Concertina before button accordion?

Squeezebox & Harmonica
21

There are box players who also play concertina such as John Williams and Billy Mac..

I don’t think one preceeds the other.

As to the concertina types and the type of reed..

I am a former Jeffires owner.. 38 button… ( bought it for $300 US…correct $300 US)

I sold it to a fine player…

Since then I have played quite a few concertinas of all types…
While Jeffries still remains king with many I have played one Lachenal I much prefer.. and that owner traded a 38 button Jeffries for it ( and got back some cash)
Next I prefer the Button Box Morse Ceili.. and here I am certain I am in the minority..
I much prefer the accordion reed sound and resistance and modulation..

But that is from a box players perspective.


Assuming I had the cash to buy any concertina now available.. I would still buy the Button Box Ceili or perhaps a
Geuns or an Edgely, again because of the reed sound and playability.


A Button Box Ceili runs about $1950 new

a two row Button Accordion in that price range would be the Saltarelle Bouebe, and from personal experience it is no where near the quality of the Button Box Ceili.. in design, materials fit or finish

You would have to go up to a Castagnari Dinn II to get something on the order of the Ceili and that would set you back a considerably higher sum


I like the “idea” of a concertina.. small portable somewhat chromatic and dare I say “cute” ( gag)
however in actuality I am with some others that dont get the wee bit on the knee thing


For hoots and the concertina sound with huevos try a Castagnari Lilly in a C#/D or a B/C under $2K and at least you get some bass buttons and Castagnari quality… while not yet in the 'manly" category at least it is a serious handful

Pick something decent and just get on with it… concertina or the box

PS I don’t care for the standard concertina C/G pitched units… I prefer lower pitched G/D or even the baritone C/G…

22

You may be in the minority, but you aren’t alone. I rather enjoy the sound of the Morse Ceili. It’s not a case of taking what I can afford, but rather, it’s the sound I actually like.

23

I don’t know why you fellows are rabbiting on about concertinas when it became clear in the first few replies that what the OP’s relative really wants is a button box. This is what I feared would happen when we let you guys in here when the forum was created. :wink:

24

Well, medical posts aren’t allowed on this board, or I would have discussed the mental health state of someone who’d pick an accordion over a concertina. :smiley:

25

I can’t find so much info on this. Is a diatonic or a chromatic accordion preferrable?
I don’t know the advantages or disadvantages of each type.
My relative would want to play several musical styles, not just celtic / irish.

Also, do accordions need retuning now and then?

And another thing.
When I was new to guitar, I was adviced to pay attention to certain things when trying out second-hand guitars, such as if the neck was curved or if the 12th fret sounded different if you touched it lightly compared to if you pressed it down entirely.
Any such advice for someone new to accordions, who wants to buy a second-hand. What to look for?

Thanks.

26

Well, maybe he or she should make up his or her mind exactly what styles. This would make giving advice a lot easier. BTW all this has been covered before in various threads on this forum, if you do a bit of searching.

If you want a wider range of opinions, ask your questions on the forums at http://info.melodeon.net/ where you will find people playing every type of diatonic and chromatic accordion in a variety of styles.

Also, do accordions need retuning now and then?

Yes. Professional box players probably get theirs tuned about every year - the rest of us can generally wait 3 or 4 years between tunings, or longer if you can put up with the results of not having them tuned. Bit like a piano. And like tuning a piano, tuning a box is a job for a professional BTW.

Any such advice for someone new to accordions, who wants to buy a second-hand. What to look for?

The main things would be 1) to try out all the notes and make sure they are all sounding correctly and not too out of tune and 2) test the box for leaks - will the bellows close easily when no notes are being sounded? If so, maintenance work (which may or not be expensive depending on the problem) is needed somewhere.

Oh, and 3) stay away from cheap Chinese-made boxes with phony Italian names.

Ah - 4) a bit like the action on guitars, on some accordions (particularly Hohners) the buttons disappear down the holes below the level of the fingerboard. Some people can live with this, others (such as myself) cannot. There are usually easy fixes to the problem though, such as putting a sheet of felt or closed-cell foam under the keys.

27

Thanks for the reply.
I think the music styles in question are mostly different kinds of folk music.
Balkan, nordic, celtic and such. So I guess (after doing a more thorough search) that a two row diatonic is preferrable.

So I guess the question mostly is what tuning to choose.
I read in another post that a B/C makes for a more flowing playing, while a C#/D is good for a more rhythmic approach. Is it really that … (can’t find the word, but something like “singular”)?

28

If your family member wants to play a variety of different Western European folk music I would recommend they don’t choose either B/C or C#/D but one of the “fourth-apart” systems such as G/C (favoured by musicians in France) or D/G (the standard choice in England and Australia/NZ), or possibly C/F (the Italian choice).

I don’t know about Balkan music but I have a hunch a piano accordion might be the best thing for that.

Choose one of the fourth-apart systems and get a good tutor book to go with it. They will be generally easier to learn and certainly easier to make good use of the basses, which is much more important in other West European styles than it is in Irish playing.

You can play a lot of Irish music on either G/C or D/G, except that in the case of the G/C much of it won’t be playable in the original key. Unless your relative intends to play with others, this isn’t a problem. I would find G/C more attractive because it is pitched a fifth lower. The G row on a D/G box goes up into bat-sonar territory at the top of the range.

