The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #163932   Message #3916654
Posted By: Andy7
11-Apr-18 - 05:47 PM
Thread Name: concertinas
Subject: concertinas
I've always been fascinated by concertinas. And recently, on a whim, I bought myself (with a bit of cash that unexpectedly came my way) a fairly cheap, but reasonably well-constructed, concertina. It has a lovely tone, and it's not too hard to play simple tunes on, after a bit of practice, as long as those tunes are in the keys of C or G!

Mine is an 'Anglo', which I naively assumed meant 'English', but is apparently short for 'Anglo-German', as opposed to an 'English' concertina.

With mine, I have to use fingers 1-4 on each hand, as well as using the thumb of the right hand to get breath back into the instrument silently. And each button produces 2 different notes, depending on whether the instrument is pushed or pulled.

The 'English' concertina apparently has more buttons on each side, and uses only fingers 1-3 to play them, the thumbs and little fingers of each hand being used to support the instrument. But ... and this does seem quite a big plus, for a beginner ... each key plays the same note, whether pushed or pulled.

Have I got all of those details right? And did I make the right choice, as a beginner, opting for an 'Anglo'?