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Author Topic: When did you start?  (Read 7186 times)

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Steve_freereeder

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Re: When did you start?
« Reply #20 on: March 30, 2017, 05:11:55 PM »

I was about 30. Previously had been solely an orchestral player (clarinet) and still am, but in the 1980s my job took me to west Wales where there were no orchestras, so I needed something different. Started playing a one-row two-stop in C but didn't really understand what it could do until I met a chap busking in Llanelli playing the same type of instrument. He taught me a few tunes and I never looked back.
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Tufty

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Re: When did you start?
« Reply #21 on: March 30, 2017, 05:18:16 PM »

Around 1978, so age 22 but had been messing around with a tatty anglo for a couple of years before then. No utube or tutors available back then so all self taught ... hence the bad habits I still have!
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TomBom

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Re: When did you start?
« Reply #22 on: March 30, 2017, 05:19:55 PM »

Bought a box in 2012 and really started a year later at age 45.
« Last Edit: March 30, 2017, 05:33:57 PM by TomBom »
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Grumpy

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Re: When did you start?
« Reply #23 on: March 30, 2017, 05:21:47 PM »

Around 58 after mandolin, concertina and whistle. Should be a lot better by now, but what the hell, i'm happy.
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Chris D, Surrey, UK
Getting old but still learning. Pokerwork G/D, Saltarelle L'Elfique G/D, Castagnari Lilly G/D and Hohner Liliput Declubed G/D + English concertinas, mandolins, recorders, tin whistles and other items unknown to household managment

Nick Collis Bird

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Re: When did you start?
« Reply #24 on: March 30, 2017, 05:42:07 PM »

1976 my 22 Birthday off to Bells in Surbiton for a D/G Pokerwork
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howard mitchell

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Re: When did you start?
« Reply #25 on: March 30, 2017, 05:56:36 PM »

1971, aged 19.

Mitch
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Graham Spencer

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Re: When did you start?
« Reply #26 on: March 30, 2017, 06:19:02 PM »

Can't remember when exactly, but I can remember where ;a very wet and uninteresting Bognor Regis Folk Festival, when a drive in the rain to Hobgoblin in Crawley was more attractive than the day's programme. It would have been around 1976/7, I guess,and I would have been 30 or 31.

Graham
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Mike-T

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Re: When did you start?
« Reply #27 on: March 30, 2017, 06:43:06 PM »

2 years ago aged 68 with a B/C/C#, filling out a bucket list after playing almost everything else over the last 50 years or so.
 Mike.
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playandteach

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Re: When did you start?
« Reply #28 on: March 30, 2017, 07:21:12 PM »

Seems I'm fairly typical then. Started around 50, having played the piano accordion for 3 years or so, but found it heavy and strangely uncomfortable in the right hand. I had played other instruments before. Rapid progress for a few months, then a long slow plateau.
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Helena Handcart

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Re: When did you start?
« Reply #29 on: March 30, 2017, 07:32:55 PM »

40 - after several years' deliberation and being convinced I was too old/would be useless/was just being silly.
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Julian S

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Re: When did you start?
« Reply #30 on: March 30, 2017, 08:07:47 PM »

Aged 21,back in 1977. Spent much of Uni time messing about with instruments, tried mandolin (too quiet and irritating to tune), liked the sound of melodeons playing for the local Cotswold Morris. Bought a Pokerwork to try out, then went to folk prom at Albert Hall where Flowers and Frolics and Old Swan Band were the pit orchestra. Fantastic - I was hooked immediately and still am...
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jonm

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Re: When did you start?
« Reply #31 on: March 30, 2017, 08:45:15 PM »

42. Played accordion and guitar from 16, concertina from 30ish. Branched out with redundancy money.
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David A

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Re: When did you start?
« Reply #32 on: March 30, 2017, 08:51:44 PM »

I started at Ed Rennie's workshops at Sidmouth Folk Festival in 2015, aged 60. Not progressing very quickly but thoroughly enjoying playing and the company of fellow squeezers.  :||:
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Joan Kureczka

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Re: When did you start?
« Reply #33 on: March 30, 2017, 08:58:53 PM »

Started on melodeon about 4.5 yrs ago at age 59. This was after playing piano for about 12 years until age 20, and then about 5 years or so of wire-strung folk harp in my late 20s and early 30s.
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Tone Dumb Greg

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Re: When did you start?
« Reply #34 on: March 30, 2017, 09:31:58 PM »

59 and 3/4  :D
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ocajun

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Re: When did you start?
« Reply #35 on: March 30, 2017, 10:47:47 PM »

About 15 years ago at approximately 41? Just realised that I'm averaging just over 1 melodeon per year. I have definitely parted with 3 and I think I have 13 at the moment.

Rod
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Re: When did you start?
« Reply #36 on: March 30, 2017, 11:02:23 PM »

During our extended honeymoon through europe I bought my first melodeon (along with an oud, a baglama, a zurna, and a darabukka), when I was 31.  Belated apologies to my long-suffering partner!
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Guy

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Re: When did you start?
« Reply #37 on: March 30, 2017, 11:08:28 PM »

Hmmm....does it really matter when you started? The question for me is more likely be how much fun you've got out of playing the melodeon and where it's taken you...

For what it's worth, I've started 3 times. Once with a borrowed one-row 3-stop in the Highlands for our Scottish folk duo. Then 10 years later with a pokerwork in Cardiff when my partner was involved in a newly formed Morris side. And then when our very talented melodeon player left when the morris band were asked to play for some proper ceilidhs, the vote was that I had to practice rather than get another musician in. And I've never regretted doing lots of practice...

Cheers,
Guy
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Ebor_fiddler

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Re: When did you start?
« Reply #38 on: March 31, 2017, 01:23:43 PM »

I bought me first melodeon around 1968/9. It was an East German Klingenthaler in G, but i never really took it up seriously and gave it away (  :-[ ) in the early 1990's.  :o :o :o . However I was forcibly retired in 2007 and a grateful government gave me something called a Heating Allowance in that year, which was just about the amount of money I needed to buy a box to keep me warm by exercise. I sold this (at a profit!) last year, after a severe attack of MAD.
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I'm a Yorkie!
My other melodeon's a fiddle, but one of my Hohners has six strings! I also play a very red Hawkins Bazaar in C and a generic Klingenthaler spoon bass in F.!! My other pets (played) are gobirons - Hohner Marine Band in C, Hohner Tremolo in D and a Chinese Thingy Tremolo in G.

WestOz

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Re: When did you start?
« Reply #39 on: April 01, 2017, 06:06:54 AM »

Started playing for Morris when the then Muso left the side, and there was only recorded music. That was about 25 years ago when I was in my mid 40's. Never made any musical progress other than thumping out Morris Tunes until I retired at 65, 5 years ago. Since then the melodeon has been a consuming hobby/passion.
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