What are your predictions on the next instrument to disappear from ITM?

As long as we’re all collectively going insane from COVID-19 isolation talking about how Vulcan A*** Flutes and didgeridoos will be the next big ITM instrument, let’s talk about the opposite.

Which instruments are likely to disappear from ITM in the coming years and why?

More likely I fear concertinas and accordions will slowly disappear from the scene as those who are able to tune and repair them all continue to die off without training the next generation of technicians. The waitlists for those trusted techs who still can do the work will continue to get longer and longer. Right now in all of Southern California, there is exactly one person I would trust to work on my instruments, and his turn around time is in weeks, sometimes months.

Anything instrument that is expensive, difficult to play, difficult to repair and maintain, and obscure to mainstream audiences that prefer noise and spectacle is never entirely out of danger.

There is a constant commercial pressure on this music to become more like popular music, and though that is perhaps the way of things, some things that are beautiful and worthy of saving will inevitably be lost.

There is a huge growth in concertina playing at the moment

This is a spurious question, Michael, unless you can identify the last instrument to disappear from sessions in Ireland (not the USA or other countries) and when that happened.

Given a most pessimistic view of where the world is going I’d say vulture bone whistles, hollow log drums, plucked bow strings, and ram’s horns will be the last … the same place it all started!

Well if speculation is the way ahead, why not ask ‘will the entire thing fade away’? We know that Blues became less popular, and Bluegrass nearly did too. Yet these days Billy Strings, https://youtu.be/y97gX9QSwZk , has changed not only that but the kind of American folk music we enjoy.

play video

https://www.billystrings.com/

As for the free reed family, spending even a short time in Ireland makes nonsense of the claim that Concertina and Accordion will not make it. Too how about the low price of a Harmonica? Perhaps economics is the real culprit here?

Prosperous Ireland buys expensive instruments by the truck load, while depressed Ireland did not. Even then, the Concertina still held out in Clare Co, the Accordion in Galway Co.

Of the rest of the instruments, there is none that appear less likely to survive because global interest is so enormous. Folks, someplace, will always have a go on whatever they can find to try playing Irish folk music.

Really, nikonimages? Over the last thirty years I can count on the fingers of two hands the number of times I’ve witnessed either an accordion or concertina at a session in Ireland (and that includes counties Clare and Galway).

Where’s your evidence that ‘Prosperous Ireland buys expensive instruments by the truck load’?

The pandemic has made wind instruments problematic in social settings. Maybe that’s the first nail in the coffin? Or perhaps there will be a massive post-pandemic resurgence in interest in wind instruments (along with singing and shouting), as people look for the most effective ways to aerosolize public spaces? 😉

Well, it was never big in Irish trad, but I’ve often wondered what happened to the lap dulcimer. It was huge in folk circles in the 80s, so much so that the big traditional music festival in Southern California was for years called the Dulcimer Festival. Then, as if by unanimous consent, it just dissapeared. It is a lovely and versatile instrument, but much too soft for sessions.

I wouldn’t mind seeing whistles go away. Never cared for them, even though I played them for a time.

How many instruments can you list which have “disappeared from ITM” ?

“Over the last thirty years I can count on the fingers of two hands the number of times I’ve witnessed either an accordion or concertina at a session in Ireland (and that includes counties Clare and Galway)”.
Is there a mistake in that sentence, or how many fingers do you have on each hand ? Or how many sessions have you been to in that 30 years ? If you go to Ennis on a Friday night, last time I was there there were 8, and every single one had at least one concertina or button accordion.

PS - the ageing of some of the current top makers and repairers is of course a problem unless they are being replaced by a younger generation of musical craftsmen. That could well be a separate worthwhile discussion.

Ailin: “I wouldn’t mind seeing whistles go away.”

I would – and I don’t think I’m alone in that regard. Anyway, what we or wouldn’t *mind* is neither here nor there. I terms of *predictions*, I think whistles are on the up at the moment. The number of manufacturers and the level of precision and efficiency of manufacture seems to be on the increase. I can’t see them disappearing any time soon.

Michael Eskin: “I fear concertinas and accordions will slowly disappear from the scene as those who are able to tune and repair them all continue to die off without training the next generation of technicians.”

