Instruments of Music
We often get asked about our unusual musical instruments. Here's some details
'Crane' Duet concertina
Concertinas aren’t particularly unusual in the folk world these days, but there are lots of different systems, or button layouts, which make them essentially different instruments. Learning to play one doesn’t necessarily make it any easier to play one of the others. They are all part of the ‘Free Reed’ family of instruments, that also include melodeons, accordions, harmonicas, harmoniums and even odder things. Andrew’s Crane duet system is one of the less common concertinas. He considers it to be the most logical and easiest system to play, but that’s because he plays it. People who play other systems disagree. This is perfectly normal. For more information that you could possibly ever want:
The Cornamuse
The plural of ‘cornamuse’ is probably ‘cornamusen’, which isn’t much use to most people outside of the Early Music scene, as they’ve never even seen one, let alone several. Carole has two of them, a tenor (bigger one) and alto (smaller one). It’s a family of reed-cap woodwind instruments, similar to the crumhorn but straighter. They date from Renaissance times, although no actual instruments have survived, so they have been reconstructed using contemporary descriptions, illustrations and guesswork. The little, lighter-coloured instrument is a reconstruction of an early recorder, the original having been found in a ditch in the Netherlands. Early woodwinds are confusing – apparently the same instrument can have many different names, and the same name can be applied to widely different instruments. This is perfectly normal. For what little is known about these things: