Thanks to the presence of Anglos and Melodeons in sessions and folk music bands - most tunes seem to be played in the "peoples keys" of D and G. However, one of the amazing things about Concertinas is that they are, with some limitations, mostly fully chromatic (Anglos have a few problems!)

To increase the number of scales available to the player - the "Three Blind Mice" exercise was evolved to challenge and extend the player - and to encourage the use of ALL the buttons on the instruments.

Three Blind Mice is an interesting tune - it covers the complete scale and covers most of the simple note values. The exercise was devised to be circular - play through the "sharp" keys and then through the "flat" keys - if still sane - keep going until the mind rebels!

The things we discovered with this exercise - how easy the key of E is to play in - and how difficult it is not to play F# in the "flat" keys.

Download the Three Blind Mice excercise.