Regarding free reed instruments, it is possible that their phone app simulations might become serious contenders (although it is hard to imagine their being accepted in CCE fleadh competitions). But I suspect that any instrument that has already stayed the course for a century or more, if it ever falls out of favour, will make repeated resurgences over many decades before disappearing altogether – so it is unlikely that many of us here will be around to witness their extinction. I think that, as long as there is interest in playing the instruments, there will be people interested in learning to maintain them – even if, during a bottleneck in popularity, that means somebody figuring it out for themselves.

Again, I agree there is a massive interest these days in concertina and box, but that doesn’t fix the issue that there is a growing lack of technicians able to tune or repair them.

I can only speak for California, but increasingly the old accordion repair/retune technicians of the golden age of accordions are dying off.

If there are many tuners/repair technicians in Ireland, it does us no good in the USA, shipping a multi-thousand dollar concertina or accordion overseas isn’t an attractive or financially viable option.

I can retune the occasional problematic reed in my concertina, but I can’t retune the entire instrument. I can’t even start to do anything but the most perfunctory work on my accordions if they have issues. I’m guessing I’m not alone. The one accordion technician I trust is a two hour drive from me, and is generally so busy that any work requires two trips, one to drop it off, and one to pick it up weeks later.

If I need a guitar worked on, I have a dozen options within 20 miles of my house.

I’m curious if there are any programs in place to help bring up the next generation of free-reed technicians as apprentices and help them establish a business, either here in the USA or elsewhere. It’s something I’ve proposed to the guy who does my work, as a way he can expand his business and to make some money training others. I think the issue is that there is fear that the apprentices will steal business from the principals, but the reality is that the principals can’t keep up with the demand for tuning and repair work.

I’m not sure if any will actually disappear or “go away”.
However, certain instruments go through phases of popularity and have become less common.

In Scottish sessions, particularly, I see fewer CBOM instruments these days. I don’t know if this is also true in Irish sessions?

Others are less common for other reasons, often due to their portability and awkwardness in small pub rooms etc. e.g. harps, pianos and so on.

Slightly different tack on this thread compared with the other one which is more of a humorous/inventive nature re which instruments might be added to the ITM session make-up.
I have had to have 2 repairs done to my buttonbox since I have had it - about 12 years. Broken reed on both occasions, but had a full re-tune as well with the second repairer. Both were excellent, though the second cost a fair bit more with the full re-tune. Hopefully both guys have have a few years left in them yet, and there will be others willing to keep up the repairing jobs.

Yes, when has an instrument last disappeared from ITM?

Never?

ITM is oddly agglutinative: new things are always attaching themselves, but old things are never jettisoned.

When’s the last time you saw a jaw harp at a session? Apparently that used to be a thing in dances 200 years ago.

Michael Eskin: “I can only speak for California, but increasingly the old accordion repair/retune technicians of the golden age of accordions are dying off.”

It might mean that free-reed players in some places will have to rely on (or become) self-taught cowboys for a couple of decades, until a few of them have honed their skills to the level of expertise of former times. But there are always clever people out there ready for a challenge.

Trish, I don’t see “others willing to keep up the repair jobs”. If the current technicians don’t actively bring up the next generation to take over their businesses when they die or retire, there will be nobody with the skill to do the work.

Stories like:

https://omaha.com/lifestyles/hansen-accordion-fixer-once-a-tonight-show-guest-ready-to-fold/article_6c549535-b2b7-5a16-b86f-f9285b5fcd51.html

https://www.bizjournals.com/newyork/news/2015/10/22/the-last-master-of-music-row-readies-to-close-shop.html


https://laughingsquid.com/the-smiling-man-behind-the-last-true-accordion-repair-shop-in-new-york-city/


Increasingly, many ITM-specific instruments are becoming high-priced boutique items with few people able to service them. I think that’s a huge problem for the long term survival of Uilleann pipes, concertinas, and diatonic accordions, anything that’s not a direct crossover from “mainstream” popular musical instruments.

@Michael Eskin, Re: Uilleann Pipes.

Did you ever read about the revival in the 1960’s? Apparently around WW2 the instrument had nearly died out, and there was a great effort made to save it and it’s tradition.Too before the folk revival the Harp was out of fashion since the mid 19th century.

Yet both are so revived, that today there is scarcely any band that does not have one or the other.

Yes, and we are 50 years past that revival. I am not sure it’s relevant or addresses the specific concern I detailed above on the loss in recent years of free-reed instrument repair and tuning technicians. It will be a challenge to get younger people to choose a career repairing and tuning accordions without considerable incentive from either the large accordion manufacturers or possibly government arts funding. I just don’t see it happening, but I hope I’m wrong.

