Dick,
1) Concerning articulation
Recall your message above 10/2 10:17 using the terms "finger/bellows emphasis" and my reply 18/2 3:22 speaking of "finger/bellows articulation". You did not confirm if we may use the terms synonymously or not.
Now you say:

"no, articulation is also controlled by the fingers, its called finger attack"..

- I am not picking on it, just want to make understanding easier...do you mean the same by "finger emphasis" and "finger attack" or do you mean different things? What in such case?
For my part I rather would not like ( in spite of the Hugo Herrmann terminology) to say *articulation* at all about the *way the initiation of the sound is executed* - by pressing the button after activating the bellows (= finger articulation) or by activating the bellows after the button is pressed (= bellows articulation). I would prefer calling all this simply *initiation (of the tone)* instead since that is what it physically IS."Articulation" is used in general musicology for so many entirely different things and related to entirely different conditions depending on what instrument (including the voice) we are talking about that only confusion will be the result if not sorting it out.

- Of course I was a bit drastic (and intentionally provocative) when I said that the bellows work decides all "articulation" so I better say 'nearly' all now to be more correct.What you *can* do with your finger ( while performing "finger articulation") is of course to regulate the speed of your finger movement and thus the abruptness of tone onset along the line of staccatto-legato. (Is this what you mean by "finger-attack"?). It IS also possible to "bend" the note for instance by special type of onset as well.


"tone of the concertina is dependant upon the maker[what metal steel or brass and this varies depending on the reed maker and or what kind of ends you have metal or wood ]and to a lesser extent what kind of wood has been used for the sound board,the tone can also be altered by baffles."

- I can agree about all that - some old but always interesting topics for a number of new "threads"....:-)

"I wonder what a teacher of the alexander method[posture related ] would say ."

- Possibly many things but I firstly wonder *what* aspect of our "bellowsing matter" you expect being treated or commented upon by "the Alexander method"? Like many other physiotherapeutic methods we have to face two *very* different aspects of such "schools" 1) the scientific results reported from controlled studies on treatmen of various specific health problems 2) the ideological or lifestyle non-scientific applications that often spread in the back-lash causing popular "movements" and a lot of confusion among the general public

Goran