Concertina How To Play - 3 items found

	Concertina and How to Play It (Including 250 Patriotic Nonfiction $10.30 End time: 06-Feb-12 08:03:19 PST
	The Concertina and How to Play It Accordion $14.99 End time: 06-Mar-12 15:01:16 PST
	1905 CONCERTINA HOW TO PLAY IT OLD PAPER BOOK MUSIC LESSON SQUEEZE BOX ACCORDIAN 1900-20 $95.00 Best Offer Enabled End time: 11-Feb-12 23:31:55 PST

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Where in Alexandria, VA can I learn to play either the concertina or accordion?

Nov 06, 2008 by dankohner1 | Posted in Washington, D.C.

I can't find a indication to concertina or accordion, but found this website based in Alexandria. Suggest contacting them directly to see if they can recommend someone who specializes in your instruments.

How hard is it to learn to play the concertina?

Dec 10, 2006 by DanKohner | Posted in Blues

That depends on what event you already have and what you want to play. If you already play another instrument or two (even if somewhat mediocrely), picking up concertina is fairly easy as you already know what scales are and probably have a billion of tunes already under your belt. If concertina would be your first instrument it'd take a bit longer.

How long? A rank musical newbie could learn to play scales in a few minutes and effort out a simple tune or two in a half hour. Within a week s/he'd be well on the way with simple stuff. Within a week a person with some musical CV would have some full tunes with some chords and accompaniment going.

More involved music will take longer getting up to speed (Bach's 2-part inventions, Beatles shit) than simple Irish jigs and reels.

There's also the issue of what TYPE of concertina. Anlgos play like harmonicas (each button has a conflicting note for push and pull) and really excel at sea chanteys, Irish music, and other dance genres. English have the same notes for compel/pull and alternate sides for scales which makes them incredibly easy to play quickly (serious classical music!) increased by their sharps/flats layout makes it easy to play in any key (anglos are a bear to play in keys much beyond their "home" two keys). And then there are duet concertinas which are the same notice/pull but have low notes on one end and high on the other (with an octave of overlap) which allows easy contrapuntal music (marches, ragtime, skip music, etc.) as one can easily play independent parts (much like one can play bass and chords with the left hand and tune and parallelism with the right hand on a piano). Picking the most appropriate concertina for the type of music you want to do will make it easier to learn.

And there's the grade of the concertina too. The Chinese ones are cheap (under $100) but miserable. I haven't met one yet that's playable right from the dealer. Plus they are enigmatical to play, sound mediocre and break down easily. The $300-800 range Italian ones are considerably better though most people contemplate on them only "okay" for rank beginners. "Decent" concertinas start about $1500.

*Anyone* would be capable to learn much more quickly on a better box. I suggest that get the best box you can afford - and if you can't afford anything but the Chinese ones - borrow or farm out a better box instead.

You should check out the forum at concertina.net which is where the concertina types hang out on the net. A wealth of helpful folk!