Customer Reviews

Handbook for English Concertina

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I have been teaching myself to play the English concertina, and in the course of doing so I have acquired a number of tutors, including this one, Alistair Anderson's "Concertina Workshop," Dick Mile's "The Concise English Concertina," and Allan Atlas's "Contemplating the Concertina."

Each has their strengths, but in the beginning, I always found myself returning to this short, 24-page work. Why? Because every one of the tunes included I could actually play, and each has taught me something new.

The book begins with a well illustrated, six-page introduction to the English concertina, which nods at the history of the instrument and carefully explains the difference between English, Anglo and Duet concertinas. A fingering chart is provided, which is not only a useful reference but which may help you figure out whether you have a tenor or treble English concertina.

Next are four pages of "Diagrams Showing How to Play the Scales." I skipped most of this the first time through, but now that I've progressed, it's useful.

Finally, we reach an annotated "Selection of Tunes and Song Accompaniments," which contains the music in both regular and labeled-button form (rather as guitar music often has chord symbols above the music, only for the concertina one is told whether it is a right-side or left-side button, R or L, along with its positional number).

These songs are manageable for the beginner and are fun to play. They are: The "Winster Gallop" in the key of C, "The British Grenadiers," "The Man in the Moon" (one of my favorites), "The Week Before Easter*," "The Dorset Four-Hand Reel" (which is a joy to play), "Landlord Fill the Flowing Bowl*," "Planxty Irwin," "John Barleycorn*," "Adieu, Sweet Lovely Nancy*," "Jockey to the Fair," "Off She Goes," and "Lord Franklin*." Note: The selections above that I've starred include words as well as music.

The last page of the book covers basic "Care and Maintenance of the Concertina" and includes a brief section on "Where to Go from Here."

Another good thing about this book, technically, is that the music and words are large enough to read with ease, even for those of us with presbyopia. Alistair Anderson's otherwise-excellent tutor has type and music that is only half the size!

All-in-all, this has been the English Concertina with which I've spent the most time and which has helped me most in getting started.

The Handbook for English Concertina, by Roger Watson, is elementary, and takes you from the very introductory elements of first finding the notes positionally, and guides you through the scales one by one.

If you are a complete novice, as I was you will find this to be a great place to start. Having some musical background will enable you to play the songs in the this guide on a piano, or piano accordion and hear what they sound like. The book is simple, to the point, and certainly a marvelous place to begin the study of the English concertina. It is a short book, which in some respects is good - you know that you will reach completion in a short period of time giving you a feeling of achievement. TRY IT - YOU'LL LIKE IT!

very well written. had never seen a concertina up close let alone play one. had me playing tunes in a week.

*If you are a beginning concertina player with no other musical experience, this book offers you absolutely nothing.

* If you are an experienced player, you will probably be quickly bored with the tiny handful of public-domain, copyright-exempt tunes (all of which are available quite free of charge on the internet) and the two pages of chord diagrams.

* If you are a beginning concertina player with other musical experience, and have already worked your way through a basic concertina tutorial you might find this book interesting for a weekend or two, but with no real substance, no defined teaching methodology, and no significant opportunity to improve your playing, you will, no doubt, quickly put it aside and curse yourself for spending money needlessly.

For the life of me, I cannot figure out just whom this book was written for... certainly not me, a lifelong musician with a budding interest in the concertina! Though I know from experience that there is a dearth of quality instructional material on the English concertina, you will probably not find that this book does anything to fill that void.

There are much better tutors for the English concertina out there than this, although it has to be said that these would have to be bought from the UK ...This reads to me like something knocked up in a weekend in order to earn a few bob from Hohner.