The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #25119   Message #293862
Posted By: GUEST,Alex
08-Sep-00 - 11:04 PM
Thread Name: CONCERTINA Advice Solicited
Subject: RE: CONCERTINA Advice Solicited
I play a Bastari English and wish I could afford a Wheatstone. The English system makes for a more fluid style of playing as you are not constantly jerking the bellows out and in. You also don't run out of air as Anglos tend to do (then you have to hit the air button with a rather unmusical "Whoosh!"). Once you get used to it the arrangement of buttons is not hard to get used to. The natural notes are all in the middle two rows (of four rows) and alternate. Staring with C on the left hand, D is on the right, E is on the left, F on the right and so on. The outer two rows on each side are the sharps and flats. Being chromatic, you have all the keys (although some are a bugger to play) C is the easiest (all on the middle two rows), then G, D etc (The more sharps and flats the more you are of the middle rows). Chording is easy as amost any two ajacent buttons (in a lot of cases three) on the middle rows of one side will give you a chord. Also, Uncle Jaque, Germans and Italians sometimes call button-key type accordions "Concertinas" they are big and square, not the six-sided instrument you are looking for.