Richard D Cook: “ITM is oddly agglutinative: new things are always attaching themselves, but old things are never jettisoned.”

I don’t think that is ‘odd’ – I think it applies to music and instruments in general. The clarinet did not replace the oboe; the electric guitar did not replace the acoustic guitar. There are instruments that have been partially displaced by perceived ‘improvements’, like the harpsichord by the piano and viols by the violin family, but the older instruments are still in use 300-400 years later. Through the ages, there have probably also been strange instruments we’ve never even heard of* because they never caught on, sinking without trace almost as soon as they were launched – but those that proved their worth early on have tended to stick.

P.S. Only a language buff would use the term ‘agglutinative’ 😉

In the diatonic accordion “world” in the UK the repairers niche is being filled by second-careerists. Mortgage paid off, empty nest. There just isn’t enough money in it for a career when starting young. They may be self-taught in many cases but there’s a huge amount of support information available now. The work isn’t that difficult or technical.

What might get left in the cold is the bigger accordions. The more reeds you have the more technical, and the more repetitive, the work becomes. Not many people will be keen to take on cassotto related work without formal training.

“There just isn’t enough money in it for a career when starting young.” If there was what proportion of players would, due to the cost of ownership, stop playing that instrument or potential players chose something else?

Might people replace rather than repair? I guess most, but not all, melodicas and bent Generation whistles get replaced rather than repaired. On the other hand there are whole host of complicated things, often antique or ‘collectable’, that can be repaired or restored if people are prepared to pay the price that people are prepared to work for (but probably not get rich)

At the start of the 20th century Francis O Neill was predicting that the uilleann pipes might die out within a generation.

I’ve been told that by the 1940s you could count the uilleann pipe makers on one hand have have fingers left over.

So predicting the demise of boxes due to a current shortage of repair people seems premature.

About dance music 200 years ago, there are a number of issues, such as the lack of recordings and the fact that Irish session music hasn’t been well documented until recently. Is there enough data to support the statement that jaw-harps were standard and accepted Irish trad instruments 200 years ago? Did “sessions” and/or ensemble playing of Irish folk music even exist 200 years ago? If not, are we talking about solo jaw-harp playing? What on earth would “traditional Irish jaw harp music” even be?

And one might argue that the music of 200 years ago would fall under the umbrella of “historical” rather than “traditional” music, that ITM as we know it didn’t evolve until the late 19th or early 20th century.

I see no danger whatsoever of accordions, melodeons, concertinas, uilleann pipes ever disappearing, due to lack of maintenance, from the Irish traditional music scene in their native environment, that is to say Ireland, and even the UK where many Irish born musicians/people reside. There has never been so many makers, and people skilled in maintenance. The distances are not great in Ireland and the UK.

In this list, four accordion/melodeon/concertina repair shops are in the USA, 18 repair shops are in the UK and Ireland, with one in Germany: http://forum.melodeon.net/index.php/page,shops_repairers.html

Newbie here, so take what I say with a grain of salt:

I don’t think anything will disappear permanently. Things come and go in waves. The accordion does have a lot against it in terms of expense and expertise, but think of the recent rise of the hurdy-gurdy. It’s gone from a rare instrument you’d be more likely to see in the pages of National Geographic to one that has a small but extremely committed and growing community around it, and talk about a complicated rube-goldberg device. The accordion may be headed down for now, but it’ll be back at some point.

The reference to jaw harp was from a reference in doctoral dissertation I’ve been reading on the history of the accordion in traditional Irish music. I was not talking about jaw harps in sessions, but the reference to its use in dances in Ireland in the 18th and 19th century.

Steamwilkes, you’ve help make my point. In the USA we’ve got a real shortage of accordion repair/retune technicians compared to Ireland. Glad to see that there is a healthy ecosystem for maintaining the instruments there.

Maybe one can deal with a smaller instrument with a couple of banks on their own for the occasional minor retune, but I have a high-end chromatic button accordion with full Stradella bass that has 350+ reeds with very specific musette offset curve requirements to get the sound I want. There’s no way I’m going to hand that instrument to Joe Bag O’Donuts who learned to fix up accordions as a retirement career from watching YouTube videos.

In the past, I’ve bought instruments from these kind of “weekend accordion fixup warriors” who would advertise on Craigslist and inevitably had to spend a lot more money later to get them properly tuned and adjusted.

