From German workshops to English benches

The Anglo is not a pure-bred English instrument at all — it is a hybrid that Britain took to its heart and made its own. Its ancestor arrived from Germany in the 1830s: a small, square, bellows-driven box with button rows that sounded a different note on the push and the pull. It was cheap to build, loud for its size, and forgiving enough that a player could knock out a few tunes within weeks of picking one up. By the 1840s and 1850s, crates of these German instruments were landing in British ports, sold through music shops and travelling salesmen for the price of a few days' wages.

English makers — many already building free-reed instruments for the drawing room — took the idea and refined it. They fitted better reeds, faster actions, tighter bellows and handsomer wooden ends, and settled on a two-row layout in C and G. That pairing of rows, plus a short third row of accidentals on the pricier models, became the pattern we still play: the Anglo.

The Victorian heyday: halls, streets and mission bands

Between roughly 1860 and 1910 the Anglo was everywhere. It turned up on street corners, in pub back rooms, on music hall stages and in chapel mission bands, and it crossed the Irish Sea and the Scottish borders with equal ease. Its virtues were practical ones: it was portable, it needed no tuning fork, and it carried over a noisy room without amplification.

• Street players used the loud, bright push-and-pull sound to pull a crowd, often playing 20-button instruments with a handful of tunes and a good hat.
• Mission and temperance bands valued it because it was cheap, sturdy and could accompany singing outdoors in the rain — a genuine consideration.
• Music hall turns used it for comic songs, sentimental ballads and novelty numbers, usually with a good deal more showmanship than precision.
• Family playing was how most people actually learnt: a parent or older sibling taught the tunes by ear at the kitchen table, one row at a time.

Decline, then the folk revival

The twentieth century was unkind. The gramophone, radio and cinema offered music without effort; the piano accordion offered chords, volume and a modern sound. Makers closed or turned to other work, and by the 1930s the Anglo had become a slightly embarrassing relic, stacked in cupboards and sold off cheaply.

Its rescue came from the folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. Singers wanted an instrument that could push a melody and hold a drone; morris dancers wanted something louder and more percussive than a fiddle; session players wanted a box that cut through a noisy pub. Players rediscovered the old instruments, had them restored, and worked out the cross-row fingerings that make the Anglo sing. From the 1970s onwards, a steady trickle of new makers began building again, and today the instrument is a fixture of folk clubs, village sessions, morris sides and festival workshops across Britain.

Rows, keys and the business of bellows

Everything about playing the Anglo follows from one fact: it is bisonoric. Each button gives two notes, one on the push and one on the pull, so the bellows are not just a lungs — they are part of the fingering. A 20-button C/G gives you the two home keys; a 30-button adds a third row of accidentals and reversals that open up other keys and smoother phrasing.

Most players start along the row, then learn to cross the rows to avoid awkward bellows changes. G/D instruments are the standard choice for morris, where the higher pitch cuts through outside; C/G remains the favourite for song accompaniment, older dance tunes and Irish repertoire. Budget time for bellows control and the air button — the quietest players are usually the ones with the best bellows discipline, not the fastest fingers.

Learning it: practical routes for UK players

• Find a session and sit at the edge of it. Listen for the keys being played and pick two or three tunes to learn properly rather than twenty badly.
• Join a morris side, even as a musician in training — the repertoire is finite, repetitive and taught by ear, which is ideal for building fluency.
• Try a slow session or workshop at a folk festival. A weekend of concentrated tuition can save you months of guessing.
• Learn by ear wherever possible, slowing recordings down rather than hunting for notation. Write your own tab if it helps, but keep your ears in charge.
• Practise ten minutes daily: scales across the rows, one new tune, then a tune you already know played slowly and cleanly with steady bellows.

Maintenance: keeping it sweet and airtight

An Anglo is a simple machine with a lot of small, perishable parts, and most of its problems come from leaks rather than damage. Valves curl and lift, pads harden, springs weaken and bellows gussets split — all of which steal air and make the instrument feel sluggish and out of tune.

• Store it in its case, away from damp, radiators and lofts. Let it reach room temperature before playing after a cold journey.
• Never force the bellows. If a note will not sound, the problem is air escaping or a stuck reed, not insufficient effort.
• Keep the ends and buttons clean and dry; resist the urge to oil anything. Lubricant attracts dust and gum, and a repairer will not thank you.
• Have reeds tuned and valves replaced by a specialist who works on concertinas specifically — accordion tuners often work to different tolerances.
• Ask at a session or your local side for a recommended repairer, and book early: good workshops often have waiting lists.

Looked after, a good Anglo will outlive several owners and improve as it settles. That continuity is part of the charm — the tunes, the fingerings and the instruments themselves have been handed along for well over a century, and there is always room for one more pair of hands in the circle.