I was walking past a music shop on my way home from work today, so I popped in and asked whether they had any books that might help me with learning to play the concertina. They didn’t, but I spotted this tucked away amongst the violin music.
I promise I didn’t only buy it for the beautiful artwork on the cover. (Just mostly.) It’s by Rima Staines, whose blog I follow and whose artwork I adore.
To be honest, I think this book was a bit of a rash and ambitious purchase. I’ve only been learning the concertina for a week, and here I’m looking at pieces in 11/16, in very peculiar keys, and with notes that may not even exist on the concertina. Talk about throwing yourself in at the deep end.
The book also comes with a CD, which I am currently transferring to my iPod so that I can listen to the tunes on my bus ride to work. Hopefully I’ll be able to sneak the music into my head, so that when it comes to getting it past my fingers and out through the concertina it’ll be a tiny bit easier than it looks on paper.
If you do gypsy music do you do gypsy dancing as well?
Lovely to stumble across this and to read that you stumbled across the book in a shop! I can highly recommend learning these wonderful tunes – a few of which I play on the B-System Accordion, learnt in my days of playing in Gundula’s London Gypsy Orchestra 🙂 (Gundula who wrote the book)..
Wishing you much enjoyment with it! I hope to get a concertina one day too…
Thanks for loving my painting!
All best wishes
Rima
Hello Claire,
It was inevitable that I would find your posting here, as I also am learning concertina, have been a big fan of Rima’s wonderful blog for years, and keep a blog with a Magpie-inspired name! Anyway, I am curious to hear how well you and your concertina have been doing with the songs in the Gypsy Music in C book.
I initially spent so much time trying to decide if I would pursue accordion or concertina, and almost went for piano accordion as its ability to play in so many scales makes it so perfectly suited for gypsy music. But the concertina won out in the end, due to its light weight and ease of use, (and the fact that I happened to be at the right place at the right time to end up with a vintage Italian 20-key Anglo for free, with just a $100 visit to the repair shop to get it running smoothly).
The downside is that a 20 key Anglo is limited to just C and G scales–which I believe are less typical in Gypsy music. So I’m really thinking I should get a copy of this book as well. (And not just because of Rima’s gorgeous artwork!)
Thanks for posting about your concertina,
All the best,
-Monica
Hi Monica, thank you for dropping by! I’m afraid my concertina-playing has gone very badly – to the extent that I have now passed this book on to a friend who will be able to do it much greater justice than I can. I do still love to play though – I have an English concertina, so I’m not too limited by key. 🙂
I’m now following your blog – your mask are just gorgeous, and very inspiring for some artwork that I’ve been thinking about lately. I love it when creative people find each other. 🙂
It is good to love playing an instrument–but not so good to push yourself too hard too soon! But now that you are no longer focusing your attention on the Gypsy Music book, you may find that your skill improves enough to try it again before you even know it.
Thank you for visiting my mask site, and for your sweet complements!