the Curse of the Concertina

I used to be big into traditional Irish music and a few years ago I took up the Concertina.  Specifically the Anglo Concertina, a type of concertina that produces a different note on the push and the draw and is used by Irish musicians. It's a long story why the Anglo Concertina is common in Irish Music.  I forget the details but it involves low-priced concertinas first produced in Germany and later England, called German, Anglo-Germans or Anglo concertinas to distinguish them from the original English concertina (which has different mechanics), that found their way to the Irish rural musicians.  The whole exciting story is all here.

Anyways, in November 2010 I signed up to take classes in March 2011 at the Friday Harbor Irish Music week.

This was the result:

Eventually, after surgery and lots of physical therapy, the shoulder healed, but in the meantime I missed the music camp. The concertina sat unused for quite awhile, till I got the bug again and started playing it.  There's a summer music camp called the Swannanoa Gathering in Asheville, NC that has a Celtic Music week I've been lucky enough to attend a couple times, and I thought about attending this year and taking the concertina classes.

This was the result:

Ok, both of these broken bones happened while biking, but I think the real connection is they happened after I took up the concertina.  Now I'm afraid to play the darn thing, so it has sat unused since April.

Part of me wants to sell the concertina and put the proceeds into the Bike Fever Eradication Fund.  Another part wants to pick it up again.  This part scares me. Because you know what happened as soon as I thought about picking up the little squeeze box again? Right, I crashed on my way to the hardware store.

There was an Irish music camp held in Texas at the end of October, but I stayed home.

But yesterday, Friday, just before the last cyclocross race of the season on Sunday, I tempted fate and tried to play a few tunes on the concertina.  I'm a little nervous about tomorrow's race.