Excellent idea. Melodica players need a home, too.

Well thanks to the tidal wave of enthusiasm, I've submitted the general idea to his Wiselyship.

Personally I resent having to share cycle paths with rollerbladers and I would feel even more strongly about concertinists taking up all the space in a button box forum. Harmonicas are harmless though.

Steve, I don't believe you need to worry too much about concertina players like me horning in on your new accordion forum. As I mentioned above, both of our hands are generally too busy picking out the tunes to have much energy left for typing. Also, even though our squeezeboxes may be small, our minds are broad and we'd likely get bored rather quickly by endless accordion chatter. So carry on, good luck with it and all that. Write when your pinky fingers find work.

John, if you think you're a better player just because you use your pinky, Then you should buy a Mairtin O'Connor cd and try and play along.... He hardly ever uses his pinky.
That said, i use my pinky as much as the rest. I don't think i could do without it. And i think it's wrong to advice people not to use it.

Mairtin O'Connor plays concertina and never uses his pinky? I'm impressed - I didn't even know he played the concertina!

As for me, I play (sort of) the concertina, and I need to use my pinky - especially the left one, as hard as it might be. And I've never been advised by any concertina player anywhere that I shouldn't use it. But I don't play accordion myself, and therefore I would never deign to give any advice to an accordion player - except maybe to quit playing accordion. (But I'm kidding there, of course.) I do know though, from considerable hearsay, that lots of accordion players don't use their pinkies and that the use or non-use of that digit in accordion playing is a subject of some controversy, not unlike the tongue-or-no-tongue controversy in the flute/whistle community. Hence my comments about that lowliest yet most hardworking of the fingers...

Django Reinhardt only used two fingers on his fretting hand but that's no reason to advise other guitarists to do likewise.

true, why use two fingers when you have four... of course there are those who do it anyway.

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there is no end to the walking

This is a false comparison - as I'm sure you're aware Wombat. Reinhardt had no other usable fingers on that hand. O Connor and lots of other fine box players have a right little finger that they could use if they wanted to. If they use it not at all, or not very much at all, and some of them strongly recommend that learners do likewise, surely it's worth trying to find out why.

Just out of interest, lixnaw, last night I had another look at that Peter Browne DVD that you recommend. I watched him play the demonstration pieces at the end. Now I don't care much for his music but two things are very apparent: 1) the man has extraordinary technique - his right hand jumps and flies around the keyboard like a demented squirrel, executing complex ornaments at light speed, and 2) he has a fully functional little finger but doesn't use it.

I think there's a connection.

Hi Steve, i learned some good ornamentation on that dvd, but that doesn't mean i'll copie everything he uses. I try and find what ornamentation suits me best, like my pinky a lot to cut high notes.
And i know Peter Brown doesn't use his pinky, but i'm gonna see "Dave *The Bullet from Belmullet* Munnelly" and ask him what he thinks of all this. I'll let you know.