he'd been able to get into the concer so quickly was that he'd played mouth organs for years and had easily transferred playing them to diatonic button accordions, which used the same system as that concertina..." is the heart of how youngsters traditionally learned tunes - then how to play the accordion or concertina. Most kids, in earlier days in Australia, got their hands (lips...?) onto a cheap mouthorgan and learned the 'local set' of tunes.

By the time Mum or Dad let them touch the family button accordion or (Anglo-) concertina, they had already mastered the a good number of tunes ... and only had to learn to transfer all this knowledge into hands and bellows. Many went on to be able to play for local dances on simple one (or -two) row squeezeboxes.

Regards,

Bob