Good tutor books: go to http://buttonbox.com/learn-to-play-accordion.html and scroll down. You’ll see Dave Mallinson’s tutors for D/G and Norbert Pignol & Stephane Milleret’s series for the G/C.

As I said earlier (and to another poster) you can get a lot more input and expertise on these “non-Irish” fourth-apart systems, as well as quite a bit on the “Irish” semitone-apart systems, at the forums on melodeon.net.

That’s the long answer. The short one might be: stop agonizing, get a box, any box, and start having fun with it.

29

Thanks again.
I’ll tell him to ask over at the melodeon forums.

I’m curious myself though, regarding that B/C and C#/D thing. Is B/C really for a more flowing style, while C#/D makes for more rhythmic playing?
Could be good to know, since I’m pretty ITM focused, although I don’t play accordion.

30

Rhadge - I think this subject has been done to death on this forum and on others as well, and I don’t feel inclined to go over all the arguments again. Have a look and you’ll find them on here.

or type this exact string into google (don’t type C#/D, google gets confused!): site:thesession.org C# B/C

Quick summary: your statement has a certain truth to it but when you start digging deeper things get more complicated. It depends very much on the key you are playing in, and even then, different tunes in the same key may have differing smoothness quotients depending on how they are put together.

31

That summary explains it well enough for me.
Thanks.

32

My relative couldn’t log in to melodeon.net and start writing when the account had been accepted. I recognize this from one time when I registered on an american mandolin forum. Registrations from non-US locations was blocked, even though the admin accepted registrations.
I had to contact the admin then, but on melodeon.net site they’re online reachable through the forum, which he doesn’t have access to…

If someone wants to help, please tell the melodon.net admin that user “FolkB” is experiencing this kind of problem.


I’ll post his question here (having searched and not found an answer to this particular question). With a G/C accordion, will it be significantly harder to play ITM compared to a B/C or C#/D, e.g. rhythm- or fingering-wise?
Or does it mostly pose limitations with the key of the tunes?

And if one learns to play G/C accordion, will an eventual switch to B/C or C#/D be like learning a new instrument, or will the transition be more easy?

33

OK will do.

I’ll post his question here (having searched and not found an answer to this particular question). With a G/C accordion, will it be significantly harder to play ITM compared to a B/C or C#/D, e.g. rhythm- or fingering-wise? Or does it mostly pose limitations with the key of the tunes?

Pretend your G/C is a D/G just for a minute. On a D/G you can play anything that has one or two sharps, which covers a lot of the Irish trad repertoire. In fact you can play anything a D whistle can play without half-holing.

Depending on the layout of the keyboard, you might be stuck for a few of the lower notes below D - notably low C natural and low G. This is because many if not most D/G boxes have a few accidentals tucked down at the bottom of the keyboard - where the lowest notes ought to be. (They are mainly useful as accidentals - i.e. occasional notes. If you have an F-nat down there, playing in D minor is not going to be practical because the note is too awkwardly placed.)

That said, rhythm and fingering-wise, no problem. In fact you will have more choices of fingering than on a B/C or C#/D because most of the notes are common between the two rows (the only diff. between G and D is the note of C) and most of the common ones are in a different bellows direction. So you have more control over phrasing and you can also choose which note to use to make a bass accompaniment easier. (B/C, C#/D and other “halfstep” boxes have only two notes that occur on both rows.)

Now: imagine you have a G/C instead of a D/G. You could play all the tunes that are playable on a D/G, using D/G fingering, and have them come out a fifth lower. This would sound very mellow and fiddlers would be able to play with you either by dropping everything down one string (which again will work for anything playable on a whistle, i.e. that doesn’t go below D before being transposed), or by playing a viola as though it were a fiddle.

You could also learn any tunes that have one sharp (mainly G major and D mixolydian) in native G/C fingering, i.e. not transposed, in which case you can play them with anyone else. Plus of course stuff with no sharps, such as D minor. These would be a breeze to play on the C row.

And if one learns to play G/C accordion, will an eventual switch to B/C or C#/D be like learning a new instrument, or will the transition be more easy?

Not quite like learning a new instrument but almost. I see what happens when I hand my C#/D to very skilled 2- and 3-row players around here. They instinctively start using their cross-row fingering patterns and suddenly stop with a look of total confusion on their faces as very strange sounds come out of the box. Then they realize that they can play fine sticking to one-row, and say, “Hmm I would need to study this system” in a tone that says, “but I’m never going to.”

So basically a lot of work. Easier I would say to move to C#/D than to B/C because on C#/D you are playing much more “on the row”. One well-known teacher of Irish music has said that moving to B/C from a one-row D box required a brain transplant.

Bottom line I wouldn’t advise taking up G/C as a stepping stone to C#/D or B/C. Decide which is the best system for the music you want to play, taking into account resources available including players or teachers nearby, and get stuck in. (Soon, please :laughing: )

Keyboard layouts for most diatonic boxes can be found here: http://info.melodeon.net/info/layouts

If you want to see what can be done with Irish music on a D/G, have a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMZZgEtoBbQ&feature=channel (Although you need a manic temperament and a very early start to achieve this kind of playing I would say.)

More nice clips on D/G, this time by an old bandmate of mine, on this page: http://www.acrosstheborders.com.au/cdshop-melia.htm

34

Wow, thanks for clearing this up.

It’s up to him to decide. But it seems to me that G/C can be quite versatile!
On the other hand… one would miss out some tunes when the accordion is not chromatic.