This is a Wheatstone English Concertina. It belongs to my friend David, who has very kindly allowed me to borrow it. I’m not entirely certain, but I think it’s about a hundred and twenty years old. It makes a lovely sound, and I can’t wait to learn how to play it.
I’ve had a couple of hours’ practice so far – this started going more successfully when I stopped reading forums telling you how to play the concertina, and just started pressing the buttons. Funny, that.
I tried to start with scales, just going up and down the C major scale, to learn where all the buttons are. That very quickly gave me brainache, and isn’t often how you play an instrument in practical use, so I dug out the few pieces of clog music that we play in C (so as not to have to worry about accidentals) and got stuck in.
It’s hard work trying to look at the fingering chart and read the music and find the right buttons and squidge the bellows all at the same time, but I’m slowly getting it. Once your brain’s got the hang of the fact that the notes that sit on the stave are on the left hand and the notes that sit in the gaps are on the right, it becomes fairly intuitive to work out where the next interval should be. Kind of.
So, I can now play the notes for three tunes (Donkey Riding, Click Go the Shears and White Cockade), in the right order, but not at the right speed or in the right rhythm. And with a few extra wrong notes thrown in for good measure. This could take a while!
I had a particularly stressful day at work today, so when I got home I immediately grabbed the concertina and headed out to the Shed. I’m having to limit my practicing to an hour at a time, otherwise my thumbs and wrists start to get a bit painful, so I figure it’s better to build up gently. But today I’m better than I was yesterday, and tomorrow I hope I’ll be a little bit better again.
I can’t wait to be able to do justice to this beautiful little instrument.