The Concertina Diaries arose
from Heather Greer's own learning of the 30-button Anglo concertina.
Heather plays Irish trad and, along with partner Mary Lovett, for many years they ran Dusty
Banjos (a set of weekly learning classes specifically for adults), runs sessions, and loves teaching,
most especially adults.
Before
much time had passed, Heather discovered that she needed a tutor. Not
being in a position at the time to attend a teacher, she looked around
at what was available in printed form to help guide her. With just one
or two exceptions (mentioned in her book), Heather soon found that what
was available was largely unhelpful.
It was this lack of
available learning tutors/manuals that inspired Heather to put together
this self-help manual. The result of over three years of hard work, the
manual is indeed based on Heather's own diaries, maintained over this
period as she delved into the intricacies and joys of learning and
playing the Anglo concertina.

The
Anglo concertina isn't a straightforward instrument, because the notes
most commonly used can be played (well, many of them, anyway) using two
or even three different buttons. This means there is a large number of
ways of playing any given passage of a tune. As the saying goes, "there are many ways to skin a cat"!
And there are "principles"
for playing the Anglo smoothly; for example, a key rule is to avoid
"chopping" - using the same finger to play two consecutive notes on two
different buttons. In this respect, it's a bit like learning a
language. When speaking, you can - and of course do - say the same thing
in many different ways.
And, like learning a language, there are
different approaches to learning. One is to start with the 'grammar' -
the musical equivalent would be the scales - and then build a small
amount of vocabulary. And go from there. That is the way most
concertina teachers work, partly perhaps because (a) it's a convenient
method when teaching a class, and (b) it can get you going on a range of
tunes that 'fit' the limited number of buttons that have been taught in
order to play a given scale.
An alternative way is to learn in a
way similar to how you would learn a foreign language if you went and
lived in a country where it was spoken. That is, you would simply learn
how to say some things that are helpful in getting by on a day-to-day
basis, and build your ability to speak and understand more or less with
the grammar following along as needed - or when it's helpful to learn
some grammar.
THE CONCERTINA DIARIES follows this
alternative approach.
If you read the introductory chapters, and if
you apply yourself regularly to "speaking" the tunes as they're
introduced and explained, you will find your fingers gain the knowledge
they need, in order to play a tune - with or without using sheet music
to help.
One of the helpful diagrams from Chapter Two, showing
you the simple method of labelling the buttons. In this
manual, you're shown the exact buttons to use in playing
the 47 tunes included - and you're told why those buttons!
To guide you, the "Diaries" shows you a simple
concertina 'notation' (see above), and provides you with the music not alone in
standard musical notation and ABC, but also in
concertina notation - so
your fingers are guided to the buttons that play the tune you're working
on, while at the same time they 'obey' simple principles, such as the
"avoid chopping" principle mentioned above. The
book contains lots of help, along with many snippets of information both
about the concertina and about playing Irish music in sessions.
If
you give it the time, you'll find that
The Concertina Diaries will help
you to learn, surprisingly quickly. You'll enjoy the journey. And you
will succeed!
As we explained earlier,
The Concertina Diaries is
primarily intended for
beginners on the concertina (probably 30-button, though not
necessarily),
as well as for those who already have some ability but
want to explore the possibilities of this beautiful and fascinating
instrument in greater depth.
The book comes with a CD containing recordings of all 47 tunes, played as
they're written in the manual, and very slowly, to aid learning.
Meanwhile, we've recorded the early tunes in the manual, played slowly,
to assist your learning; they're up on this website - just click
HERE to listen to the first fifteen tunes.