I would imagine that, even though Roland has more or less abandoned their digital V-Accordion line, including the bulky FR-18 diatonic, and the Bugari EVO line doesn’t offer a diatonic option, we’ll see a quality lightweight reedless two-row electronic instrument released by some visionary Irish music entrepreneur in the next 5 years or so.

There’s also a lot going on with open-source 3D printed digital concertina projects (check the Concertina Technology board on Facebook), both in English and Anglo style that may eventually bear fruit and could spill over into the digital diatonic accordion world. Maybe I’ll have to become a “weekend accordion fixup warrior” myself and start building one. 🙂

CreadurMawnOrganig, There are many instruments which have gone by the wayside or been replaced by more modern versions: keyed bugles, crumhorns, zincs, sackbuts, among others.

I wonder if the organetto won’t show up in ITM? It’s a keyed, often diatonic squeezebox that’s mostly used in Italian folk music, but almost all the instruments in Italian folk music are also in ITM -- fiddle, drum, harp, pipes of one kind or another, etc. Maybe the organetto will jump over to ITM.

I’m curious, what distinguishes an Italian organetto from any other two 1/2 row, 12 bass diatonic accordion like the Saltarelle Connemara III, other than the tuning?

What I was thinking was just that it is mostly played by a different community, and that it appears to have more makers from what people are saying here. The general attitude here seems to be that makers (and repairers) of the squeezeboxes found in ITM aren’t that common anymore. As a result, people may find them someplace where they are more common (in Italian folk) and bring them over to ITM. Sort of a cross-pollination.

“The accordion may be headed down for now, but it’ll be back at some point.”
Where is your evidence for the first part of that statement ?

The one advantage in Italy for organetto players I would expect would be that being close to Castelfidardo, where many of the world’s finest accordions are built, might make both parts availability and the population of skilled accordion technicians more plentiful. Doesn’t help the situation in the USA, I would expect.

> we’ll see a quality lightweight reedless two-row electronic instrument released by some visionary Irish music entrepreneur in the next 5 years or so

Are you familiar with the Streb, Michael?

Regarding the scarcity of accordion repairmen in the US, I agree that situation is not ideal -- but I don’t see it spelling the end of the instrument entirely.

For perspective, I live a 3.5 hour jet flight + hour-long drive from the nearest person in the US that’s still in the accordion repair business… or a week-long drive, if we were allowed to pass through Canada on non-essential purposes.

Still playing happily away.

Ailin ~ “I wouldn’t mind seeing whistles go away. Never cared for them, even though I played them for a time.”
Do you not play whistle now, Ailin? Do you have a whistle?

Again, I think predictions are a fool’s errand. But to take the question to it’s ultimate conclusion ITM itself may disappear & with that each of the instruments in this video. [Which I appreciate very much while I still can].

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptc97f9l7vg

play video

Calum, yes I’m familiar with the Streb, but unclear on their current or future status.

David L: “… There are many instruments which have gone by the wayside or been replaced by more modern versions: keyed bugles, crumhorns, zincs, sackbuts, among others.”

Yes, I don’t dispute that, and Irish Traditional Music is as much subject to that process as any other music. But Irish Traditonal Music as we would recognise it has not been around long enough for it to see many extinctions or supplantations of this kind. One example would be the German concertina, which was superseded by the Anglo(-German) Concertina (I don’t know of anyone nowadays playing Irish music on a German concertina); there are other examples of instruments that have undergone advances in design and manufacture, but not to the degree that they cannot be regarded as the same instrument – and in many cases, there are still players that favour the older instruments.

David L: “… There are many instruments which have gone by the wayside or been replaced by more modern versions: keyed bugles, crumhorns, zincs, sackbuts, among others.”

Except in ‘historical informed performance’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historically_informed_performance. How much does ‘traditional’ performance practice and instrumentation have to change before some people loop back to an earlier form of the tradition?

Some people may believe this has already happened - repeatedly.

Kenny, just addressing the concerns that people here seem to have that it’s less common than it once was due to scarcity of both the instruments and people who can repair them. If it’s on the way down, it’ll be back.

“How much does ‘traditional’ performance practice and instrumentation have to change before some people loop back to an earlier form of the tradition? … Some people may believe this has already happened - repeatedly.”

