I was looking for the dots of some waltzes played by Howdy Forrester, Chubby Wise or Kenny Baker. I stumbled over this website for concertina:

http://concertinamusic.com/

It has a vast repertoire of the simple melody with chords which most of us fiddle player easily can play (if you can read the dots).

http://concertinamusic.com/

( FP2 )

I have had this bookmarked for a long time, once you get past some of the hand written manuscripts etc. there is a lot of great music on the site..

Play Happy

That's a great site!  How did I not know about this?

Thanks I shared it with a concertina playing friend.

Bob, does your friend play Chemnitzer concertina? That's what that site is geared for - they have the strangest looking system for writing music - the buttons use numbers and symbols, and often the bellows direction is noted (looks kind of like bowing marks) because the instrument plays different notes on the push and pull. I don't know if you could play some of those arrangements on other types of concertinas.

I've often heard that called english, the anglo plays the same note on the push and pull.

Other way 'round. The Anglo instrument is diatonic and works similar to a harmonica. Different notes on push and pull. Usually the scale is in-out, etc. Some have chords on one side and scale on the other. I find them really hard to play but I have a pal who has one custom made for himself that he plays very well. 

On the other hand, English concertina is fully chromatic and plays the same note, push or pull, as long as the button is depressed. The scale is played from side to side, which means that also get chords on each side.    There a few rare variations on this.  The larger instruments can play over several octaves. I have a  very small English concertina made by Horner that is full chromatic for one and a half octaves G to D. It is four inches wide, about a foot long  It was made especially for clowns in European circuses. I bought it about twenty years ago at a clown shop in Paris that is now gone. The Button Box Shop is a good source and they have web site. I don;' see as many of these for sale as in years past. Passing fad, maybe.  The good older ones were made in the UK.

Awesome... Has San Antonio Rose too, which is mighty tough to find.

You may have to be careful... There are some copyrighted works there too. "New York, New York" is there and is definitely under copyright.

About concertinas - As coelhoe said, the Anglo type plays a different note on the push and pull of the bellows, similar to a harmonica. They are called diatonic, but that's really a misuse of the term - that really refers to the scale, which has no chromatic notes, like a diatonic harmonic, not to the fact that each button can produce two notes. As far as I know, all concertinas play only single notes - if there are chords on one side its a button accordion or melodeon.

The English style is fully chromatic, with the scale split between the left and right hands, and the "white" keys on the inner rows and the "black" keys on the outer ones. Here's one of many sites with information about concertina types:  http://www.concertina.info/tina.faq/conc-typ.htm

The Chemnitzer concertina is different from either of these, and much larger and more elaborate, IMHO. The buttons play different notes on the push and pull, but its almost fully chromatic - and most notes are available in either direction, but on a different button in each direction! This means that you can play an almost complete scale solely on the push or the pull, but the fingering will be different. Of course you still have to change the bellows direction so you don't "run out of bellows" (like a bow) but it has more possibilities than the characteristic rhythms of the Anglo concertina or button accordion. The treble notes are played with the right hand, and the basses with the left, which means you could probably play a Bach two part invention if you were good enough. You make the chords with the individual buttons, so anything up to four notes (with each hand) is possible, including passing tones, suspensions, anticipations, and all kinds of bass runs and figures. Its most closely related to the Bandoneon, the characteristic instrument of the tango in Argentina, which is capable of some very sophisticated music, as in the works of Astor Piazzolla. In the US its used mostly in polka bands in the Polish, Czech, and German communities in the upper midwest. Many people who deal with the other types are only vaguely aware of the Chemnitzer - probably the best source of info is the site Hardy linked to.

Here's a video of someone playing a Chemnitzer that shows some of the possibilities:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFBf1casShs  And something a little more typical:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nyXCQaZ1UU