Easy Anglo 1-2-3: A Beginner's Guide to the Anglo Concertina

Received in a bundle with Gary's book pirate songs. I like the way the book is sectioned into the different types of Concertina , the history of the instrument and different types. Book is laid out in same way as Pirate Songs , melody, tab, and fingering diagram. I highly recommend these books

So you've acquired a concertina and are trying to decide which beginner's book to buy. Without having the books in front of you, it might be difficult figuring out which intro anglo concertina book is the best choice. This is a solid, well-written book, and all the other ones are comparatively terrible for one reason or another.For the sake of comparison:Mick Bramich's Absolute Beginners' Concertina-- Seems to use a bizarre tab system, is REALLY short, and seems to waste a lot of time on information that would have been useful when it was published but now can be easily found on wikipedia.Bob Kail's Best Concertina Method Yet-- as others have stated, this is a very bare bones collection of songs and exercises. It's cheap and would be a great SUPPLEMENT to Coover's book, but don't make it your primary.Mel Bay's Deluxe Concertina Book by Frank Converse-- this has all the problems that old school Mel Bay methods tend to have (too long on simple tunes, boring tunes, very little explanation for anything tricky written with the assumption you'll have a teacher, etc) with none of the benefits (being comprehensive). Like Kail's book, it would be worth playing through when you've completed Coover's book (there are some interesting chord-heavy pieces in the back), but this is a rough place to start.In contrast to all of the above, Coover's book has easy to read, modern diagrams, lots of explanation without being overly patronizing, and covers considerably more ground than the other books. It's the only one of the books I've mentioned here that covers the top row of the 30 button.It seems like every concertina book uses its own variation on tab, so at least Coover's book is easy to read! If you can already read music and have played another instrument, it's mostly just a matter of getting used to the layout (major triad on push, other notes on pull...) and Coover's tab is supportive and doesn't seem like something you'll become dependent on. Get this one first, and then skim the other ones when you're done with it.

I bought several of these. Good book, easy to follow, would recommend to anyone who wants to learn the basics.

This is a pretty good book for learning to play in the keys of C or G. I don’t think there is an easy way to learn to play in the key of D.

I found that the organization of this book to be very logical and the tablature makes sense to me. I am a complete novice when it comes to the concertina but I do have some music background. This is a much better book of the two that I bought for beginning concertina. With some musical talent, you'll be playing music the first day.

This book has what I needed as a beginner on the anglo. It walks you through simple techniques to advanced. The ace in the hole is there are plenty of ways to make chords, which is what I was really after.

I have zero musical talent, but was always interested in picking up an instrument. Admittedly I chose the concertina because I really liked the sounds and a character from one of my favorite videogames plays something very close to it.I still have a lot to learn, and it takes lots of practice, but this book has been a huge help and is usable even if you have no prior musical knowledge!As an added bonus, the author has been pretty active on one of the main Concertina forum websites, and seems very willing to help other players with questions and requests for help.

I went down a concertina wormhole and ended up buying a very pricy instrument that I had no idea how to play! I got this book and I feel like it made learning so much easier. I’m still working my way through, focusing on really getting the first and second row down, and I love that it’s broken up and slowly helps you advance.