THE CONCERTINA

I play an English Wheatstone 42 key concertina that I bought from Colin Dryden in the 1980s. It is a beautifully crafted instrument with a particularly mellow tone. I wish I could say I was a good player but, sadly, I am not. I taught myself to play some years back by reading notes but this always seemed to rob me of musicality.

In 1999 I came home one night, I'd had a few glasses of wine, and picked up the 'tina and started to play without reading notes. I found I could do it. This was a shock to me and my faithful audience (Mo the dog). I rarely look at the notes these days and find I can play most tunes from memory. More importantly, I found the musicality I was looking for – I can now sing with the concertina and have quite a repertoire.

My biggest problem is that I rarely use it in performance because I get nervous and the tunes run away. Mind you, I am happy to sing unaccompanied and can always rope a musician to accompany me but one day I will champion my nerves and it might be clear sailing. Hmm. We'll see.

NOTE: Click on the image e to see larger version.