I think it has. As has already been mentioned, the uilleann pipes came back almost ‘from the dead’; the concertina and single-row melodeon have regained popularity. There are even ‘retro’ trad outfits imitating the ‘revival’ bands of the 1970s.

Kenny wrote: ‘Is there a mistake in that sentence, or how many fingers do you have on each hand ? Or how many sessions have you been to in that 30 years ? If you go to Ennis on a Friday night, last time I was there there were 8, and every single one had at least one concertina or button accordion.’

Nope, no mistake. I must have visited Ennis at least seven or eight times between 2000 and 2015 and popped into plenty of sessions. I saw plenty of fiddles and flutes, but rarely spotted a concertina.

It will come as surprising news I’m sure to the musicians of Ireland that there is a “scarcity” of button-accordions and concertinas.

In answer to Michael: I’m really not sure what the position is in the UK regarding the number of technicians available to service or repair such instruments as diatonic button accordions, concertinas and the like. I know that I was not short of recommendations when I reported that I had a problem, although I did travel 70 miles each way for the first repair, which was done on the spot, and about 50 miles each way twice for the second one - had to leave it several days that time: he was also more than able to service/re-tune piano accordions. Piano accordions are, in any case, vastly in the majority in Scotland, so I am sure that the art of repairing them will not die out.
A friend with a concertina took his all of 400 miles for repair, but only because his daughter happened to live in that area, so he could combine it with a family visit. (Before Covid!)

That all sounds like good news in the UK!

Concertinas and accordions to disappear? Not likely, sadly…

Niche =/= Unsustainable

AB said:
“to take the question to it’s ultimate conclusion ITM itself may disappear & with that each of the instruments in this video.”

The instruments in that video were only invented within the lifetimes of those players!

If Low Whistles can be invented, have their day, and die out within a half-century they haven’t had much of a place in ITM.

About the rate of addition of instruments to ITM, in the same period from the mid-19th century to today the number of accepted instruments in ITM has doubled, tripled?

The number of different instruments in the orchestra and in a Highland pipe band have remained pretty much the same.

Adolphe Sax thought he was inventing a new orchestral instrument! That there would be a Sax section in orchestras within his lifetime. It never happened.

Ditto concertinas. That never happened either.

The only change in Highland pipe bands has been in the last 20 years with the addition of more sizes of tenor drums. Still a pipe band is some pipes, a bass, some snares, and some tenors just as it was in the 19th century.

“About the rate of addition of instruments to ITM, in the same period from the mid-19th century to today the number of accepted instruments in ITM has doubled, tripled? ”

I very much doubt if there was any concept of “accepted instruments”, or even “ITM” in the mid 19th century. You just got together with some mates and made music using whatever you had, and HAD SOME FUN. It’s only in the last few decades, when the academics try to turn it into something serious that they can study that concepts like“acceptable” rear their ugly heads.

My understanding is there was some serious pushback against the introduction of accordions in to the music in the mid to late 19th century as inexpensive melodeons from Germany flooded the market.

‘as inexpensive melodeons from Germany flooded the market’

Not in Ireland, Michael.

“I very much doubt if there was any concept of ”accepted instruments“, or even ”ITM“ in the mid 19th century.”

While people in the Old Country might have gotten together with whatever instruments were at hand to have fun, there does seem to be a narrow range of accepted instruments in the diaspora outside Ireland. For example, there is the famous photo of O’Neill’s Irish Music Club of Chicago, showing 26 musicians, all male, and with just three types of instruments: Uilleann pipes, flutes, fiddles, and nothing else.

Now, this is the diaspora and not whatever was happening in small villages in Ireland, but O’Neill and his companions seemed to have a very firm idea of what instruments should be used for the dance tunes and airs. The date of the photo is 1901, but I think it’s probably representative of the mid-1900’s approach to music. Many in the photo were older men, who must have learned to play those instruments sometime in the previous 25-50 years.

It would be interesting to contrast the instrumental makeup of the Irish Music Club of Chicago with whatever was happening in Ireland at the time. I don’t have that historical info, but maybe someone else here can provide that perspective.

Considering the I in ITM stands for Irish, and that there’s an abundance of skilled repairers in Ireland and the neighbouring UK, I highly doubt any instruments will disappear from ITM. The popularity of instruments will always ebb and flow but (to my knowledge) no instrument has ever “disappeared” from the traditional music scene. As for concertinas and accordions specifically, concertinas are currently extremely popular amongst the younger crowd (by younger crowd I mean teens to 30s) and young learners alike, and while accordions are more common amongst people in their 30s upwards I have noticed a steady amount of children picking up the accordion.

