Tag: Wheatstone

Falling in love with a concertina.

Wheatstone English Concertina

This is my lovely Wheatstone concertina. I bought it about a year ago, and have been playing it a little bit ever since. I don’t normally post about music very much, because this is supposed to be a sewing and knitting and generally crafty blog, but summer’s clog dancing season, so I might mention it from time to time.

Last week I went to a workshop at the Museum of English Rural Life, given by Karen Tweed, who’s an accordion player. I felt slightly awkward, being one of only three people to turn up with an instrument that wasn’t an accordion, but I had great fun. The workshop was slightly too difficult for my current level of skill but it pushed me to play more quickly than I’ve done before, and that’s definitely helped my practice since. After the workshop there was a concert by Hilary James and Simon Mayor, and then a wonderfully inspiring performance by Karen.

I came home absolutely smitten with the accordion, and the ability to carry practically an entire orchestra around with you in one handy box. I recently borrowed a tiny 12-bass accordion from a friend, although I haven’t yet managed to learn to play, well, anything. I can’t cope with trying to do so many things at the same time! Piano on one side, buttons on the other, notes and chords, bellows in the middle, plus reading the music… it all seems a bit much.

This weekend I went to Chippenham Folk Festival with Aldbrickham. I had a little look in the musical instrument tent, as you do, and accidentally fell in love with a new concertina, made by Marcus Music.

Marcus makes brand new hand crafted concertinas, and they’re absolutely beautiful. I’d previously been looking at antique ones because the general consensus seems to be that most modern concertinas are mass-produced and not very good, but these were hand-made and absolutely stunning. He makes a 37-button English concertina with wooden ends and seven-fold bellows. (Mine’s a four-fold.) I had a little play and it felt absolutely lovely. The buttons are slightly closer together than on my own instrument, which makes it a little bit easier on my small hands. The bellows are really smooth and free, and it makes a much louder sound than my Wheatstone without being at all honky or squeaky. My concertina’s a 48-key, so I’d have to be absolutely certain I wasn’t going to miss the extra notes, but I think if I’m still playing the concertina in a year’s time (which I plan to be!), I might have to invest in one of these.

This morning I did as much practice as my poor old thumbs could stand, and really enjoyed it. I’m still very much a beginner, so I’m at the stage where making any kind of progress at all is really satisfying. But even though I’m no virtuoso, there are some problems with my current concertina which are making a new one seem very tempting. It has a leak that needs repairing, and the bellows are very stiff, which is why it makes my thumbs hurt after a while.

I could send my current concertina off to Marcus and have the bellows repaired or replaced. He could proably also replace the missing leather from the finger plates. But with an antique instrument, I don’t know whether it’s a good idea to replace something as fundamental as the bellows. Does it become a different instrument then? Does it lose its value if the original bellows are missing? Or does that not matter, as long as it becomes playable again and I no longer need to sell it? I don’t know.

Either way, I can’t afford to buy a new concertina right now. So, I’ll keep learning to play the one I’ve got, and I’ll keep saving up for a better one, and I’ll see how things go.

Common Concertina, Third Class.

Wheatstone English Concertina

Did I mention that I was buying an antique concertina on Ebay?

Well, I did, and I’ve been learning to play it for about three weeks.

It’s a Wheatstone 48-Key English System concertina with hexagonal wooden case. Its serial number is 18270. According to the Wheatstone ledgers the concertina was one of four sold to a person named Wilkie on the 31st of July 1867. It’s described as “Common (3rd) Class”.

It’s a tutor model, which is why the names of the notes are stamped into the ends of the keys. The black and white keys correspond to the piano (which I don’t play, so that’s no help!) and the red ones are all C. I’d guess that the fact that four identical tutor concertinas were sold together means that they were destined for a school.

It’s much less fancy than the one I’ve been borrowing, and has smaller bellows. This makes it much lighter to hold, which is great, but there’s less resistance from the bellows which makes it a bit harder to play. (You need to push harder to make a decent sound.) I think there’s also a small leak in the bellows, at the right hand end, which will need fixing eventually. But it’s more than playable for now, as long as I don’t push it too hard.

I was a bit worried when I opened the box, because it absolutely reeked of cigarette smoke. Lots of old concertinas were played in pubs, and the smoke gets into the bellows so it’s pretty much impossible to get rid of the horrible musty pub smell. Thankfully the smell was confined to the box and the bubble wrap, and the concertina just smells old. Which it should do, having been made in 1867!

The box is lined with purple velvet, and was tied with a brown ribbon. Inside, the concertina was wrapped in a silk scarf, so I could lift it out without pulling on the bellows. It’s a very snug fit, so I’ll probably buy a modern carrying case.

The steel reeds make a pleasant sound – not too loud and brassy – and I’m really enjoying learning to play on such a lovely instrument.

In and out and in and out and in and out and in…

accordion

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.