From the Preface: "This tutor is designed as a 'self-service' course for the beginner, particularly one needing to learn to read music as well as play the concertina."

An extremely well-written method for 20-key, German-style concertina. One of the best books of its kind available. Written in the key of C.

The heyday of the Anglo-German concertina (1860s to World War I) coincided with a time when social dances in houses, barns, woolsheds and community halls were all the rage in working class urban and rural areas. Along with extensive historical information and a detailed analysis of the music and the concertina players who played schottisches, polkas, quadrilles, waltzes, barn dances, mazurkas and varsoviannas from Ireland, England, Australia and South Africa, the book includes QR code links to 172 archival recordings of 36 early concertina players. Topics include nineteenth century social dance, global sources of the house dance repertoire, old-style octave playing on the concertina, the banning of house dances in twentieth century Ireland, biographies and playing styles of early concertina players on four continents, modern players in the old octave style, an extensive discography, plus a nine-lesson tutorial on how to play the Anglo concertina in the historical house dance style.

For beginners on the Anglo concertina, this book includes 35 tunes in easy-to-learn tablature. Starting off with simple tunes on 1-row, then tunes for 2-row 20-button instruments and finally tunes for 30-button Anglos. Single note, harmonica, octave, harmonic and Irish styles are presented with the same simple tablature system used in the author's other books to show which buttons to play along with the melody in standard musical notation.