Mar fhocal scoir, I highly doubt the availability of instrument repairers in any country that isn’t ireland will have much of an effect on ITM. For example, I’m not aware of any balalaika repairers in Ireland but that has no affect on their presence in Russian folk music. Although I think it’s fun to joke about what instruments we would like to see disappear from ITM , (in my opinion) it’s ridiculous (and slightly narcissistic) to seriously think that california has any great effect on Irish trad as a whole.

“The popularity of instruments will always ebb and flow but (to my knowledge) no instrument has ever “disappeared” from the traditional music scene.”

I’m thinking of one that might have disappeared, and that’s the “tambourine” version of the bodhran frame drum with metal jingles in the rim. Like the one in this famous clip below of Joe Cooley in ’73. Has anyone seen one of these in a session lately, or has it been completely replaced by the jingle-less bodhran?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGzJdoMeoQY

play video

I’ve actually seen the tambourine/jingley bodhrans used in performances/showcases once or twice, but never in a session (and in all performances it was only used for a set or two). I don’t really think they’re considered an instrument in their own right - just a novelty bodhran (novelty’s not word I’m looking for but I can’t think of quite the right word). I think they’re too uncontrollable to be of actual use except in specific conditions. I can completely see why they’re not popular now, but were they ever that common in the first place?

One example , Roisin :
https://youtu.be/ucDJ88dI4hA

play video

We did encounter one in a session at the Willie Clancy Week about 5 years ago. If it’s become extinct in Irish traditional music, personally I’m glad. The few examples I’ve encountered seem to have come from Sligo. Robin Morton when with the “Boys Of The Lough” had a small bag of jingles I think on the crossbars inside his bodhran, but he was thankfully sparing in their use.

As I don’t live in Ireland, I’ve no opinion, and I don’t have a front row seat to what’s trendy and what’s not, from which to form one.
I think there are too many non traditional instruments that have largely become accepted for any of them to exit stage Left anytime soon or abruptly. Guitar is a good example of that. It’s just about everywhere ITM/STM is performed, save for a handful of purists.

I played an Eb organetto for a while just because I bought it very inexpensively. It was one row plus three. The three buttons generally provide reversals and the music it’s designed for makes heavy use of the reversals and bass. Mine was three voice tuned dry and sounded great.

I think the only issue people may find with organettos is that the air button can be uncomfortable for Irish playing. It doesn’t suit the constant sipping of air in Irish one row playing as it’s used differently in Italian music.

That said the big Italian manufacturers could offer a three voice Lmm dry D instrument with a couple of accidentals rather than reversals for a reasonable cost. Fulling a niche market for one plus rows that used to be filled by Irish American boxes.

I would like to have a D again. Mine was a high quality box with high quality reeds.

More interesting to me to observe new instruments being introduced,
including ones that were introduced and never caught on.
In all cases,I would firstly say that Who is playing is more important than What.
The alto sax is still a surprise to some, even though it has happily honked for yonks in ceili bands and Josie MacDermott even won an All Ireland in the Miscellaneous section.
Still,the volume difference in a session and tone associations are a jar to some.
The clarinet is a bit the same.
All the so called Irish ‘bouzouki’ variants are now common since Donal Lunny made them a powerful element in his productions of Planxty, but sometimes I consider the lifetime of skill developed in a fiddler’s fingers contrasted with the pedestrian strummer who gets to sit beside him or her.
There is a whole new variety of bodhran instruments now.
Often near doubling the tunes with their talking drum effects, snares, brushes etc.
Bastard banjolin things breaking eardrums.
Cacophonic cajons clattering away like a bin falling down the stairs.
Double bass players doubling down to hold their position in the circle..
But I’m sure other people have also noted various novel contributions to their sessions

There are a good half-dozen capable accordion techs in California, and several among that number are based in Southern California.

ceemonster, who and where in SoCal? The only others I know of are Dave’s Accordion in Glendale and Gordon Kohl here in San Diego.

I have only ever worked with Jeffrey Iocano in Costa Mesa for all my instruments over the years, everything from tuning to full restorations. He does amazing work. He was originally the representative and serviceman for Borsini Accordions here in the USA, got his training in Castelfidardo. I had him do the full service and retune of that Saltarelle Connemara III B/C you used to own and I’m truly thrilled by the result.